On Sat, Mar 22, 2025 at 11:51 AM Dale <rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Howdy, > > As most know from other threads, I have a couple external m.2 NVME SSD > drives thingys. As of today, I now have a Crucial 480GB and 1TB and a > Samsung 1TB drive. I also have a Samsung 1TB m.2 in my main rig for the > OS. I read some things ages ago about these things when they first came > out and people were still learning about what to do and not do with > them. At the time there was a lot of confusion as they were new and > people were testing options. I figure by now, it is fairly well known > what not to do with these things and what should be done to make them > perform well and last longer. So, I have questions but also feel free > to share other info as well that would be good to know. I plan to make > a cheat sheet out of the info. > > First, for mount options. Should I have any mount options included in > fstab for the OS m.2 in my main rig? Also, for the external USB mounted > ones, should I put mount options somewhere for those? If so, since > there is no fstab entries, where would I put those options? Some I use > the automount tool built into KDE. > > Now to add more questions. I'm sure running shred, dd, wipe and other > similar commands would shorten the life of one of these things. Is > there other things I should avoid doing that is common on spinning rust > drives? Are there any other don'ts I should be aware of? > > Are there things I should do on occasion that will make them perform > better, last longer or both? Keep in mind, some may only be mounted > with USB. That may limit some options. So far, the m.2 enclosure I use > allows SMART to get info at least. Oh, what info does SMART give that I > should keep a eye on for failures or problems? I also installed a > package that includes the nvme command. I'm not real sure what to do > with that thing, yet. o_o > > Now that I have a few of these things, I don't want to do something that > lets the smoke out. O_O Oh, links to good info would also be OK. > > Thanks. > > Dale
Hi Dale, I suspect you're going to get as many responses as there are people to respond. I personally treat them exactly like spinning rust. I've never cared to try to adjust my computer life to do anything different. I've had them in laptops and PCs for 8-10 years and none have ever failed. I'd rather do backups once a month to a rotating set of backup devices vs being 'careful' which, in my life, has never really proved to solve any of my computer problems. I hope whatever you do works for you. One website for these devices that I look at when purchasing is this: https://ssd.userbenchmark.com If you click on a drive you're interested in you get tested values from other folks which is an interesting data point. Cheers, Mark
