Double Checking Info on SSD's

scottm · 2009-10-17 06:03:24

So I just bought a Dell Mini 10v with a 16gb SSD. I wanted to verify the recomendations on how to have it configured and ask a few questions before I install it (probably on Monday night)

1. Never choose to use a journaling file system on the SSD partitions
2. Never use a swap partition on the SSD
3. Edit your new installation fstab to mount the SSD partitions "noatime"
4. Never log messages or error log to the SSD

1. I imagine this will be a pretty straight forward option to disable when installing?
2. same as 1?
3. Obviously I edit the file after installation, but what would it look like? Do i simply add "noatime" on a line and that's it?
4. Is logging off by default or do I need to turn it off somewhere?

Also, is this still recommended to do in the /etc/fstab?

none /var/log tmpfs size=10M 0 0
none /var/tmp tmpfs size=20M 0 0
none /tmp tmpfs size=200M 0 0

Any other recommendations or tips?

Thanks

Last edited by scottm (2009-10-17 06:07:36)

jryarch · 2009-10-17 10:23:32

scottm wrote:

3. Obviously I edit the file after installation, but what would it look like? Do i simply add "noatime" on a line and that's it?

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
/dev/sda3 / ext3 defaults,noatime 0 1

Can't help you with the others, only that it's a pretty bad idea to disable logging.

R00KIE · 2009-10-17 10:55:26

No journaling may be a bad idea, computers crash and having a journal may prevent some data loss I guess, maybe it is possible to increase the time between disk commits, it will ease the load a little, also ssd disks have wear leveling so I guess that even if you say you want to write to the same lba 1000 times it will be using different flash cells.

On the log thing, I've seen before that it is possible to have the logs stored on disk, load them to a tmpfs during boot, leave them on ram when using the pc and store them back to disk during shutdown, but I think that you will have to write some scripts to do this.

kgas · 2009-10-17 12:07:16

This is the fstab in del mini 9 with 16GB SSD

UUID=233fe8d1-8653-4ae8-abe0-748b05324d69 /usr ext3 defaults 0 1
UUID=57baf3b7-8bc4-4416-ab99-c749afefb26c swap swap defaults 0 0
UUID=b89f8d92-d4a1-4693-bef7-98035ff3ad62 / ext3 defaults 0 1
UUID=e54dadbe-f532-4839-9b91-13aff2724cee /var reiserfs defaults 0 1
UUID=eb0c689a-84c0-4688-a4bf-61b52e7ee7d4 /home ext3 defaults 0 1
UUID=f4f6900f-675c-49e1-85ba-e3f9b791bacd /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
none /var/log tmpfs size=15M 0 0
none /tmp tmpfs size=115M 0 0
none /var/tmp tmpfs size=20M 0 0

As ROOKIE said journaling is required. Without SWAP suspend won't work properly.
In this laptop Gnome is used as desktop.
I
Edit 1: RAM is 2 GB (upgraded from 1 GB). SWAP usage is not noticed till date.

Last edited by kgas (2009-10-17 12:11:35)

.:B:. · 2009-10-17 12:11:07

I think you can add nodiratime too for mounting options, I'm running on an SSD myself (32 GB Mtron), no problems yet. I do have regular logging enabled though, maybe I should look at doing it in RAM... No swap here.

litemotiv · 2009-10-17 13:53:18

B wrote:

I think you can add nodiratime too for mounting options, I'm running on an SSD myself (32 GB Mtron), no problems yet. I do have regular logging enabled though, maybe I should look at doing it in RAM... No swap here.

i believe noatime also implies nodiratime, so that shouldn't really be necessary

(yay for mtron )

R00KIE · 2009-10-17 18:14:52

Yes, noatime seems to be sort of a superset of nodiratime so just noatime should be needed, there was a post about that here on the forum that pointed to the kernel mailing list where that was discussed (can't find it now).

scottm · 2009-10-17 20:51:16

So why are these steps listed in the wiki when it seems I'm not suppose to do them at all?

Should I still do the noatime?

Also since this wasn't answered:

4. Is logging off by default or do I need to turn it off somewhere?

litemotiv · 2009-10-17 21:28:43

scottm wrote:

So why are these steps listed in the wiki when it seems I'm not suppose to do them at all?
Should I still do the noatime?
Also since this wasn't answered:
4. Is logging off by default or do I need to turn it off somewhere?

my advice: use your computer/laptop/netbook like you always do, and do the optimizations you would do anyway (so just keep logging if you want, and noatime is generally a safe thing to set for any drive). most of the SSD horror-stories are just FUD, hearsay, or stuff you can't predict/control anyway. don't be afraid of your SSD, use it!

Last edited by litemotiv (2009-10-18 00:24:57)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-17 06:03:24

Double Checking Info on SSD's

#2 2009-10-17 10:23:32

Re: Double Checking Info on SSD's

#3 2009-10-17 10:55:26

Re: Double Checking Info on SSD's

#4 2009-10-17 12:07:16

Re: Double Checking Info on SSD's

#5 2009-10-17 12:11:07

Re: Double Checking Info on SSD's

#6 2009-10-17 13:53:18

Re: Double Checking Info on SSD's

#7 2009-10-17 18:14:52

Re: Double Checking Info on SSD's

#8 2009-10-17 20:51:16

Re: Double Checking Info on SSD's

#9 2009-10-17 21:28:43

Re: Double Checking Info on SSD's

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