Maybe not servers, but at least always on computers.

My Plex server is due an upgrade, and I am going to run a few other services on it that will require frequent writes.  I am planning on an SSD for OS (Windows 7), and a spinner for other things.

I need to read and get up to speed on the tweaks that one must do to Windows 7 to make the OS not prematurely destroy the SSD.

Is anyone running an SSD in an always on PC, specifically one that is a server, or server-like?  Have the newer SSDs improved in terms of life expectancy?  I have shied away from SSDs for years, but articles I've read lately seem to claim they will out live spinners!  That is something considering I have a few hard disks from the early 1990s that still run fine.  Then again my 512MB USB 1.0 flash drive from many moons ago still works.  And that's flash memory.  Although I didn't use it every day as an OS drive.

Is now the time for my to take the plunge?  If Windows 7 EOL's before the drive fails, I will be pleased.

Thanks.

I have plenty of VMs running Tier 1 storage that uses SSDs.

No problems. Far better IO perf.

Be sure to check that TRIM is enabled and you should be fine. Our VM farm at work runs on SSD and it doesn't fail any more or less than the spinning rust it replaced.

SSDs have come along way.  I've got one in every home PC/Laptop.  My desktop is always running.  The OS drive is an SSD, and I have two other SSDs in it that run VMs. Haven't had any problems with them so far.

I wouldn't hesitate to put one in for an OS drive.

SSD drives are so worth it.  Samsung has some great ones.  And to those that say you have tier 1 storage at work hosting VM's on SSD drives I hate you...

My work lab is on the same storage as the production servers.  Because that's just how I roll.

Yes, they have.   You're talking a full-drive-capacity of writes, every day, for five years straight to wear them out.  In more realistic scenarios, of the Intel SSDs I've put into home and business desktops over the past few years, I haven't yet seen one go more than 1 or 2% into the rated write cycles of the drive.

Even without TRIM, they'll last a very long time.  I ran an old Intel drive (310 or 510) in an XP laptop for two years, never did do any garbage reclamation on it.  The machine was still snappy fast, and the wear indicator hadn't yet budged from 0% to 1%.

You won't wear out a modern SSD. Don't worry about it.

My desktop at home is using a Crucial M4 256GB SSD I got a couple years ago or so. Store media on an external drive. You don't get much performance gain by putting your media on the SSD. Traditional drives can stream the data faster than your TV or whatever will play it.

The new Samsung 850s are the shit. Highly recommended

 

I have two, 256k ones running raid 0 for 512M.  Holy crap are they fast with this striped volume running Win 8..

I'd never run scary raid with hard drives, but with SSD's it's a lot safer.  Still have to do regular backups just in case.  All my data and Plex server is on my separate 10Tb home NAS (running freeNAS).

The hate is strong towards you...Seriously hate you..