What should I know about SSDs that can be used with Ubuntu?

I've owned two SSD's, an OCZ Vertex 2 60GB (controller died in 5 months) and am now happy with an Intel 320 80GB.

I've had no issues with it in comparison with a mechanical HDD.

On the software side, most vendors provide utilities for SSDs which (unfortunately) only works in Windows due to bug 1. These fancy toolboxes often have an alternative in the repositories or system (examples: TRIM on-demand, erasing the disk). Since firmware updates should be applied when the disk is not in use, it's neither an issue for not using it in Linux.

Some interesting links:

• What is the recommended way to empty a SSD?
• Optimize for SSD (for SSDs supporting TRIM)
• SSD Checklist

Not limited to Linux, but to SSDs in general: Jeff Atwood has an interesting blog entry about the lifetime of a SSD. It should not stop you from buying a SSD, if it dies the manufacturer (or reseller) will replace it if it's within the warranty period. But the reason for buying one is it's speed. I was amazed with my first SSD, everything start almost instantly without hearing a disk spinning.