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#1 2011-10-13 19:47:52

Carlwill
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From: Orlando, FL
Registered: 2008-10-06
Posts: 560
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TRIM Support For SSD

How does Arch Linux handle SSD's? Does Arch Linux or the 3.0 kernel natively support TRIM or some equivalent garbage collection mechanism? Is TRIM or whatever it uses enabled by default during an installation of Arch Linux or must I enable this in some way? Just  trying to understand if making the switch to SSD versus traditional spindle drives is smart using Arch Linux.


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#2 2011-10-13 19:53:02

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: TRIM Support For SSD

Have you read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSD ?
There's e.g.

DISCARD/TRIM feature is NOT SUPPORTED by device-mapper (but they are working on it, see here. August 2011 news: support will be in Linux 3.1, and involves a userspace dm-crypt update as well

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSD#Mount_Flags

discard - The discard flag will enable the benefits of the TRIM command so long as one is using kernel version >=2.6.33. It does not work with ext3; using the discard flag for an ext3 root partition will result in it being mounted read-only.

Last edited by karol (2011-10-13 19:54:22)

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#3 2011-10-13 20:47:22

Carlwill
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From: Orlando, FL
Registered: 2008-10-06
Posts: 560
Website

Re: TRIM Support For SSD

When it say's "DISCARD/TRIM feature NOT SUPPORTED by device-mapper..." is this Arch Linux only or most common used distributions? I'm sorry I don't know what 'device-mapper' is or how many other distributions use it.


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#4 2011-10-13 20:52:50

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: TRIM Support For SSD

Carlwill wrote:

When it say's "DISCARD/TRIM feature NOT SUPPORTED by device-mapper..." is this Arch Linux only or most common used distributions? I'm sorry I don't know what 'device-mapper' is or how many other distributions use it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_mapper
Seems like it's used for RAID.

Sorry I can't help you more.

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#5 2011-10-13 21:31:05

byte
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From: Düsseldorf (DE)
Registered: 2006-05-01
Posts: 2,046

Re: TRIM Support For SSD

It's a kernel thing, nothing special to Arch. Do you want to use LVM or encryption/LUKS? Then wait for 3.1.
Or do you want to use Ext4 filesystems directly on the SSD? Then go for it. (and read those links)


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#6 2011-10-13 23:40:30

graysky
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From: :wq
Registered: 2008-12-01
Posts: 10,598
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Re: TRIM Support For SSD

So this is fixed in 3.1 final... perhaps the op can build up a git version of the kernel and get it?


CPU-optimized Linux-ck packages @ Repo-ck  • AUR packagesZsh and other configs

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#7 2011-10-14 07:44:20

Modeler
Member
From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2011-07-28
Posts: 70

Re: TRIM Support For SSD

byte wrote:

Do you want to use LVM or encryption/LUKS? Then wait for 3.1.
Or do you want to use Ext4 filesystems directly on the SSD? Then go for it. (and read those links)

LVM is good for servers where you have multiple disks, but it's often an extra layer serving no real purpose on the desktop. A lot of distros (Fedora for example) enable it by default but if you're running arch on a single disk or hardware RAID, you're better off without it.


Wirth's law: "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster"

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#8 2011-10-14 10:44:39

oenone
Member
Registered: 2011-10-11
Posts: 5

Re: TRIM Support For SSD

For Laptops or other mobile computers, LUKS might be interesting, even without LVM..

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