I’m shopping for a new NVMe SSD drive for my laptop and with the second deciding factor being Linux compatibility, I’d looked up the names of specific drives in the source code of Linux and discovered that their controllers have quirks that have to be worked around.

Now, I figured out more or less how quirks affecting one of the controllers impact its functionality under Linux, but there’s another controller that I have a trouble understanding how disabling the aforementioned command limits the functionality of, if at all; therefore I’d like to ask you all, under what circumstances is the command used by a host and can disabling it lower the performance or power efficiency of an impacted controller/drive?

To be clear, the quirk workaround I’m talking a about is NVME_QUIRK_DISABLE_WRITE_ZEROES.

  • penquin@lemm.ee
    162·
    2 years ago

    I have a WD black SN770 in my main desktop and it works no issues. I even have btrfs on it, and some people suggested that btrfs would have some issues with nvmes, but here I am over a year later with zero issues. Speed on these things is out of this world.

    • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
      3·
      2 years ago

      That’s good news, but what if this affects wear leveling? Or efficiency in some other way, that would result in these dying sooner than expected (still years probably, but… yeah)

      • penquin@lemm.ee
        2·
        2 years ago

        I make back ups. If this dies, I’ll get another one. They became very cheap lately. 1TB is like $55

        • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
          1·
          2 years ago

          Others may still be interested in longevity. Like me. $55 is, while not expensive, not cheap either for me, or at least not in the way that I would be comfortable replacing it every 1-2 years. I’m not swimming in money at that amount has a better place than a recurring spending. I doubt I am in a minority with this.

          It’s good to know what the quirks mean, and if it means any longevity problem, because if the above turns out as a problem, it may be cheaper in the long term to buy a better drive.

          • penquin@lemm.ee
            1·
            2 years ago

            I ain’t rich either. I just don’t think the drive will die in a year or two. I’ve had mine for over a year now and it’s still solid. It might die earlier if you keep distro-hopping with all that erasing and writing you put on it. I’m pretty sure it’ll last a very long time. I also have a laptop from 2018 and it still has the same nvme drive running solid. I remember checking its life with some command in the terminal (don’t remember what it is) and it was at 57%.

      • penquin@lemm.ee
        1·
        2 years ago

        I’ve heard about freezing. Screens going black and so on. Never had any of those issues

          • penquin@lemm.ee
            1·
            2 years ago

            I agree on the “nonsense” part, as I’ve had none of those issues for over a year using this drive. Shit has been amazing. Also, I appreciated the lecture. I didn’t know any of what you said, so thank you. I did try xfs myself, but for my use case, I didn’t see any difference at all. Like nothing. I’m just a casual user who gets into the terminal some times, but that’s about it. So, btrfs works wonders for me with those sweet snapshots. Don’t know if xfs has snapshots, too, but I’m familiar with btrfs and timeshift, so I stuck with it.