Install ArchLinux with a badblocks file?

thantik · 2009-09-09 23:36:42

I have an SSD that seems to be degrading quite gracefully, the whole drive isn't dead I'm just getting a lot of bad blocks, the rest are still readable.

What would I need to do, to get the Arch Installer to avoid bad blocks, and also possibly format partitions around bad blocks? I know it's not "recommended" - unfortunately I bought this EEE 900a used, and it seems whoever, did whatever on it - and they didn't turn off logging, or something, and it got majorly burnt on the writes (how in the hell someone uses up that many writes on an SSD in the course of a year or less is beyond me)

Do I just need to create my /boot partition in a known good area, and my / as the rest of the drive? - How do I get the installer to avoid the bad blocks?...or even get the installer to make the file system around the bad blocks?

Pardon me if 1/2 of the terminology I'm using is incorrect or w/e - correct me, and if possible, help me

I understand my options of installing to an SD card, etc but I'm broke as a joke and don't own anything of the sort.

Last edited by thantik (2009-09-09 23:43:15)

Gen2ly · 2009-09-10 05:01:15

Well, thantik, I ain't gonna suger-coat it. That ain't good. Once bad blocks begin it almost always means the deterioration of a drive. You can get around badblocks for awhile but it probably won't last for long and likely will lead to corrupted data. If I had to do it myself, I'd partition first, then do:

fsck -vc /dev/device

Which will do a read-write check and mark the bad blocks. Then with the installer select the mount drive/partitions you want to use...

Note: I haven't tried this before, but I've seen it recommended a couple times.

Good luck.

Last edited by Gen2ly (2009-09-10 05:02:31)

ewaller · 2009-09-10 05:14:23

I don't know about formating around bad blocks, but I do know a thing or two about SS drives. In my day job I design rugged computer systems that must withstand ridiculous vibration levels, as such we use SSDs.

They are not trivial devices and do a substantial amount of internal house keeping.

In general, they map logical blocks (the ones that are specified via the IDE interface) to physical locations in the drive. They dynamically keep track of bad or worn out physical blocks and remove them from the logical to physical map.

Even more clever, they keep track of the write history to the physical blocks and perform automatic write leveling. If a given portion of the drive is seeing excessive write cycles, while other areas never change, the controller will move the static data to the more worn area of the drive and the dynamic data to the areas that have less wear. The map of logical to physical allocation is silently updated internally, and the external driver never knows it happened.

Because of the write leveling, when a drive starts to fail due to wear out, you will find the whole whole drive quickly fails.

Other considerations: SSDs are VERY sensitive to loosing power during a write cycle. The best way to corrupt a SSD is to power it down when it is performing a write or internal house keeping.

When selecting a SSD, or any solid state storage (SD, USB Drive, CF, etc...) pick one that uses single level encoding. This means it stores one bit of data per EE cell. Multi level encoding uses analog techniques to put more than one bit per cell. Good for storage density, BAD for data integrity and storage life.

--Sorry

Last edited by ewaller (2009-09-10 05:39:30)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-09 23:36:42

Install ArchLinux with a badblocks file?

#2 2009-09-10 05:01:15

Re: Install ArchLinux with a badblocks file?

#3 2009-09-10 05:14:23

Re: Install ArchLinux with a badblocks file?

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