Using an SSD "disk" for /

[Mikhail T.]

Hello!

I'm setting up a new system and would like to use a moderate (64Gb or 
128Gb) SSD-drive to boot from.

This will house /, /var, /home, and the /usr/local and thus see plenty 
of activity, whenever src and ports are updated, or "world" is remade, 
or packages are upgraded. I'm hoping, these operations would be much 
faster, than with a regular HDD.

However, people mention, that SSDs develop /severe/ performance 
degradation if written to A LOT -- unless some SDD-specific operation 
(TRIM) is used, but not all Operating Systems support that... Does 
FreeBSD-8? Is that sufficient, or will an SSD degrade quickly anyway?

Does anyone use an SSD under FreeBSD? Which brand/model? Are you happy 
with it?

Also, what parameters should I give to newfs? SSDs' characteristics seem 
rather different from HDDs', so it is unlikely, that newfs' defaults 
will be optimal for an SSD... Would a different filesystem (ZFS?) be a 
better choice, than FFS, for these devices?

Other thoughts? Thank you very much! Yours,

    -mi