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Improve SSD performance and reliability

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniWednesday, May 28, 2025

Modern computers, laptops, and mobile devices use solid state drive (SSD) storage, which is power efficient and fast! Since SSDs have no moving parts they're also more durable than hard disk technology in mobile scenarios.

But SSD storage does have limitations. Two primary concerns are:

  • Data can only be written a finite number of times
  • Data is not reliably stored for long periods of time when powered off

How SSDs work

Essentially, data is written to SSD storage as static charges in individual cells. These cells would normally hold a charge for a very long time, but the act of charging the cell is destructive. It takes a high voltage to weaken the cell barrier before the cell can be charged. And every time a cell is written the barrier is permanently weakened. Eventually the cell will not be able to reliably store a charge.

SSDs manage this problem in a few ways. One tactic is wear leveling, which means that data isn't generally written to the same cell. The drive writes to new cells as often as possible. This levels out the wear across all cells. Another strategy they use is to keep a bank of extra (hidden) cells available. When the SSD sees that a cell is sufficiently "bad", one of the "backup" cells will take its place. All of this happens in the background.

The problem

As cells lose their ability to hold a charge, the first symptom is a slowdown in reads. The SSD will try to read a cell, which sometimes returns a bad value (according to an ECC check), so it has to read it again, likely at a different voltage. Eventually the cell returns the correct value. But these repeated read attempts noticeably slow overall drive performance.

For computers and SSD drives that stay powered off for extended periods, you'll see advice that recommends turning on the device every so often. But all that really does is give the SSD a chance to mark bad cells, provided the device tells it to read or write to that bad cell in the first place. Some high end SSDs will perform periodic cell rewrites to refresh the data on their own, but consumer SSDs don't typically do this. To be clear: powering up an SSD does not recharge the cells or truly address these issues.

The solution

New SSDs can reliably store data for several years without power. But after actively using an SSD for months or years, it makes sense to begin periodically refreshing the cells. This not only ensures more reliable storage over time, it can also noticeably speed up SSD performance.

I ran some tests on my local workstation to verify these claims. I used a 2 year old MacBook Pro with an SSD boot drive that has remained more than half empty, ensuring lots of new cells were available for writes. It has had several OS upgrades and a couple format/rebuilds.

That Mac booted to login in 16.6 seconds. After refreshing the SSD with the same data, it booted to login in 14 seconds, which is over 15% faster. This indicates that overall performance should also improve, at least with regard to storage transfers anyway. So even on a relatively current machine there was a noticeable speed increase. As a software developer, the biggest benefit for me was the improved reliability.

So, if you want to refresh an SSD, following are some quick guides to help you through the process.

Refresh a Windows SSD

The easiest way to refresh your SSD on Windows is to use SpinRite (https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm). This is a time-tested, rock solid utility for hard disk maintenance and recovery, which can also handle SSD storage. Run this tool on level 3 to refresh all the cells and map out any bad cells. It will also work wonders on your hard disks.

Note: you need a computer with an Intel chip. SpinRite will not run on Arm.

Another way to do this without additional software is to make a system image of your drive using the poorly named "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" control panel. This clones your entire drive (even the recovery partition) to a USB flash drive or other external media. You can then boot into recovery mode and restore the entire drive from that system image. You'll end up with the same PC with all your files intact. And you will have a backup of your drive for future use.

Choose the poorly named Backup and Restore (Windows 7) option.
Use the "Create a system image" option in the left column.
When your image is created, use the "Restart now" option under "Advanced startup", and when the computer restarts, choose the advanced option and recover from a system image.

Both of these methods will return your SSD to like-new performance, and ensure longer data retention.

Refresh a Mac SSD

Unlike with Windows, there are no great utilities like SpinRite for modern Apple Silicon Macs. But fear not! There is a way to refresh SSD cells using the built-in Time Machine feature. And it's pretty easy to use. You will be backing up your Mac, then erasing it, reinstalling macOS, and then restoring the backup.

Connect an external storage device to your Mac and configure it in Time Machine as your backup device. Then run a backup.

Time Machine

Note: some applications, like Docker, do not allow Time Machine to back up their data by default. In the case of Docker there is an option to enable this.

Once you have a complete backup, restart your Mac into recovery mode. On modern Apple Silicon Macs you just shut down the computer. Then turn it back on by pressing the power button until the Mac tells you it is loading startup options.

Use Disk Utility to erase the SSD, and then choose to reinstall macOS.

The recovery menu provides access to Disk Utility and macOS reinstallation.

After the OS is installed it will restart and run Migration Assistant.

Migration Assistant

Choose to transfer files from Time Machine, and follow the instructions. It will show you all Time Machine backups for connected drives. Choose the latest backup entry for your backup drive, and let Migration Assistant do its thing. You will be left with a refreshed SSD with all your files intact.

Refresh schedule

The research in this area is nascent, so the optimal frequency for refreshing your SSD cells really depends on how well it is performing, how many writes have been made, and how full it is on average. On my server data drive I rarely write new files. But the data is very important. So I'm planning on refreshing the cells yearly just to be safe.

So how often should you run this process? If your SSD is new or averages under 50% usage, and is under 10 years old, I would do this yearly through that period. As your SSD ages (or if you have a mostly full SSD) it may be better to run it more frequently.

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!

Check your website security for FREE using Qualys SSL Labs

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniSunday, August 11, 2024

Qualys has a free tool named SSL Labs that anyone can use to check the security of their website TLS certificates and certificate hosting configuration. This is an frequently overlooked area of securing a website and we highly recommend using it on your own website. In fact, we use it on all our website projects to secure our client websites, and dog food it for fynydd.com (we score an A+ by the way).

Features

The SSL Labs tool will evaluate a ton of certificate hosting exploits like BEAST, POODLE (SSLv3), POODLE (TLS), Zombie POODLE, GOLDENDOODLE, Sleeping POODLE, and more.

It will also scan your server's TLS/SSL protocol support to ensure that you're using the latest version (TLS 1.2 at the time of this writing) and that your server has disabled legacy protocols to prevent protocol fallback attacks. In fact, if you're hosting with Microsoft Internet Information Service (IIS) we highly recommend installing the "Setup Microsoft Windows or IIS for SSL Perfect Forward Secrecy and TLS 1.2" PowerShell script to lock down your server TLS/SSL protocol support.

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!

Animate CSS auto height without JavaScript

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniSunday, August 4, 2024

Web developers rejoice! There's an easy way to animate the height of an HTML element even if the height is dynamic, determined by its content, with only CSS. This is typically used for navigation menus and the like, and now it's much easier to code and maintain.

The strategy is to actually animate the grid-template-rows not the height. For example, take the following HTML markup:

<div class="menu">
    <div class="inner-wrapper">
        <p>Here is some content.</p>
        <p>Here is some content.</p>
        <p>Here is some content.</p>
    </div>
</div>

The CSS for this markup would be:

.menu {
    display: grid;
    grid-template-rows: 0fr;
    transition: grid-template-rows 100ms;
}

.menu.active {
    grid-template-rows: 1fr;
}

.menu .inner-wrapper {
    overflow: hidden;
}

Initially the outer div will be hidden since it has no overflow and the grid template rows are zero. When you add active to the outer div element's class list, the browser will animate the transition from zero row height to 1fr, which essentially means the height it needs for its content to render.

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!

Run the Ollama API on macOS with custom host bindings

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniSunday, July 28, 2024

By default the ollama API runs on the localhost IP address of 127.0.0.1. If you want to host it on all of your Mac's IP addresses it requires that you set a system-wide environment variable. The problem with doing this is that Login Items (in System Settings) can launch before Launch Agents. This means that Ollama (in the menu bar) may not see the host settings. To solve this you need to launch Ollama at startup after a delay.

Here's how to add the host binding for all IP addresses on the Mac and then have Ollama launch 10 seconds after you sign in. This works in macOS 14.5 Sonoma and should work in later versions.

Step 1: Create a launch daemon plist file below. Save it as com.fynydd.ollama.plist.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.fynydd.ollama</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/launchctl</string>
        <string>setenv</string>
        <string>OLLAMA_HOST</string>
        <string>0.0.0.0</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Step 2: Copy the file to two locations:

/Library/LaunchDaemons/
~/Library/LaunchAgents/

This will set the host bindings at the system level, and also at the user level. So you should be covered no matter how you launch Ollama in the future.

Step 3: Set file permissions on the system-level file.

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.fynydd.ollama.plist
sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.fynydd.ollama.plist

Step 4: Install the launch agents:

sudo launchctl bootstrap system /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.fynydd.ollama.plist
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.fynydd.ollama.plist

Now your system will start up and bind the Ollama host address to all IP addresses on the Mac.

Step 5: To launch Ollama after a 10 second delay, Open Script Editor and create the simple AppleScript file below.

delay 10
tell application "Ollama" to run

In the File menu choose Export, and then export it as type “Application” and name it “LaunchOllamaDelay”. Save it to your user Applications folder.

In System Settings go to Login Items and add the LaunchOllamaDelay application to the startup items. Also remove any existing Ollama startup item.

Now when you restart and sign in, Ollama will launch after 10 seconds which should be enough time for the Launch Agent to have executed. And if Ollama updates itself in the future it should also just work when it restarts.

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!

Automate the installation of all your Mac apps using Homebrew and Mas

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniWednesday, July 10, 2024

On macOS it's pretty easy to automate the installation of all your apps, including Mac App Store apps, for those times when you get a new Mac or wipe your current one. As a software developer I find this capability indispensable, as would any professional or power user.

All you need to do is install Homebrew and then use it to install mas (which is an acronym for Mac App Store). Once they are installed, you can install all your software using a convenient Bash script. Homebrew will be used to install non-store apps, and mas will handle installing the Mac App Store apps.

Note: only Mac App Store apps you have already installed previously can be installed with mas. You cannot install new apps you have never installed from the store.

Why do this?

The most obvious reason to script out your software installations is that it greatly reduces the time to set up a new Mac, as well as ensure that you don't forget to install one or more apps. It also provides a way to update all the apps at once via the brew upgrade command. And it also provides a way to update apps that don't have their own update feature.

Apps installed with mas will be updated normally by the Mac App Store.

How does this work?

In order to use this process you need to know the names of the Homebrew formulae/casks for each application, and you also need to know the IDs of the Mac App Store apps for mas. Fortunately this is super easy.

First, Homebrew has a tool for finding software available in their service at https://formulae.brew.sh/. Simply use this to find your apps and make sure you're installing the right ones. Those listed as “casks” are GUI Mac apps (normal apps you don't run from the Terminal). Ones listed as “formulae” are typically command line tools run from the Terminal or services without an interface.

Second, for Mac App Store apps you simply use mas to list what's currently on your computer from the Mac App Store.

mas list

This will give you a list of currently installed apps from the Mac App Store, with their IDs:

1569813296  1Password for Safari      (2.10.0)
975937182   Fantastical               (3.7.12)
409183694   Keynote                   (13.0)
etc.

You can also search for Mac App Store apps by name using the mas search command:

mas search Xcode

This will show a similar result for matches. You can even install all search results with a single “lucky” command. See the mas help for these and other options.

Script example

Here's an example of a Bash script to get you started. I keep a similar script updated as I use new apps or stop using others. Then I'm ready to go when I have to set up a new or wiped Mac.

# Install Homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

# App Store Automation

brew install mas

# Install App Store Apps

mas install 409183694   # Keynote
mas install 409201541   # Pages
mas install 409203825   # Numbers

# Install Non-Store Apps

brew install --cask firefox
brew install --cask knockknock
# etc.

You can name the Bash script something like install-software.sh and execute it in a Terminal like this:

zsh install-software.sh

The first time you use the script will absolutely justify the time spent writing it. The second time you run it you will thank your past self for being so smart 😉.

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!

Upgrade Windows 10 without a TPM chip

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniSunday, November 12, 2023

Microsoft (in)famously requires that your PC have a special security chip (TPM) in order to install Windows 11. But the requirement is wholly unnecessary to maintain a secure installation. And it requires many people to buy new PCs, arguing that this is likely the primary reason Microsoft implemented the requirement.

Patching the Windows install to allow it to run on existing hardware without a TPM chip has been a game of cat and mouse. And until now it had again been thwarted by Microsoft.

Recently Microsoft has patched the Windows 11 ‘product server’ trick for TPM check bypass, but the bypass still works with setupprep.exe. This bypass will upgrade Windows 10 clients to Windows 11 without requiring a TPM.

setupprep.exe /product server

How to copy a Git repo to another location using rsync on macOS

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniWednesday, June 14, 2023

Here's a Mac pro tip: When copying a git repository directory to your network file server using rsync, try this:

rsync -brtlvP --chmod=Fu+w --delete-before Code/MyProject/ /Volumes/MyServer/Code/MyProject/

This will copy the files with timestamps but no other attributes, and will also give the file owner (you) full access rights. This ensures that you (or even Windows users with access rights) can overwrite the directory contents later because local read-only files (e.g. in the .git directory) won't be read-only on the server. You can also change the chmod option to customize the rights, like ensuring everyone has full control.

Install SQL Server 2022 with full-text search on Apple Silicon Macs

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniThursday, April 27, 2023

It looks like a recent change to Docker has allowed Macs with Apple Silicon to run a full installation of Microsoft SQL Server 2022 with full-text search in a Docker container.

How is this possible? Docker has a new feature that can use Rosetta 2 for x64 emulation. That means it supports creating an x64-based Linux image/container and installing the free but full version of SQL Server with FTS.

Step 0: Enable Rosetta in Docker

Enable this feature in the Docker settings as seen in the image below. Look in Settings => Features in development.

Step 1: Create the dockerfile

Take the content below and save it as a text file named Dockerfile. This configuration creates an Ubuntu 20.04 image, then installs the Microsoft package repositories, SQL Server 2022, FTS, and MS Tools.

# Docker image with msssql 2022 with full text search enabled;
# Based on work in: https://github.com/Microsoft/mssql-docker

# Base OS layer: Latest Ubuntu LTS
FROM --platform=linux/amd64 ubuntu:focal

# Install prerequistes since it is needed to get repo config for SQL server
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive && \
    apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -yq curl apt-transport-https gnupg && \
    # Get official Microsoft repository configuration
    curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | apt-key add - && \
    curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/packages-microsoft-prod.deb --output packages-microsoft-prod.deb && dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb && \
    curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/mssql-server-2022.list | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-server.list && \
    apt-get update  && \
    # Install SQL Server from apt
    apt-get install -y mssql-server && \
    # Install optional packages
    apt-get install -y mssql-server-fts && \
    ACCEPT_EULA=Y apt-get install -y mssql-tools && \
    # Cleanup the Dockerfile
    apt-get clean && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists

# Run SQL Server process
CMD /opt/mssql/bin/sqlservr

Step 2: Build the dockerfile

This will build the Dockerfile and create a Docker image named sqlserver.

docker build -t "sqlserver:latest" .

Step 3: Run the container

This will create a container from the new image and run it. The sa user will have a password of P@ssw0rdz!, the EULA will be accepted, and port 1433 will be opened.

docker run -d --platform linux/amd64 --name sqlserver -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'SA_PASSWORD=P@ssw0rdz!' -p 1433:1433 sqlserver:latest

At this point you should have SQL Server running! You can also have it start up with Docker by executing the command below:

docker update --restart=always sqlserver

Use CSS to style elements adjacent to an input based on it being empty or filled

Michael Argentini Avatar
Michael ArgentiniWednesday, December 21, 2022

Here's an interesting method for styling an adjacent element based on whether an <input> is empty or not.

The traditional method for accomplishing this is to use JavaScript, which involves more complex code that is difficult to write and manage. It would require using a selector to find both elements, determining if the input is empty or not, and altering the styles or class names of the adjacent element.

The method below only requires CSS.

input[type="search"]:placeholder-shown + i {
    /* input is empty */
    display: none;
}

input[type="search"]:not(:placeholder-shown) + i {
    /* input is not empty */
    display: inline-block;
}

In this case I'm hiding and showing a clickable icon that clears the search text if there is any. No JavaScript needed other than the click event 😃.

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!

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