Can an SSD notify the hosting OS that its wear level is getting high?
I read a lot about SSDs and I am interested in them for server use. My biggest concern is their reliability. A lot of writes shortens their life span. I can mitigate this problem if I can run some kind of diagnostics on a regular basis on the SSD or if the SSD can automatically warn the OS that its reliability is reaching a critical level. Think of this as S.M.A.R.T or software like SpinRite for SSDs.
Does anything I mentioned exist now? Which kind/brand of SSD does this?
I don't mind swapping out a tired SSD for a newer one once a while. I am pretty sure that SSDs life is calculated in years and not in few months? For me, the improved performance will pay for the SSD over and over. I am planning to use plenty of RAM as well.
Solution 1:
Intel SSDs (and others) offer wear information via SMART
smartctl -a /dev/ssd
results in something like:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH
...cut...
232 Unknown_Attribute 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail
233 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age
with Intel SSDs, 232 is available space (0-100) and 233 is the wear indicator (0-100, lower is worse)