Arch Linux

ProfessorTomoe

Member

From: Garland, TX

Registered: 2008-02-12

Posts: 61

Really, REALLY need advice on new system setup

I apologize in advance for posting yet another SSD dual boot question, but I have been reading articles, wikis, forum posts, and everything else I can think of until my eyes feel like they're going to fall out of my head, and I still haven't been able to come up with a good solution to setting up a new system that comes close enough to matching my situation.  I would *really* appreciate as much input as I can get.

My new build is going to be dual-booting Windows 7 Professional and Arch Linux.  (I've been running Arch for several years now, but I'm just now getting familiar with Win7 by way of a laptop.)  I've already purchased all of the parts for the system, so here's a list of the hardware relative to my questions:

Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1055T
RAM:  16 GB (4 x 4GB Mushkin Silverline)
SSD:  G.Skill Phoenix Pro 120 GB with a SandForce SF-1200 series controller
Hard Drives:  a pair of WD Caviar Black 1 TB SATA III 6.0Gb/s drives

There's also a Lite-On DVD burner.  All drives are SATA.

As I said earlier, I want to set up a dual-boot Wndows 7 and Arch Linux system that I can use mainly for music composition, recording, mixing, and mastering.  I also want to be able to do the occasional bit of artwork in The GIMP and some 3D work with Blender.  Arch will probably get a bit more use than Win7, especially when it comes to everyday stuff, while Win7 will be used mostly on the music side of things.

I've seen a lot of different suggestions on what should go on the SSD and what should go on the HDs and into RAM, but I have not seen anyone report on a solution that would involve the above combination, especially with 16 GB of RAM.  The only guess I've been able to make so far is this:

1. Install Win7 (system and programs only, avoiding the creation of the 100MB recovery partition) on a 40 GB NTFS partition on the SSD.
2. Create a 40 GB NTFS data partition on the SSD.
3. Create separate partitions on the SSD for /boot, /, and /usr using the remaining 40 GB.
4. Put the /tmp directory into RAM.
5. Use the hard drives for /home, /var, a swap partition, and whatever else I might want to do.

If you were building this system, how would you divide up the data?  Again, ***any*** advice would be very much appreciated.  Thanks!

mrinehart93

Member

Registered: 2010-10-16

Posts: 35

Re: Really, REALLY need advice on new system setup

Mm, that sounds about how I would divide it up. Although I would probably move the 40GB NTFS data partition to the HDD (that's just me though). The only real suggestion I'm going to be able to offer here is to disable the PAGE file in Windows AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, otherwise it's going to eat through your R/W cycles on the SSD faster than you know what.

machinecrusade

Member

From: Victoria, Canada

Registered: 2010-09-12

Posts: 11

Re: Really, REALLY need advice on new system setup

i have windows 7 for exactly the same reason.  i use arch all the time but, when  i want to record my piano or play guitar,  i have acidpro7 and guitar rig 3, asio driver on windows.  i would want to have more that 40gigs for windows7.   heres what i got

sda1  75gig  win7  (its almost full)
sda2  75gig  arch  (/, and home,var, everything else)

sda5    35gig ntfs  ( d:\ for windows)
sda6    35gig ex4  (empty,  its my home away from /home, in case i start to run out of space)
sda7    5gig   (/boot,  and a puppy linux folder to boot from if all else fails)

sda4     8gig swap

its only one drive on an old laptop,   but you get the picture.

i dont use windows for anything except recording (and jailbreaking my iphone).  its just gotten full of vsts, and other audio software.   you will be saving your .wavs or whatever on one of the the big HDs,  but still... your protools or cuebase  will get big

i just think you want more room for windows,  its big,   and it grows fast.

Last edited by machinecrusade (2010-10-23 08:13:49)

ProfessorTomoe

Member

From: Garland, TX

Registered: 2008-02-12

Posts: 61

Re: Really, REALLY need advice on new system setup

Thanks for the advice so far.  This whole situation is a bit overwhelming, especially when you consider that I'm switching from an old four-disk HD setup (1 PATA + 3 SATA) to the new SDD + 2 SATA HD setup.  It's hard to keep things from getting lost (or under-optimized) in translation.

Here's what I'm considering for a starting configuration, based on your suggestions and another huge dose of online research and opinion-sifting.  Once again, drive sda is the 120 GB G.Skill Phoenix Pro SDD, while sdb and sdc are both WD Caviar Black 1 TB SATA III 6.0Gb/s drives.

• /sda1 - Windows 7 Boot (80 GB, NTFS)

• /sda2 - /boot (2 GB, ext4, no journal, mounted with discard option)

• /sda3 - / (36 GB, ext4, no journal, mounted with discard option)

• /sda4 - /swap (2 GB, swap)

• /sdb1 - /home (500 GB, JFS)

• /sdb2 - Windows 7 Data (500 GB, NTFS)

• /sdc1 - System Rescue CD, HD Install (8 GB, including a 2 GB backing-store, ext4)

• /sdc2 - /var (64 GB, ReiserFS)

• /sdc3 - /other (928 GB, either XFS or JFS)

• /sdd1 - DVD burner

• /tmp mounted on tmpfs

I figure the above will give me enough flexibility to make changes later, especially on the SDD partitions, since NTFS and ext4 can be resized and the swap can be dumped if I really don't need it.  It'll also give me some flex room on sdb, since it'd be a simple task to backup and reformat a drive with just two partitions.

Any tweaks you can see that need to be made here?  Also, is ext4 w/discard the only way to get TRIM support with the current Arch kernel, or could I use JFS and still get TRIM support?

Thanks again for your help!