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Linux & SSD's

HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Linux & SSD's

OK just ordered an early xmas present from Crucial. An 128Gb SSD (recond for £22 delivered).
What is the best use of this?
Put / on the ssd, /var & /tmp /swap on the hdd? (My / partition is 30Gb with ~10 used)
My /home is too full to move fully on the ssd (1.1Gb on it) so do I move some of my /home like the .folders? Then do some mount binding to the original /home on the hdd?
Most of the stuff is not accessed a lot so can stay on the hdd. But things like the stream & vbox folders would move to the ssd.
Any suggestions will be looked at with interest.
5 REPLIES 5
picbits
Rising Star
Posts: 3,432
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Registered: ‎18-01-2013

Re: Linux & SSD's

Use the SSD for the boot and frequently accessed applications and use your normal HDD for everyday storage such as Video / Pictures etc which don't require frequent or high speed access.
HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: Linux & SSD's

That's what I though, that's why I suggested the . files, all the configs etc.
Will see how I get on when it arrives, been sent RM so could be a week!
bin
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 168
Thanks: 56
Registered: ‎05-12-2014

Re: Linux & SSD's

Just a few thoughts:-
Read up on verifying that your drive supports trim commands and the various ways of running these on a regular basis.
Look at mounting /tmp in RAM - via fstab - plenty of stuff via google.
Double check the firmware version on your drive against the current version. Some mfrs will allow updating via bootable iso or similar.
Others (Corsair as I know for sure) will only allow firmware update via Windows. It can be attached to an external usb caddy, but the machine running the firmware/software has to be windows - check how Crucial do it and plan accordingly.
As regards /home do remember that your config files are there and especially your browser and/or email  dot files e.g. ~.mozilla. Unless you are a ruthless cache and cookie cleaner you may find that some of the benefit of the ssd is lost while churning through the files on your spinner.
In the ideal world have it all on the ssd, but then dump all your data/documents onto the spinner leaving os and config/dot files on the ssd.
Hope this makes sense, is of some help or makes amusing reading depending on your point of view
bin
jack21
Grafter
Posts: 189
Registered: ‎25-02-2009

Re: Linux & SSD's

I've been using cheap  Kingspec SSDs (SATA or IDE) for a few years, wholly in laptops, and have become very impressed indeed by their performance in speed and reliability. A month or so ago I decided to experiment with one in my HP DC7800 tower PC.....I eventually settled for putting the whole Linux Mint 17 installation into 3 partitions on the SSD (Swap, /, and /Home) together with putting most of my not-used-on-a-daily-basis data onto the original hard drive. That hard drive is set (within Mint 17) to spin down after 5 minutes of 'idle'.
That setup works a treat; my 'home' is not over-crowded, even with keeping mail and daily-use data stuff in there, and the spin-up time to access the hard drive stuff is very fast too. Almost all the time, the hard drive is in the spun down, quiet state.
I like the idea of those cheap refurb'd larger-capacity SSD drives, but sadly they were all gone when I looked after reading your post.
HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: Linux & SSD's

Yep they went very quickly (no pun intended).
The web site was atrocious in FF, time outs, hangs etc. Eventually used Chrome to get the unit. About 20 min after I got mine they were all sold. The had 128/256/512's but when I checked the 512's were all gone, and as I say about 20min later they were all gone.
I did a fresh install on to it with 17.1, 2 partitions / & /home. Copied over some of the stuff from my old /home and symlinked the rest so it looks almost normal. Boot time is about 3-5 sec to the mouse appearing after my burg boot screen.