This might be a really stupid noob question, but I am looking to move to Linux from Windows/Mac, and am about to install an SSD into my very old test machine for Linux distros.

You might have seen my recent post asking for recommends: it has the hardware specs of my test box, and I’ve updated it with the list of distros I intend to try.

My test box still has a working HDD in it, so no action is required immediately.

But my question is: once I decide on a distro and start moving machines over to Linux, what kind of manual care do I have to put in to maintain my SSD drives, if any?

For each box with a SSD drive and Linux as the OS, do I need to do TRIM manually, do I need to turn it on for a “set and forget” type scenario, or are recent and regularly upgraded distros able to spot a SSD and do the necessary without my intervention?

I guess what I’m really asking is: is SSD TRIM support pretty much standard now across distros, or is it something I need to investigate individually for each distro I install?

I recognize I may just need to ask this again once I settle on a distro, but since I’m trying so many – and may fully install more than one – I thought I’d get a jump on it.

EDITED TO ADD: Many thanks to all who took the time to answer. Now I know exactly what to read up on, and if necessary, look up how to do manually for whatever distro(s) I settle on. I -really- appreciate the help. Thank you!

  • recursive_recursion [they/them]AEnglish
    4•9 months ago

    not sure about manual but on ArchLinux and NixOS, TRIM can be automatically handled with BTRFS options:discard=async:

    • Enables discarding of freed file blocks in large chunks before queuing for TRIM.

    not sure if this helps but I’ll be open sourcing my NixOS build and configuration.nix files in a bit(after school schedule stablizes)