Re: SSD TBW

On 8/22/2026 5:37 PM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> In comp.misc Don Y <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 8/21/2026 4:01 PM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>> repartitioned it using just the upper half of the drive instead of
>>> all the space for the system partition, and no more corruption.
>>> Obviously the wear leveling done by that SSD controller isn't very
>>> sophisticated and had worn out the flash used for the starting
>>
>> I think EeePCs aren't intended for much more than email, etc.
>> And, running a UNIX on it (BSD in my case) still does writes to
>> the / partition (think /var/log).  Perhaps retooling the system
>> might cut down on that (mount /var as a tmpfs?)
> 
> Yes my Linux install runs in a tmpfs in RAM. The start of the SSD
> had been worn out by the time I got the EeePC second-hand, probably
> running the factory WinXP install. User files are saved of course,
> but excluding things like the Firefox disk cache, so writes are
> mainly for OS upgrades, which hopefully won't be enough to wear
> the rest of the SSD out too soon.

I built a lab for homeless kids to access the web, do their
homework, etc.  Windows would boot into a jail, allow them
to access and store THEIR (personal) files on external
media.  Then, the jail would be discarded when they logged off
(so, any changes they had made to the system were discarded)

The machines that boot from USB (thumb) drives, here, have
such small systems (e.g., they easily fit on a 16G thumb drive)
that I imagine anything that is pulled in off the USB drive
eventually sits in the disk cache (machines have more than
100MB of RAM) so it effectively acts like a "demand loaded"
tmpfs -- instead of explicitly building an MFS at boot.

>> Dunno as I don't run Linux.  Maybe start here:
>>     <https://www.usbdev.ru/files/smi/smimptool/>
>>
>> I rescue "recovery media" for Windows machines (typically 8GB
>> thumb drives that have been factory marked as R/O).  These
>> tools let me convert them to usable 8G drives -- a nice size
>> to emulate a DVD-DL.  Especially as optical drives are becoming
>> scarce in machines (or, physically incompatible with the sizes
>> of those machines -- e.g., NUCs)
> 
> I keep a USB CD/DVD drive for machines like the EeePC that don't
> come with one - the BIOSs all seem to support them fine. I guess
> the firmware upgrades aren't worth digging into for me - most of
> my dead USB drives are just dead. There's only one that started
> getting filesystem corruption, but didn't go r/o.

I use the tools on the referenced site to convert R/O media
into R/W media.  No idea what version Y does that version X
didn't -- I just want the drive wiped and made R/W.

Most of my "workstations/servers" have room for one or two
optical drives.  But, I am finding keeping optical media around
is annoying -- they seem to end up scattered around instead of
finding their way back to their "storage place".

Using 8G thumb drives, I can keep 50 of them in a coffee mug
and just sort through them as needed -- tossing them back into
the mug, when done.

[E.g., I am preparing to image a disk with CZ -- locate the thumb
drive, boot, image, replace thumb drive.  By contrast, there are
probably half a dozen optical media on my desk -- few of them MARKED
with their contents (burned from ISOs, as needed, then discarded).]

I'll likely be removing the second optical drive from my
machines and replacing with a SATA/SAS dock -- so I can plug in
a bare drive and not have to deal with a USB dock.  I am trying
to get rid of "little boxes" -- like USB docks -- as they end
up looking like clutter (and, having to put them "away" when
not in use is just an inconvenience).