Ok, so I heard from a friend that if you buy a large (say, 64gb or more) solid state drive and format it as NTFS (instead of with smaller 32gb FAT32 partitions, windows limits you to 32gb partitions with fat32 I beleive), then he claims the drive life is shortened because windows with NTFS drives writes a log to the drive constantly (and since solid state drives only last for X number of write cycles).
Is he full of it?
FAT32 is
not limited to 32GB, it can be as big as 8TB when using 32k clusters. The Windows 2000/NT/Vista/W7 format.com is what's limited to 32GB. If you use a 3rd party program you can format it however big you like.
However, you will still be limited to using files that are 4GB or smaller (2^32 - 1 bytes).
on today's SSD's its kind of ridiculous to worry about write endurance on these drives, especially ones using SLC technology, where continuous writing to the disk still gives a theoretical endurance of over 50 years basically.
The second article says even with newer MLC technology (larger capacity, cheaper, and intended for notebook/laptop/cellphone environment -- but much less write endurance) should give a lifespan for the drive on par with current regular hard drives when used in a notebook computer environment (tho he doesnt recommend MLC technology for servers).
I didn't quite read the article, but this is correct.
Current SLC drives have a lifespan that outlasts its usefulness. Last I checked the consumer drives like Intel's X25-E last 20 years and only the industrial SLC drives last 50-100, but still that's more than long enough. By the time it dies you'll have gotten a new one that's twice as fast, twice as large, and at half the price, and have probably already thrown it out or stuck it in your kid's PC.
Current MLC drives are hit and miss. The good ones (OCZ Vertex, Intel X25-M, etc) will most likely outlast your hard drive. The cheap ones, like what Asus throws in it's netbooks, would only last for maybe 2 years under normal desktop use.
