Is using a swap partition (on linux) bad for an SSD's lifetime?

Quills@sh.itjust.works to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 55 points –

Does having swap memory damage SSDs too much, what do you think about it?

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My thought on this:

If it was bad, wouldn't we know by now?

SSD-only systems have been a thing for over a decade, and SSDs themselves have been around for decades.

If standard swap files damage SSDs, someone probably would have said something.

Exactly. I think I'm still running my original SSD. I had only one die and it was definitely an issue with the disk, not the writes, since it lasted only a year.

On one hand, yes. But, at the same time I think this is why we're seeing an influx of cheap SSDs onto the market.

Just like the early LED bulbs generally last a long time, but modern ones are created more cheaply and overloaded such that they don't last so long.

I wonder if the latest very cheap SSDs will have anything like the kind of longevity older drives do.

I thought about that after making my post.

Just like there are shitloads of bad SD cards (no-name, unbranded, generic, etc.), it's just as cheap and easy for any random company to produce their own SSD and get it in circulation on the market just like legitimate SSDs.

Any SSD that could be damaged by a swap file is not an SSD you should have anywhere near your system in the first place (even if you never plan on putting a swap file on it).