Antivirus for SSD

I would like to know (based on how many times an AV writes) a good antivirus for a SSD , not A vs B
thanks

 

Interesting question. If you are a smart surfer, maybe use Sandboxie with a quick Hitman Pro scan once per day.

 

As clocks says above, or I would recommend NOD32 for your SSD.

 

I really don't see any reason to complicate. SSD behaves the same as HDD's, just faster, meaning any antivirus will have even less effect on speed.
Only thing that is worth checking is how aggressive is antivirus with logs. Some write loads of data into logs and such writes are unnecessary for SSD's.
But that's it, most AV's have settings where you can disable such stuff or limit it.

 

lots of AV apps will also extract archive contents to temp directories and write temporary files to temp directories while scanning (on-demand and on-access, depending on the filetype) - since SSDs have a finite quantity of write cycles, that's something to take into consideration. you might even try finding a few products you're interested in and try sending messages to their support department or maybe searching or leaving messages on support forums to ask about excessive write activity.

 

That's just further reason to have your temp folder on a regular HDD.

 

If you're so worried about that, it's maybe better not to even buy SSD at all and buy fastest standard HDD instead. You can grind that one however you want because it has unlimited writes.

 

sure. unless the machine in question doesn't have one or doesn't have space for one (i.e. notebook with a single hdd) - bringing up the temp files was just a hypothetical thing since the only mention of write thrashing was log files, which account for a lot fewer writes than the extract/scan of files within archives.

 

I bought it because i want more speed

the machine in question have:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64
1 x AMD Phenom II x6
1 x 50GB OCZ Vertex 2
2 x 1500GB WD Black
4 x 4GB ram
1 x XFX Radeon 5870 2GB
1 x Asus Formula IV

I was thinking to create a ram drive for the Temp folders but most AV doesnt let you configure temp folders

I use PrevX but i wanted to add a signature based AV , thats why i was asking if somebody know about any AV that detect SSD or let you configure it to minimize the impact on the disk

thanks

 

to move your temp folder, you'd have to do it in environment variables...but that doesn't guarantee the AV wouldn't just use a folder wherever it wants. like i said though, if you're interested in a particular product, shoot an email to their support dept to see if their product is SSD-aware.

(i bet that rig hauls ~ Snipped as per TOS ~)

 

The worry about life expectancy with SSDs and a shortened life span, in real world terms, is no longer a valid reason to worry. Even with the shorter life span MLC SSD drives, say it has a life of 10,000 writes per cell, and you factor in rather heavy 5 gigs of writes per day, following the formulas you still have over 200 years worth of life. How many people keep drives for longer than 5 years..even 10 years....you still have quite a while to go.

This "limited write life" worry is no longer a legit concern

 

YeOldeStonecat what are you saying . If each cell can only withstand 10,000 writes and then die, and assuming there are 20 writes to that particular cell per day, this makes 20x365=7300 writes per year. The cell will fail in 10,000/7300 = 1.3 years only.

However, I agree with you; most modern SSD can withstand up to 5-10 years under normal-to-heavy use. You messed up the math.

 

That's why all NAND FLASH based devices use wear leveling. This means that drive controller itself writes data (even the same one) to different physical locations, wearing all cells equally. However this does become an issue when drive is nearly full, in such cases, those cells left empty will be constantly wearing. Still shouldn't cause much damage, though it will be higher than on half empty drive...

 

Not to get too far off topic, but if you have Win 7 Ultimate 64 are you sure you really want something besides Prevx running? With Ultimate you can implement applocker and run an on demand scanner or two with Prevx running real time. I understand the desire to want a signature based program as well- with or without applocker - but you may want to try running without a real time resident av first before deciding which to get, if any. About the only issue I've come across with Prevx is the Safe Online component and some sort of bug with Google Chrome browser. That may be since resolved though.

 

I would not worry about the write cycles of an AV. Just get a good, proven and reputable AV, because if your drive ever fails due to excessive writes then it would be more likely to do so from your OS or some other program writing to the disk not the AV. For example, if your pagefile is on the SSD, it is typically written to multiple of time by the OS in a given session. Those cells will likely fail a lot sooner than the cells written to by the AV logs etc.

Does that work on OS allocated space as well? For example a pagefile is allocated by the OS at a given location on the drive and if you do not use defragmentator, which you would not if you have an SSD, the pagefile will remain at the same allocated space unless you manually change it by either reformatting or disabling and enabling the pagefile. Depending on your activity, the pagefile is written to by the OS multiple times for a given session. For an MLC SSD with only 10,000 writes per cell, these pagefile cells will wear out much sooner then other cells. How does the controller's wear leveling co-ordinate this with the OS?

 

The key parameter for you should be I/O Writes carried out by the AV app. I would warn against MSE and Prevx.

 

since TDSS (alureon) moved to 64 bit vista-7 i would implement an av, and i would go for NOD32

 

I agree. It's almost instantly.

 

It doesn't really matter. This is done internally by SSD controller so not even defragmenters can detect this since it's not really a fragmentation.
The file will remain where it is in file system, however the actual filesystem data will be constantly exchanged between cells. So it's very unlikely that one cell will be overwritten 10.000 times repeatedly. If the drive is not completelly full, it's highly possible that 1 cell will be overwritten once and then not again for several days or even weeks, depending on how you use your computer.