Tell me more ×
Ask Different is a question and answer site for power users of Apple hardware and software. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 4 down vote favorite

I've been reading several articles on the Internet how to "optimize your Mac with an SSD". I'm not sure whether or not to agree with the articles because I think that Apple knows what's the best settings for a computer with an SSD drive. My question is: should I be worried about disabling hibernate to "save" my SSD from wear?

I also heard that the user's home folder (as well as the Application folder, and temporary items) be stored on a RAM disk/spinning hard drive to improve the life of the SSD. I personally think this is a bit overkill, because I don't see why Apple would sell SSDs if people had to do all of this extra configuration.

share|improve this question
1  
You'd have to have a bloody enormous amount of RAM to put your /Applications directory on a ramdisk. – CajunLuke Aug 28 '12 at 18:08
Not including iLife, it's about 1GB. – alexy13 Aug 28 '12 at 21:12
Hmmm. Mine's only 8.5 gigs on my work laptop. I'm pretty sure it's more like 20 gigs on my home laptop. – CajunLuke Aug 28 '12 at 21:25
I can see where you are coming from now; that's a lot! The stock installation is way less (maybe the article was referring to that). – alexy13 Aug 28 '12 at 23:07
Does anyone know how much data actually gets written to /var/vm/sleepimage when going to sleep? If it's always the size of the RAM, it would be a huge part of the average GB/day written to drives. – Lauri Ranta Aug 29 '12 at 10:33
show 2 more comments

1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote accepted

That’s just paranoia. Hibernate mode is perfectly healthy for an SSD. A SSD will last about 2-4 years of continuous writes. This means the time for which the SSD is powered. I have a 4 year old computer and its HD has been powered for 1.5 years (according to disk utility). Your SSD can definitely last a longer time.

share|improve this answer
How would I be able to see the time my ssd has been powered with disk utility? – alexy13 Aug 28 '12 at 23:08
3  
Select the disk from the sidebar, press ⌘I, and copy the Power On Hours value. You can convert it to a decimal number of days with something like bc <<< 'ibase=16; scale=1;0000000019C8/18'. – Lauri Ranta Aug 29 '12 at 3:04
1  
The time the drive has been powered is totally irrelevant. It's the volume of data that has been written to the drive that affects a SSD's lifetime. -1 – Fake Name Nov 9 '12 at 11:22
@FakeName I think you did not understand my answer. The sentence “The time for which the SSD is powered” is meant to explain the term “continuous use”. That means, 2-4 years of continuous writes on an SSD. – duci9y Nov 9 '12 at 14:06
@duci9y - Then change "Continuous use" to say "continuous writes". As it is, it's only an extremely contorted interpretation that you can make it say that. – Fake Name Nov 9 '12 at 22:54
show 1 more comment

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.