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Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

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crunchor
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Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#1 Post by crunchor »

Windows for sure
How about Debian?

arzgi
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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#2 Post by arzgi »

Simple answer: yes

Longer: newer solid state drives are faster than older due new technology, still every ssd on the markets beats hdds. Also there are faster spinning hdds usually on servers.

And if you need a lot of storage space, maybe hybrid solution would be optimal, including a hdd for data, and a sdd for the rest.
You can google for finer tinkering, for separate /var and other partitions.

crunchor
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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#3 Post by crunchor »

arzgi wrote:Simple answer: yes

Longer: newer solid state drives are faster than older due new technology, still every ssd on the markets beats hdds. Also there are faster spinning hdds usually on servers.

And if you need a lot of storage space, maybe hybrid solution would be optimal, including a hdd for data, and a sdd for the rest.
You can google for finer tinkering, for separate /var and other partitions.
Fastet for sure
But my question is
Much faster or not

arzgi
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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#4 Post by arzgi »

There is not any general % how much you gain by switching from hdd to sdd. When I did that to my laptop, I'd say performance boost was notable. But on my desktop pc, not so much, I got better results from dd-tests, but normal usage feels quite same.

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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#5 Post by eor2004 »

I have tested an Intel 2500 Pro and a Samsung Evo 850 SSD on a Thinkpad T61, the Samsung was way more faster than the Intel when doing updates, upgrades & file transfers, the Intel SSD felt like it had the same performance of an 7200RPM HDD, Samsung SSD definitely had much better performance!
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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#6 Post by sgage »

crunchor wrote:
arzgi wrote:Simple answer: yes

Longer: newer solid state drives are faster than older due new technology, still every ssd on the markets beats hdds. Also there are faster spinning hdds usually on servers.

And if you need a lot of storage space, maybe hybrid solution would be optimal, including a hdd for data, and a sdd for the rest.
You can google for finer tinkering, for separate /var and other partitions.
Fastet for sure
But my question is
Much faster or not
A newer nvme m.2 SSD is so much faster, that it changes the experience - at least that's my opinion. It's like going from 56K dialup to 1GB fiber. If your mobo has an m.2 slot, get an SSD - I have a 500GB Samsung EVO Plus 970, and I was really blown away. It was without question the most useful $100 I've ever spent on my computer. I can not vouch for SATA connected SSD's.

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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#7 Post by Dai_trying »

I have found that even the cheap SSD's will be noticeably faster, I have made some old systems that were too slow to be of much use quite a bit faster and usable once again.

I would say it is the the most cost effective upgrade to perform on any machine, but does depend on the speed of your SATA bus and the quality (and type) of SSD.

Be warned though once you start using SSD you will likely never want to use a standard HDD again :D

EDIT:
I just ran a quick hdparm on some disks to give you a comparison

Old Intel m.2 SSD

Code: Select all

/dev/sdd:
 Timing cached reads:   23886 MB in  2.00 seconds = 11957.69 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1414 MB in  3.00 seconds = 470.77 MB/sec  <---
New (cheap) KingDian SSD

Code: Select all

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   23782 MB in  2.00 seconds = 11905.58 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1628 MB in  3.00 seconds = 542.45 MB/sec <---
WD 2TB HDD (spinning disc)

Code: Select all

/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   23632 MB in  2.00 seconds = 11830.36 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 374 MB in  3.00 seconds = 124.54 MB/sec <---
And of course there are much faster drives than these so I would see these results as the minimum performance improvement to expect.

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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#8 Post by wizard10000 »

My results were similar - sda is an old 240GB Crucial SSD, sdb is a 500GB Toshiba laptop spindle.

Code: Select all

root@wizard-laptop:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   26334 MB in  1.99 seconds = 13208.25 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1378 MB in  3.00 seconds = 458.79 MB/sec
root@wizard-laptop:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   26360 MB in  1.99 seconds = 13221.05 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 312 MB in  3.01 seconds = 103.66 MB/sec
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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#9 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

Code: Select all

empty@E485:~ $ sudo hdparm -t /dev/nvme0n1
/dev/nvme0n1:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 4874 MB in  3.00 seconds = 1623.15 MB/sec
empty@E485:~ $ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 310 MB in  3.00 seconds = 103.17 MB/sec
empty@E485:~ $
deadbang

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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#10 Post by NFT5 »

This is fascinating. I'd never bothered to check before.

Code: Select all

/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1186 MB in  3.00 seconds = 394.79 MB/sec
chris@BOSSDESK:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 368 MB in  3.01 seconds = 122.24 MB/sec
chris@BOSSDESK:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 544 MB in  3.01 seconds = 180.80 MB/sec
chris@BOSSDESK:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdd

/dev/sdd:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 370 MB in  3.01 seconds = 122.84 MB/sec
chris@BOSSDESK:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sde

/dev/sde:
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 24 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
 Timing buffered disk reads: 356 MB in  3.00 seconds = 118.50 MB/sec
sda is a 250GB OCZ-TRION100 SSD
sdb and sdc are 500GB WD Blue HDDs
sdd is a 500GB Toshiba HDD
sde is a 4TB Seagate USB3 external

All, except the external, are on SATA 6GB ports.

So, the SSD is a bit more than twice as fast as a good HDD, about 3 times the speed of an average HDD or an external USB3 drive.

Because SSDs do best on read I keep / on the SSD, together with /home, while bulk data resides on the HDDs. The external is just for backup.

From this I should move all my most often accessed data to the Toshiba which is around 50% faster than the WD drives.

In the real world, changing to an SSD reduced startup times to about 25% of what they'd been with a HDD and, generally, programs load much faster. Because / doesn't get written to that much I expect the SSD to last a long time.

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Re: Is SSD much faster than HDD for average Debian user?

#11 Post by p.H »

Note that hdparm measures only sequential read speed. SSDs have also much lower access time than HDDs (by more than 10x), which makes a huge improvement for random access.

Also, by default hdparm measures the read speed at the beginning of the drive, where it is maximum for HDDs. It can decrease to half of this value when reaching the end of the disk. This does not happen with SSDs, speed is constant over the whole sector range.

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