Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sun, July 21, 2013 01:45, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 07:02:35 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote: Yes, and it's mounted ro to minimise the risk of such damage. I used to do this (keeping a rescue partitio) ... but found it was useful only some of the time. Nowadays I just leave a sysrescuecd USB key on top of the case :) Same features, useful in more circumstances, less maintenance overhead. This sin't a rescue partition, it's just a GRUB menu entry and a copy f the ISO in /boot, so far less maintenance even than making sure a USB stick stays put. Plus it is much faster to boot. It's a nice idea, but the boot-time of the rescue-partition doesn't really matter to me. It's more important that it boots a recent version. On a desktop it would be useful, but as I have more then 1 machine, creating the USB stick is just as easy :) -- Joost
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Tue, 23 Jul 2013 09:41:58 +0200, J. Roeleveld wrote: This isn't a rescue partition, it's just a GRUB menu entry and a copy ¬ f the ISO in /boot, so far less maintenance even than making sure a USB stick stays put. Plus it is much faster to boot. It's a nice idea, but the boot-time of the rescue-partition doesn't really matter to me. It's more important that it boots a recent version. On a desktop it would be useful, but as I have more then 1 machine, creating the USB stick is just as easy :) I agree that creating a sysrescd USB stick from the ISO is easy with the provided script, almost as easy as scping the file to a few machines. About the only thing easier is losing the USB stick hen I need it, which is probably the main reason I do it this way. I believe it's also possible to do this with PXE, meanng you don't even need multiple copies of the file... unless your PXE server needs rescuing. I always have it on a USB stick too, but that's for fixing other people's computers :) -- Neil Bothwick Idaho - It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration - caveat
Am 20.07.2013 05:32, schrieb luis jure: on 2013-07-20 at 09:51 William Kenworthy wrote: You have to map the drive so grub can find it: no, i don't think that's the problem. the problem is that with GPT disks you need a BIOS Boot Partition since they don't have a MBR. is that correct? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Install_to_GPT_BIOS_boot_partition http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2012/10/the-difference-between-booting-mbr-and-gpt-with-grub/ Correct :-) If I remember correctly, stage2 of the grub bootloader will be put there. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Am 21.07.2013 01:45, schrieb Neil Bothwick: This sin't a rescue partition, it's just a GRUB menu entry and a copy f the ISO in /boot, so far less maintenance even than making sure a USB stick stays put. Plus it is much faster to boot. Yep, I got that set up as well when I did my GRUB2-learning-steps ;-) nice to have, sure!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Am 19.07.2013 21:02, schrieb Paul Hartman: Old SSDs that did not support TRIM would suffer write amplification after a certain amount of data had been written to them, but any modern SSD and modern OS will keep it nice and tidy. What's the best practice now for TRIM? I changed to manual fstrim -v / back then as they wrote that the fstab-options weren't the right way of doing it. Any news on this? I have root-fs on ext4, btw ... Stefan
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Stroller wrote: I wouldn't have bothered making this distinction, but I think: 1TB = 1000GB 1Tb = 125GB There are also TiBs[0]: 1 TiB = 1024 GiB Similarly, there are MiB, etc. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tebibyte -- R
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Stefan G. Weichinger li...@xunil.at wrote: Am 19.07.2013 21:02, schrieb Paul Hartman: Old SSDs that did not support TRIM would suffer write amplification after a certain amount of data had been written to them, but any modern SSD and modern OS will keep it nice and tidy. What's the best practice now for TRIM? I changed to manual fstrim -v / back then as they wrote that the fstab-options weren't the right way of doing it. Any news on this? I have root-fs on ext4, btw ... I think it depends on your usage patterns. discard will trim unused space immediately as files are deleted. Putting fstrim in your cron jobs will wait to free all unused space at once. If you delete many files, or large files, you may notice performance slowdowns by using discard. On the other hand, if your SSD is near full you may benefit from discard to allow faster write speed before the cron job runs. As far as I remember, some filesystems don't support discard option, but do support fstrim. So fstrim job may be safer as generic advice... and it was older advice, before discard existed, so old SSD guides may refer to it by default. I personally use discard with ext4 and btrfs, but I have not done tests or have evidence that it is the best choice for me. It's simply what I chose and never changed it. :)
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Am 23.07.2013 00:22, schrieb Paul Hartman: I personally use discard with ext4 and btrfs, but I have not done tests or have evidence that it is the best choice for me. It's simply what I chose and never changed it. :) Thanks, Paul! More of a I do it MY way than a generic best practice for all as recommended by upstream devs, right? ;-) S
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 5:26 PM, Stefan G. Weichinger li...@xunil.at wrote: Am 23.07.2013 00:22, schrieb Paul Hartman: I personally use discard with ext4 and btrfs, but I have not done tests or have evidence that it is the best choice for me. It's simply what I chose and never changed it. :) Thanks, Paul! More of a I do it MY way than a generic best practice for all as recommended by upstream devs, right? ;-) Basically I think it is like so many things in Linux, use whatever works best for you :)
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Saturday 20 Jul 2013 06:12:40 Dale wrote: Bruce Hill wrote: On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 08:34:27PM -0500, Dale wrote: Stop using disk and build in RAM: tmpfs /var/tmp/portagetmpfs size=7000M,nr_inodes=1M 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0 workstation ~ # free -m total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem: 15798 3711 12087 0 0 937 -/+ buffers/cache: 2772 13025 Swap: 8103 0 8103 He may not have enough to do that tho. Some folks only have 4Gbs or less still. That won't be enough for LOo. Heck, my 16Gbs wasn't enough at one time. I had to either let it be on HDD or set it to a higher amount than the default half. I also tested the time difference once before, it didn't really make much difference. It just saves wear on a drive is all. Dale If 16GB of RAM wasn't enough, ydiw. I've used that line of 7G forever, and run app-office/libreoffice, as well as firefox and some other big app (forget it's name) and _never_ had a problem. Well, a while back, OOo and LOo wanted more than 8Gbs. It wasn't my need but what portage looked for. Then someone did some changes and reduced that need and it worked. From my understanding, there was some code clean up that helped in that. I think it looks for 6Gbs now. From the ebuild: CHECKREQS_MEMORY=512M CHECKREQS_DISK_BUILD=6G It used to be more than that. If it didn't have enough, it stopped. Even when I would override that setting, it would still run out of space more often than not. As a matter of fact, I still have the command in my freq used commands file that I used to fix it: mount -t tmpfs -o size=12g tmpfs /var/tmp/portage Does it stop dead or does it start to page into swap? -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sunday 21 Jul 2013 00:45:55 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 07:02:35 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote: Yes, and it's mounted ro to minimise the risk of such damage. I used to do this (keeping a rescue partitio) ... but found it was useful only some of the time. Nowadays I just leave a sysrescuecd USB key on top of the case :) Same features, useful in more circumstances, less maintenance overhead. This sin't a rescue partition, it's just a GRUB menu entry and a copy f the ISO in /boot, so far less maintenance even than making sure a USB stick stays put. Plus it is much faster to boot. An interesting idea you present, Neil. So far I've been maintaining a small rescue system. My /boot is only 100MB so if I wanted to follow your idea I'd have to move and resize everything else on this MBR setup. I have twin spinning disks with two LVM sets in logical partitions, so I assume I'd have to destroy those and re-create them. What a lot of work! Oh, or I could sacrifice (part of) a swap partition to expand /boot into. -- Regards, Peter
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 10:14:22 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote: This sin't a rescue partition, it's just a GRUB menu entry and a copy f the ISO in /boot, so far less maintenance even than making sure a USB stick stays put. Plus it is much faster to boot. An interesting idea you present, Neil. So far I've been maintaining a small rescue system. My /boot is only 100MB so if I wanted to follow your idea I'd have to move and resize everything else on this MBR setup. I have twin spinning disks with two LVM sets in logical partitions, so I assume I'd have to destroy those and re-create them. What a lot of work! Yes, probably too much. Oh, or I could sacrifice (part of) a swap partition to expand /boot into. That would be easier, you could always add more swap from an LV, unless you use it for suspend. -- Neil Bothwick the sum of all human intelligence is constant, only the number of humans increases. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Mick wrote: On Saturday 20 Jul 2013 06:12:40 Dale wrote: Bruce Hill wrote: If 16GB of RAM wasn't enough, ydiw. I've used that line of 7G forever, and run app-office/libreoffice, as well as firefox and some other big app (forget it's name) and _never_ had a problem. Well, a while back, OOo and LOo wanted more than 8Gbs. It wasn't my need but what portage looked for. Then someone did some changes and reduced that need and it worked. From my understanding, there was some code clean up that helped in that. I think it looks for 6Gbs now. From the ebuild: CHECKREQS_MEMORY=512M CHECKREQS_DISK_BUILD=6G It used to be more than that. If it didn't have enough, it stopped. Even when I would override that setting, it would still run out of space more often than not. As a matter of fact, I still have the command in my freq used commands file that I used to fix it: mount -t tmpfs -o size=12g tmpfs /var/tmp/portage Does it stop dead or does it start to page into swap? Actually, portage looks for enough space before even starting and still does. However, when I force it to ignore it, it stops and says it ran out of space. I'd just rather it didn't use swap anyway. Either way, OOo and LOo used to need lots of space. I think there was some code cleanup and maybe some other changes that reduced that a lot. I think there was also some gcc changes to but not sure on that. I did some more searching after my last post, at one point it looked for at least 12GBs from what I found. That was the largest setting I found. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 15:02:48 -0500, Dale wrote: I also keep the last two versions of sysrescue for my USB stick. How do you copy one to a stick when you need to rescue an unbootable system? I prefer to keep the ISO in /boot, no need for a USB stick then. It's hard to put it in /boot when /boot doesn't have the space. I need to redo some stuff and make /boot larger. I'm not looking forward to that either. By the way, I do update the stick every once in a while and just keep the ISO in case I need to redo the USB stick for some reason. Sometimes I use the stick for something else and have to put the ISO back. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 14:50:29 -0500, Dale wrote: Neil, you know how payback is right? ROFL That's the one with Mel Gibson? It starts with a B. Ironic huh? Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sunday 21 Jul 2013 10:40:11 Dale wrote: Mick wrote: On Saturday 20 Jul 2013 06:12:40 Dale wrote: Bruce Hill wrote: If 16GB of RAM wasn't enough, ydiw. I've used that line of 7G forever, and run app-office/libreoffice, as well as firefox and some other big app (forget it's name) and _never_ had a problem. Well, a while back, OOo and LOo wanted more than 8Gbs. It wasn't my need but what portage looked for. Then someone did some changes and reduced that need and it worked. From my understanding, there was some code clean up that helped in that. I think it looks for 6Gbs now. From the ebuild: CHECKREQS_MEMORY=512M CHECKREQS_DISK_BUILD=6G It used to be more than that. If it didn't have enough, it stopped. Even when I would override that setting, it would still run out of space more often than not. As a matter of fact, I still have the command in my freq used commands file that I used to fix it: mount -t tmpfs -o size=12g tmpfs /var/tmp/portage Does it stop dead or does it start to page into swap? Actually, portage looks for enough space before even starting and still does. However, when I force it to ignore it, it stops and says it ran out of space. I'd just rather it didn't use swap anyway. Either way, OOo and LOo used to need lots of space. I think there was some code cleanup and maybe some other changes that reduced that a lot. I think there was also some gcc changes to but not sure on that. I did some more searching after my last post, at one point it looked for at least 12GBs from what I found. That was the largest setting I found. Right, so running /var/tmp/portage on a tmpfs definitely won't work on an old box of mine with only a few MB of memory. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 10:57:24 +0100, Mick wrote: Actually, portage looks for enough space before even starting and still does. However, when I force it to ignore it, it stops and says it ran out of space. I'd just rather it didn't use swap anyway. Either way, OOo and LOo used to need lots of space. I think there was some code cleanup and maybe some other changes that reduced that a lot. I think there was also some gcc changes to but not sure on that. I did some more searching after my last post, at one point it looked for at least 12GBs from what I found. That was the largest setting I found. Right, so running /var/tmp/portage on a tmpfs definitely won't work on an old box of mine with only a few MB of memory. It will, because it starts to use swap, but then there's no benefit to using tmpfs in the first place. What I used to do on my netbook was run tmpfs for /tmp and have PORTAGE_TMPDIR use that by default but set specific packages to use a different, on disk, location % cat /etc/portage/package.env/libreoffice app-office/libreoffice disk-tmpdir.conf ]% cat /etc/portage/env/disk-tmpdir.conf PORTAGE_TMPDIR=/mnt/scratch where /mnt/scratch is a directory I use for all sorts of non-permanent files. -- Neil Bothwick The truth shall make you free, but first it shall piss you off. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Mick wrote: On Sunday 21 Jul 2013 10:40:11 Dale wrote: Actually, portage looks for enough space before even starting and still does. However, when I force it to ignore it, it stops and says it ran out of space. I'd just rather it didn't use swap anyway. Either way, OOo and LOo used to need lots of space. I think there was some code cleanup and maybe some other changes that reduced that a lot. I think there was also some gcc changes to but not sure on that. I did some more searching after my last post, at one point it looked for at least 12GBs from what I found. That was the largest setting I found. Right, so running /var/tmp/portage on a tmpfs definitely won't work on an old box of mine with only a few MB of memory. Not likely. It may for some smaller packages but not for the large ones for sure. When I first built this rig, I only had 8GBs of ram and I could only use it when all the packages to update were smaller ones. Generally, I just left it on a HDD. The biggest issue that I run into still, failed emerges are left on there and take up space that the next packages may need. Thing is, they have to be there to see what caused it to fail. Of course, the same thing can happen when on a HDD as well. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 04:50:42 -0500, Dale wrote: That's the one with Mel Gibson? It starts with a B. Ironic huh? Actually, his surname appears to mean son of a GibiBit ;-) -- Neil Bothwick Hm..what's this red button fo|'».'NO CARRIER signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sunday 21 Jul 2013 10:21:45 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 10:14:22 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote: What a lot of work! Yes, probably too much. Oh, or I could sacrifice (part of) a swap partition to expand /boot into. That would be easier, you could always add more swap from an LV, unless you use it for suspend. I have more swap than I need, arranged thus: $ grep swap /etc/fstab /dev/sda3 noneswapsw,pri=10 0 0 /dev/sdb3 noneswapsw,pri=10 0 0 /dev/sda7 noneswapsw,pri=10 0 /dev/sdb7 noneswapsw,pri=10 0 ...in which sdX3 is 2GB (not GBs, Dale - time doesn't come into it ;-) ) and sdX7 is 10GB. Thus the big swap areas are only used when necessary to compile LO, Firefox and pals. I could easily halve sda3 and still have plenty of swap. No, I don't suspend this box because it's permanently active running four BOINC jobs at a time. -- Regards, Peter
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 2013-07-20 01:23, luis jure wrote: hehe... i guess neil meant that in average for each Tb you have in your disk, only 125Mb is really important or useful. the rest is crap that just piles up... No, 1Tb = 125GB (note the difference between Tb = Tbit and TB=TByte)... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 20/07/2013 01:03, Dale wrote: Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:43:39 -0500, Dale wrote: My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. 1Tb is only 125GB, well within the capacity of current SSDs :P Switching to an SSD, particularly on a laptop where you can't add a second drive, really helps you decide how much of the content of ~ you really need. Mine is mostly videos and some smaller amount of pics. 1 Tb is 125Gb? 1Tb is 1,000Gb or so. I would also be concerned about the cost of one that large too. Confused. Neil is jerking your chain :-) Remember, he's an Englishman and they don't do slapstick humour, they do clever and subtle humour. You typed b when you intended to type B -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
on 2013-07-20 at 09:42 pk wrote: On 2013-07-20 01:23, luis jure wrote: hehe... i guess neil meant that in average for each Tb you have in your disk, only 125Mb is really important or useful. the rest is crap that just piles up... No, 1Tb = 125GB (note the difference between Tb = Tbit and TB=TByte)... haha, yes, someone else mentioned that already. silly me, i didn't pay attention to the lowercase b... i really thought neil was saying that in jest! anyway, i think there is something in the idea that for each TB in their hard disks, the average home user has lots of useless crap. i know *i* do...
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Saturday 20 Jul 2013 12:26:04 Alan McKinnon wrote: Neil is jerking your chain :-) Remember, he's an Englishman and they don't do slapstick humour, they do clever and subtle humour. I'm another, and I've been tempted to make the same observation as Neil did, but I wouldn't have been so funny so I'm glad I left it to him :-) -- Regards, Peter
SSDs, VM SANs RAID - WAS Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 2013-07-19 3:02 PM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: I think you are. Unless you are moving massive terabytes of data across your drive on a constant basis I would not worry about regular everyday write activity being a problem. I have a question regarding the use of SSDs in a VM SAN... We are considering buying a lower-end SAN (two actually, one for each of our locations), with lots of 2.5 bays, and using SSDs. The two questions that come to mind are: Is this a good use of SSDs? I honestly don't know if the running VMs would benefit from the faster IO or not (I *think* the answer is a resounding yes)? Next is RAID... I've avoided RAID5 (and RAID6) like the plague ever since I almost got bit really badly by a multiple drive failure... luckily, the RAID5 had just finished rebuilding successfully after the first drive failed, before the second drive failed. I can't tell you how many years I aged that day while it was rebuilding after replacing the second failed drive. Ever since, I've always used RAID10. So... with SSDs, I think another advantage would be much faster rebuilds after a failed drive? So I could maybe start using RAID6 (would survive two simultaneous disk failures), and not lose so much available storage (50% with RAID10)? Last... while researching this, I ran across a very interesting article that I'd appreciate hearing opinions on. The Benefits of a Flash Only, SAN-less Virtual Architecture: http://www.storage-switzerland.com/Articles/Entries/2012/9/20_The_Benefits_of_a_Flash_Only,_SAN-less_Virtual_Architecture.html or http://tinyurl.com/khwuspo Anyway, I look forward to hearing thoughts on this...
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 2013-07-20 13:59, luis jure wrote: the average home user has lots of useless crap. i know *i* do... Yes, I do too... So the answer is smaller disks in order not to accumulate so much crap! ;-) Best regards Peter K
Re: SSDs, VM SANs RAID - WAS Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Jul 20, 2013 9:27 PM, Tanstaafl tansta...@libertytrek.org wrote: On 2013-07-19 3:02 PM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: I think you are. Unless you are moving massive terabytes of data across your drive on a constant basis I would not worry about regular everyday write activity being a problem. I have a question regarding the use of SSDs in a VM SAN... We are considering buying a lower-end SAN (two actually, one for each of our locations), with lots of 2.5 bays, and using SSDs. The two questions that come to mind are: Is this a good use of SSDs? I honestly don't know if the running VMs would benefit from the faster IO or not (I *think* the answer is a resounding yes)? Yes, the I/O would be faster, although how significant totally depends on your workload pattern. The bottleneck would be the LAN, though. The peak bandwidth of SATA is 6 GB/s = 48 Gbps. You'll need active/active multipathing and/or bonded interfaces to cater for that firehose. Next is RAID... I've avoided RAID5 (and RAID6) like the plague ever since I almost got bit really badly by a multiple drive failure... luckily, the RAID5 had just finished rebuilding successfully after the first drive failed, before the second drive failed. I can't tell you how many years I aged that day while it was rebuilding after replacing the second failed drive. Ever since, I've always used RAID10. Ahh, the Cadillac of RAID arrays :-) So... with SSDs, I think another advantage would be much faster rebuilds after a failed drive? So I could maybe start using RAID6 (would survive two simultaneous disk failures), and not lose so much available storage (50% with RAID10)? If you're using ZFS with spinning disks as its vdev 'elements', resilvering (rebuilding the RAID array) would be somewhat faster because ZFS knows what needs to be resilvered (i.e., used blocks) and skip over parts that don't need to be resilvered (i.e., unused blocks). Last... while researching this, I ran across a very interesting article that I'd appreciate hearing opinions on. The Benefits of a Flash Only, SAN-less Virtual Architecture: http://www.storage-switzerland.com/Articles/Entries/2012/9/20_The_Benefits_of_a_Flash_Only,_SAN-less_Virtual_Architecture.html or http://tinyurl.com/khwuspo Anyway, I look forward to hearing thoughts on this... Interesting... Another alternative for performance is to buy a bunch of spinning disks (let's say, 12 of them 'enterprise'-grade disks), join them into a ZFS Pool of 5 mirrored vdevs (that is, a RAID10 a la ZFS) + 2 spares, then use 4 SSDs to hold the ZFS Cache and Intent Log. The capital expenditure for the gained capacity should be cheaper, but with a very acceptable performance. Rgds, --
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Peter Humphrey wrote: On Saturday 20 Jul 2013 12:26:04 Alan McKinnon wrote: Neil is jerking your chain :-) Remember, he's an Englishman and they don't do slapstick humour, they do clever and subtle humour. I'm another, and I've been tempted to make the same observation as Neil did, but I wouldn't have been so funny so I'm glad I left it to him :-) And I thought I was typing a large B instead of a little b. I'm not used to having two capitol letters next to each other I guess. Either way, I had a little b next to the drive sizes too. lol Neil, you know how payback is right? ROFL Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
pk wrote: On 2013-07-20 13:59, luis jure wrote: the average home user has lots of useless crap. i know *i* do... Yes, I do too... So the answer is smaller disks in order not to accumulate so much crap! ;-) Best regards Peter K I have to say, most of mine is useful stuff. I have smaller files that show the wiring for my car speaker system. I have documents that I sent to Social Security and State offices concerning my disability. I also have some financial info, encrypted of course, stored here. My smaller stuff is important to keep. My larger stuff is videos and camera pics. Just as examples: 9.4G/home/dale/Desktop/Music 1.1T/home/dale/Desktop/Videos 16G /home/dale/Desktop/Documents/Camera-pics 5.2G/home/dale/Desktop/Documents/Kathie-camera 4.4G/home/dale/Desktop/Documents/Recipes That's just a example. You may notice, videos is by far the largest thing I have tho. It takes up a LOT of space. I may could clean up some of that stuff a bit but it wouldn't be much. I generally store stuff in a temp location until I know if I need it long term. Stuff like exploded views of my washing machine. When I know it is the right one for my washing machine, I move it to a permanent location. If it turns out to be the wrong one or I can't fix the appliance, I chunk the appliance and then trash the files too. I also keep the last two versions of sysrescue for my USB stick. That reminds me, I need to test the latest one to make sure it works, when I reboot again. :/ Yea, I'm one weird cookie. lol Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 15:02:48 -0500, Dale wrote: I also keep the last two versions of sysrescue for my USB stick. How do you copy one to a stick when you need to rescue an unbootable system? I prefer to keep the ISO in /boot, no need for a USB stick then. -- Neil Bothwick By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:50:47 -0500, Dale wrote: Changing the case of the b around is not going to change what space my data consumes or what a drive can hold. No, but it does change the meaning of what you are saying it uses, and invalidates your sig in the process :) Remember *nix is case-sensitive :) -- Neil Bothwick Mmmm, trouble with grammer have I, yes? - Yoda signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 12:26:04 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: Remember, he's an Englishman and they don't do slapstick humour, they do clever and subtle humour. Have you never seen Monty Python or The Goodies? PS, let me know when you think this is getting off-topic... -- Neil Bothwick If at first you don't succeed, well...darn. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 14:50:29 -0500, Dale wrote: Neil, you know how payback is right? ROFL That's the one with Mel Gibson? -- Neil Bothwick Top Oxymorons Number 35: Legally drunk signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 10:43:39PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
How do you copy one to a stick when you need to rescue an unbootable
system? I prefer to keep the ISO in /boot, no need for a USB stick then.
Would you mind a short HOW-TO for that, including {lilo,grub}.conf?
And would this only be applicable to those poor souls who don't keep a known,
good kernel in /boot Just In Case (TM)?
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A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 17:00:21 -0500, Bruce Hill wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 10:43:39PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
How do you copy one to a stick when you need to rescue an unbootable
system? I prefer to keep the ISO in /boot, no need for a USB stick
then.
Would you mind a short HOW-TO for that, including {lilo,grub}.conf?
http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_Easy_install_SystemRescueCd_on_harddisk#Boot_the_ISO_image_from_the_disk_using_Grub2
And would this only be applicable to those poor souls who don't keep a
known, good kernel in /boot Just In Case (TM)?
A known, good kernel is not much help if your root filesystem is damaged,
although I do make sure I always have at least one such kernel in /boot.
One of the benefits of booting sysrescd this way is that it is a *lot*
faster than USB.
--
Neil Bothwick
Windows Error #56: Operator fell asleep while waiting.
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Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 11:20:30PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
Would you mind a short HOW-TO for that, including {lilo,grub}.conf?
http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_Easy_install_SystemRescueCd_on_harddisk#Boot_the_ISO_image_from_the_disk_using_Grub2
And would this only be applicable to those poor souls who don't keep a
known, good kernel in /boot Just In Case (TM)?
A known, good kernel is not much help if your root filesystem is damaged,
although I do make sure I always have at least one such kernel in /boot.
One of the benefits of booting sysrescd this way is that it is a *lot*
faster than USB.
Thanks. I assume you must have a separate /boot partition in case your root
filesystem is damaged or this still doesn't help, eh?
--
Happy Penguin Computers ')
126 Fenco Drive ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801 ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 17:38:59 -0500, Bruce Hill wrote: A known, good kernel is not much help if your root filesystem is damaged, although I do make sure I always have at least one such kernel in /boot. Thanks. I assume you must have a separate /boot partition in case your root filesystem is damaged or this still doesn't help, eh? Yes, and it's mounted ro to minimise the risk of such damage. -- Neil Bothwick Top Oxymorons Number 15: Extinct Life signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 21/07/13 06:42, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 17:38:59 -0500, Bruce Hill wrote: A known, good kernel is not much help if your root filesystem is damaged, although I do make sure I always have at least one such kernel in /boot. Thanks. I assume you must have a separate /boot partition in case your root filesystem is damaged or this still doesn't help, eh? Yes, and it's mounted ro to minimise the risk of such damage. I used to do this (keeping a rescue partitio) ... but found it was useful only some of the time. Nowadays I just leave a sysrescuecd USB key on top of the case :) Same features, useful in more circumstances, less maintenance overhead. BillK
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 07:02:35 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote: Yes, and it's mounted ro to minimise the risk of such damage. I used to do this (keeping a rescue partitio) ... but found it was useful only some of the time. Nowadays I just leave a sysrescuecd USB key on top of the case :) Same features, useful in more circumstances, less maintenance overhead. This sin't a rescue partition, it's just a GRUB menu entry and a copy f the ISO in /boot, so far less maintenance even than making sure a USB stick stays put. Plus it is much faster to boot. -- Neil Bothwick Irritable? Who the bloody hell are you calling irritable? signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
2013/7/19 luis jure l...@internet.com.uy on 2013-07-18 at 23:40 Davide De Prisco wrote: I created partitions with fdisk and then I usually push all in with dd from the old disk. For the grub you can install it like a normal disk. did you use GPT or plain old MBR? so there's nothing special with grub and gpt partitioned disks? thanks for your answer, lj Sorry, I usually use MBR Davide
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
luis jure wrote: hello list, i want to migrate my system, currently in a HD, to a new SSD. i thought it would be easy, but i decided to read a little before partitioning the disk (my first SDD) and now i'm really confused... i intend to have only two partitions in the SSD: one for / and the other for /home. i have another HD for storage, where i'm going to put swap. apparently it's better to use a GPT partitioning. are there any catches i should take into account? what about grub, can i just install it later on the ssd? thanks for any comment or pointers, i found so many different guides saying different things that i'm really confused. best, lj Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 19/07/2013 08:56, Dale wrote: luis jure wrote: hello list, i want to migrate my system, currently in a HD, to a new SSD. i thought it would be easy, but i decided to read a little before partitioning the disk (my first SDD) and now i'm really confused... i intend to have only two partitions in the SSD: one for / and the other for /home. i have another HD for storage, where i'm going to put swap. apparently it's better to use a GPT partitioning. are there any catches i should take into account? what about grub, can i just install it later on the ssd? thanks for any comment or pointers, i found so many different guides saying different things that i'm really confused. best, lj Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? Why not? /home is the most frequently-read directory on most systems, and SSD is ideal for that. If you are concerned about wear-levelling, /home is not the danger point -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Alan McKinnon wrote: On 19/07/2013 08:56, Dale wrote: luis jure wrote: hello list, i want to migrate my system, currently in a HD, to a new SSD. i thought it would be easy, but i decided to read a little before partitioning the disk (my first SDD) and now i'm really confused... i intend to have only two partitions in the SSD: one for / and the other for /home. i have another HD for storage, where i'm going to put swap. apparently it's better to use a GPT partitioning. are there any catches i should take into account? what about grub, can i just install it later on the ssd? thanks for any comment or pointers, i found so many different guides saying different things that i'm really confused. best, lj Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? Why not? /home is the most frequently-read directory on most systems, and SSD is ideal for that. If you are concerned about wear-levelling, /home is not the danger point Interesting. I'm not sure I would want mine on a SSD even if it would fit on one. The only part that might help would be my .kde and .mozilla directory. I'm going to get me one of these things one of these days tho. I almost got one a while back that was on sale but they had sold out. :/ Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 03:22:11 -0500, Dale wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? Why not? /home is the most frequently-read directory on most systems, and SSD is ideal for that. If you are concerned about wear-levelling, /home is not the danger point Interesting. I'm not sure I would want mine on a SSD even if it would fit on one. The only part that might help would be my .kde and .mozilla directory. SSDs are not like USB flash drives, and it's been years since I managed to wear one of those out (mainly due to a kernel bug). They have lifetimes similar to spinny disks these days. -- Neil Bothwick If you got the words it does not mean you got the knowledge. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 03:22:11 -0500, Dale wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? Why not? /home is the most frequently-read directory on most systems, and SSD is ideal for that. If you are concerned about wear-levelling, /home is not the danger point Interesting. I'm not sure I would want mine on a SSD even if it would fit on one. The only part that might help would be my .kde and .mozilla directory. SSDs are not like USB flash drives, and it's been years since I managed to wear one of those out (mainly due to a kernel bug). They have lifetimes similar to spinny disks these days. Now I really feel about better getting one. That was my concern and reason for the question. I'm sure /home gets its share of reads and writes and was thinking the writes would cause a problem over time. Maybe they are better now than they was a while back. Thanks for the update. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
2013/7/19 Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 03:22:11 -0500, Dale wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? Why not? /home is the most frequently-read directory on most systems, and SSD is ideal for that. If you are concerned about wear-levelling, /home is not the danger point Interesting. I'm not sure I would want mine on a SSD even if it would fit on one. The only part that might help would be my .kde and .mozilla directory. SSDs are not like USB flash drives, and it's been years since I managed to wear one of those out (mainly due to a kernel bug). They have lifetimes similar to spinny disks these days. Now I really feel about better getting one. That was my concern and reason for the question. I'm sure /home gets its share of reads and writes and was thinking the writes would cause a problem over time. Maybe they are better now than they was a while back. Thanks for the update. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words! I came across the topic of SSD writes when setting up my laptop with an ssd and the question, is a tmpfs vor /var/tmp/portage or swapfile on SSD a good idea? At some point I found this at ArchWiki page about SSDs[1], but I don't know how up to date or correct this is. A 32GB SSD with a mediocre 10x write amplification factor, a standard 1 write/erase cycle, and 10GB of data written per day, would get an 8 years life expectancy. It gets better with bigger SSDs and modern controllers with less write amplification. Now I have /var/tmp/portage on tmpfs and a swapfile on the SSD, but I think the drive will last for the next years so i don't have to worry much about it. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards Randolph Maaßen
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 07/19/2013 11:33:33 AM, Randolph Maaßen wrote: 2013/7/19 Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com Neil Bothwick wrote: SSDs are not like USB flash drives, and it's been years since I managed to wear one of those out (mainly due to a kernel bug). They have lifetimes similar to spinny disks these days. Perhaps this recent thread makes it clearer : http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/02/19/1326239/taking-a-hard-look-at-ssd-write-endurance Helmut
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 1:56 AM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? My first step into SSD on my desktop was to put everything-but-home onto it. I left home on a HDD. Speedup was very noticeable! Especially portage-related things were very much faster (accessing thousands of small files). I later added a second SSD for home, but kept the old HDD for huge directories like photos, videos, downloads, ISOs/virtual disk images, Steam games folder, etc. There was honestly not a very appreciable speedup from adding the home SSD, in my opinion. But that probably depends highly on individual usage patterns.
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
on 2013-07-19 at 01:56 Dale wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? well, not actually the whole /home, the SSD is too small for that. i'm not sure yet, i might keep /home on a HDD and mount the partition on the SSD as a directory under /home for some special uses. or the other way around...
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 03:55:37AM -0500, Dale wrote: Now I really feel about better getting one. That was my concern and reason for the question. I'm sure /home gets its share of reads and writes and was thinking the writes would cause a problem over time. Maybe they are better now than they was a while back. Thanks for the update. Dale The OCZs I've purchased have 3-5 year warranty, also. Most of the mechanical hard drives you purchase today only have one year. I won't buy any SATA mechanical drives except Hitachi. -- Happy Penguin Computers ') 126 Fenco Drive ( \ Tupelo, MS 38801 ^^ supp...@happypenguincomputers.com 662-269-2706 662-205-6424 http://happypenguincomputers.com/ A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:45:36 +0100, Mick wrote: I have a MUCH smaller /home than Dale and on a new box I was thinking of having it on a HDD, along with all things portage related. I typically resync 3 -4 times a week but I am not sure how much erase/write cycles this represents. Also, /home is written all the time with mail and various application profile folders, browser cache and what have you. Which is why you want it on the fastest device possible. The whole point of a faster drive is to speed up IO intensive operations. If you then consign specifically those operations to the old HDD, why bother? Thing like video files can go on a hard drive because they are read far more slowly than the drive's speed anyway. Am I being too cautious with current technology SSDs? Yes. -- Neil Bothwick During a raid on a local chemist's shop, 2000 Viagra tablets were stolen Police are looking for hardened criminals! signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:43:39 -0500, Dale wrote: My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. 1Tb is only 125GB, well within the capacity of current SSDs :P Switching to an SSD, particularly on a laptop where you can't add a second drive, really helps you decide how much of the content of ~ you really need. -- Neil Bothwick Weird enough for government work. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday 19 Jul 2013 17:43:39 Dale wrote: luis jure wrote: on 2013-07-19 at 01:56 Dale wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? well, not actually the whole /home, the SSD is too small for that. i'm not sure yet, i might keep /home on a HDD and mount the partition on the SSD as a directory under /home for some special uses. or the other way around... Size was one issue I thought of but I was more concerned with the wear and tear part but that was explained by others. It seems that is not as much a issue any more. At one time, I had a /data directory. I stored large stuff there: camera pics, videos, audio stuff and such. If you put /home on SSD, you could always put the larger stuff on another mount point. One thing about Linux, you can mount stuff wherever you want. Post back how it works out and any speed improvements you see. I'm really curious since I would like to get one that is at least big enough for the OS itself. My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. lol Dale :-) :-) I have a MUCH smaller /home than Dale and on a new box I was thinking of having it on a HDD, along with all things portage related. I typically resync 3 -4 times a week but I am not sure how much erase/write cycles this represents. Also, /home is written all the time with mail and various application profile folders, browser cache and what have you. That's why I was thinking that /usr/portage, /var/tmp/portage, /var/log, /home and /swap were candidates for HDD. /usr/portage is one of the things that benefits the most from being on a SSD, thousands of tiny files scattered all over the place. It really is a tremendous difference compared to running portage on a HDD. I guess the rest under / does not change that often and a weekly or even monthly back up would be all that is necessary to facilitate recovery when the SSD dies on me. Am I being too cautious with current technology SSDs? I think you are. Unless you are moving massive terabytes of data across your drive on a constant basis I would not worry about regular everyday write activity being a problem. I think the SSD is more likely to die due to electrical shock or surge than by normal wear and tear. Of course backups are always a good idea, no matter what. :) Old SSDs that did not support TRIM would suffer write amplification after a certain amount of data had been written to them, but any modern SSD and modern OS will keep it nice and tidy. BTW, unless anyone advises differently, I was thinking of buying a SanDisk Extreme II, SATA III, 2.5 240GB SSD. I read that its SLC cache improves speed and reliability, but I don't know if true. My personal experience is with these: Samsung 830, 128GB Samsung 840, 250GB Intel 330, 180GB Sandisk Extreme, 120GB Sandisk Extreme, 240GB (note mine are the older Extreme, not the new Extreme II's that you're looking at) The Samsung 830 and Intel 330 are the winners, they consistently had the best random read/write performance in my testing, as well as intangible feeling of responsiveness. The Samsung 840 had lower write speeds (because it is TLC). The Sandisk Extreme had a bit worse random I/O performance than the leaders, but still not bad. The worst part about the Sandisks was that it took them forever to release a firmware upgrade. They used the infamous buggy Sandforce firmware, which every other SSD maker released fixes for, but it took Sandisk what seemed like an eternity to finally make it available.
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
luis jure wrote: on 2013-07-19 at 01:56 Dale wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? well, not actually the whole /home, the SSD is too small for that. i'm not sure yet, i might keep /home on a HDD and mount the partition on the SSD as a directory under /home for some special uses. or the other way around... Size was one issue I thought of but I was more concerned with the wear and tear part but that was explained by others. It seems that is not as much a issue any more. At one time, I had a /data directory. I stored large stuff there: camera pics, videos, audio stuff and such. If you put /home on SSD, you could always put the larger stuff on another mount point. One thing about Linux, you can mount stuff wherever you want. Post back how it works out and any speed improvements you see. I'm really curious since I would like to get one that is at least big enough for the OS itself. My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. lol Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
on 2013-07-19 at 12:47 Bruce Hill wrote: The OCZs I've purchased have 3-5 year warranty, also. Most of the mechanical hard drives you purchase today only have one year. I won't buy any SATA mechanical drives except Hitachi. i got 5 years on a 4Tb western digital caviar black i bought a couple of days ago. for my part i have been buying only WD for internal HDDs for many years now (like more than 10 years).
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 07:00:59PM -0300, luis jure wrote: the system has been up just a few minutes, so i haven't had time to do much. but i tried eix-sync and it seemed to me it went much faster. also libreoffice opened in i think less than 2 seconds, instead of several seconds like in my old HDD (a WD green, not particularly fast...). so, all in all i'd venture that yes, the improvement is noticeable. lj Do some meaningful benchmark... emerge -ajv app-benchmarks/bonnie++ bonnie++ -d /tmp -u root then post us your output. Cheers, Bruce -- Happy Penguin Computers ') 126 Fenco Drive ( \ Tupelo, MS 38801 ^^ supp...@happypenguincomputers.com 662-269-2706 662-205-6424 http://happypenguincomputers.com/ A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
hi, i just booted my new system. migration using rsync was smooth. i had to fight a little with grub2 and gpt, but now it seems everything is working fine. the system has been up just a few minutes, so i haven't had time to do much. but i tried eix-sync and it seemed to me it went much faster. also libreoffice opened in i think less than 2 seconds, instead of several seconds like in my old HDD (a WD green, not particularly fast...). so, all in all i'd venture that yes, the improvement is noticeable. on 2013-07-19 at 11:43 Dale wrote: At one time, I had a /data directory. I stored large stuff there: camera pics, videos, audio stuff and such. If you put /home on SSD, you could always put the larger stuff on another mount point. yeah, that's the idea. for a moment i considered doing the opposite: leaving my home in its current HDD, and mount the SSD partition under /home for some special purposes. but i think the other way around is a better idea. best, lj
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 20/07/13 00:43, Dale wrote: luis jure wrote: on 2013-07-19 at 01:56 Dale wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? well, not actually the whole /home, the SSD is too small for that. i'm not sure yet, i might keep /home on a HDD and mount the partition on the SSD as a directory under /home for some special uses. or the other way around... Size was one issue I thought of but I was more concerned with the wear and tear part but that was explained by others. It seems that is not as much a issue any more. At one time, I had a /data directory. I stored large stuff there: camera pics, videos, audio stuff and such. If you put /home on SSD, you could always put the larger stuff on another mount point. One thing about Linux, you can mount stuff wherever you want. Post back how it works out and any speed improvements you see. I'm really curious since I would like to get one that is at least big enough for the OS itself. My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. lol Dale :-) :-) One odd condition I ran into twice with the ssd + btrfs were filesystems about half full but cant write to because the filesystem was full! After messy crashes it seemed like btrfs would lose some files/sectors/whatever and the only way I could recover was an erase cycle (IBM 520 series). It wasnt sub-volumes or other wrinkles as far as I could see, just that btrfs/trim and the underlying disk didn't agree and I couldn't figure out why ... For my use case, having good backups (regularly tested by actually needing to use them :) have been an integral part of my ssd experiences :) On the other side, the apple laptop with ssd + btrfs on root has been problem free. BillK
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:43:39 -0500, Dale wrote: My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. 1Tb is only 125GB, well within the capacity of current SSDs :P Switching to an SSD, particularly on a laptop where you can't add a second drive, really helps you decide how much of the content of ~ you really need. Mine is mostly videos and some smaller amount of pics. 1 Tb is 125Gb? 1Tb is 1,000Gb or so. I would also be concerned about the cost of one that large too. Confused. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 06:29:21AM +0800, William Kenworthy wrote: One odd condition I ran into twice with the ssd + btrfs were filesystems about half full but cant write to because the filesystem was full! After messy crashes it seemed like btrfs would lose some files/sectors/whatever and the only way I could recover was an erase cycle (IBM 520 series). It wasnt sub-volumes or other wrinkles as far as I could see, just that btrfs/trim and the underlying disk didn't agree and I couldn't figure out why ... For my use case, having good backups (regularly tested by actually needing to use them :) have been an integral part of my ssd experiences :) On the other side, the apple laptop with ssd + btrfs on root has been problem free. BillK Everyone I know who uses BTRFS tells me they MUST keep backups, because of such as that. It seems it's just not yet ready for prime time. I used EXT4 in the past, and now XFS, and never had any data loss. Just my 2c and experience. -- Happy Penguin Computers ') 126 Fenco Drive ( \ Tupelo, MS 38801 ^^ supp...@happypenguincomputers.com 662-269-2706 662-205-6424 http://happypenguincomputers.com/ A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
on 2013-07-19 at 18:03 Dale wrote: Mine is mostly videos and some smaller amount of pics. 1 Tb is 125Gb? 1Tb is 1,000Gb or so. hehe... i guess neil meant that in average for each Tb you have in your disk, only 125Mb is really important or useful. the rest is crap that just piles up...
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
on 2013-07-19 at 17:11 Bruce Hill wrote: Do some meaningful benchmark... emerge -ajv app-benchmarks/bonnie++ bonnie++ -d /tmp -u root then post us your output. mmm... /tmp is on the root partition that's only about 40 Gb (in my old HDD / was 30Gb, and that was enough, but sometimes i had to clean a bit to compile libreoffice, that checks for 6Gb free). apparently that's not enough for bonnie++ to run, so i mounted the other partition in the SSD and performed the benchmark there. here's the result : Using uid:0, gid:0. Writing a byte at a time...done Writing intelligently...done Rewriting...done Reading a byte at a time...done Reading intelligently...done start 'em...done...done...done...done...done... Create files in sequential order...done. Stat files in sequential order...done. Delete files in sequential order...done. Create files in random order...done. Stat files in random order...done. Delete files in random order...done. Version 1.97 --Sequential Output-- --Sequential Input- --Random- Concurrency 1 -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks-- MachineSize K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP acme724016M 571 98 261698 22 133029 14 4272 99 287927 12 8057 53 Latency 23779us 78780us 591ms2378us 51825us 892ms Version 1.97 --Sequential Create-- Random Create acme7 -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP 16 18593 19 + +++ + +++ + +++ + +++ + +++ Latency 2033us 419us1322us 109us 4us 33us 1.97,1.97,acme7,1,1374260412,24016M,,571,98,261698,22,133029,14,4272,99,287927,12,8057,53,16,18593,19,+,+++,+,+++,+,+++,+,+++,+,+++,23779us,78780us,591ms,2378us,51825us,892ms,2033us,419us,1322us,109us,4us,33us can you read that? i'm afraid i don't know much what those numbers mean in terms of performance...
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
luis jure wrote: on 2013-07-19 at 12:47 Bruce Hill wrote: The OCZs I've purchased have 3-5 year warranty, also. Most of the mechanical hard drives you purchase today only have one year. I won't buy any SATA mechanical drives except Hitachi. i got 5 years on a 4Tb western digital caviar black i bought a couple of days ago. for my part i have been buying only WD for internal HDDs for many years now (like more than 10 years). I have drives that are very old and still running. The only drive I have ever had to really fail, WD. It had a lot more than 5 years of run time too. I generally run my rig 24/7 here. That drive was about 8 years old or maybe older. It also wasn't in the best place for cooling either, unlike my new Cooler Master HAF-932 case where the fans blow directly on the drives. Warranty is only the time it is guaranteed to work not how long it will work. I still buy WD drives too. I got several of them buggers here. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
luis jure wrote: on 2013-07-19 at 18:03 Dale wrote: Mine is mostly videos and some smaller amount of pics. 1 Tb is 125Gb? 1Tb is 1,000Gb or so. hehe... i guess neil meant that in average for each Tb you have in your disk, only 125Mb is really important or useful. the rest is crap that just piles up... Ahh, that makes sense. Thing is, I can't get rid of family photos or my videos. Nope, just ain't happening. Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on 2.7T 1.2T 1.6T 43%/home I think first, I'm going to get another 3 or 4Tb drive to back up what I got. ;-) Then I can get a SSD unless I see another really good sale. I think I could get my OS on a 30Gb SSD with no problem and plenty of breathing room. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
luis jure wrote: on 2013-07-19 at 18:39 Dale wrote: I think I could get my OS on a 30Gb SSD with no problem and plenty of breathing room. i had a 30Tb partition for my system in my old HDD, and the breathing space wasn't quite plenty. often i found myself with less than the 6Gb free required by libreoffice to compile, and i had to clean up a bit. other than that yes, 30Gb is more than enough. in this new SSD i just installed i made a partition of 40Gb for / . I have portages work directory on tmpfs so no issue there. My only thing, I separate /, /usr, /var portages tree and such. Of course, if I put them on LVM, except for / itself, then I can move things around a bit and still not have a init thingy to deal with. My current setup while snipping the useless stuff: root@fireball / # mount /dev/sda6 on / type ext4 (rw,commit=0) /dev/sda1 on /boot type ext2 (rw) /dev/mapper/OS-usr on /usr type ext4 (rw,commit=0) /dev/mapper/OS-var on /var type ext4 (rw,commit=0) /dev/mapper/home-home on /home type ext4 (rw,commit=0) /dev/mapper/backup-backup on /backup type ext4 (rw,commit=0) tmpfs on /var/tmp/portage type tmpfs (rw,noatime) root@fireball / # I may try to get a 60Gb or something tho, just in case. Depends on what is on sale tho. ;-) Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 6:03 PM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:43:39 -0500, Dale wrote: My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. 1Tb is only 125GB, well within the capacity of current SSDs :P Switching to an SSD, particularly on a laptop where you can't add a second drive, really helps you decide how much of the content of ~ you really need. Mine is mostly videos and some smaller amount of pics. 1 Tb is 125Gb? 1Tb is 1,000Gb or so. I would also be concerned about the cost of one that large too. Confused. Watch out for the b vs B... bits-vs-bytes :)
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
on 2013-07-19 at 18:39 Dale wrote: Ahh, that makes sense. Thing is, I can't get rid of family photos or my videos. Nope, just ain't happening. yeah, the same here... my 2Tb HD was almost full, so i bought a new 4Tb disk. and it's a nice feeling having all that space free... I think I could get my OS on a 30Gb SSD with no problem and plenty of breathing room. i had a 30Tb partition for my system in my old HDD, and the breathing space wasn't quite plenty. often i found myself with less than the 6Gb free required by libreoffice to compile, and i had to clean up a bit. other than that yes, 30Gb is more than enough. in this new SSD i just installed i made a partition of 40Gb for / .
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Paul Hartman wrote: On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 6:03 PM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:43:39 -0500, Dale wrote: My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. 1Tb is only 125GB, well within the capacity of current SSDs :P Switching to an SSD, particularly on a laptop where you can't add a second drive, really helps you decide how much of the content of ~ you really need. Mine is mostly videos and some smaller amount of pics. 1 Tb is 125Gb? 1Tb is 1,000Gb or so. I would also be concerned about the cost of one that large too. Confused. Watch out for the b vs B... bits-vs-bytes :) I always use the same as what is specified on the drive itself to prevent just that sort of confusion. I also go by the human readable output of df as well. Sometimes du if needed. Changing the case of the b around is not going to change what space my data consumes or what a drive can hold. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 08:58:59PM -0300, luis jure wrote: i had a 30Tb partition for my system in my old HDD, and the breathing space wasn't quite plenty. often i found myself with less than the 6Gb free required by libreoffice to compile, and i had to clean up a bit. other than that yes, 30Gb is more than enough. in this new SSD i just installed i made a partition of 40Gb for / . Stop using disk and build in RAM: tmpfs /var/tmp/portagetmpfs size=7000M,nr_inodes=1M 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shmtmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0 workstation ~ # free -m total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem: 15798 3711 12087 0 0937 -/+ buffers/cache: 2772 13025 Swap: 8103 0 8103 -- Happy Penguin Computers ') 126 Fenco Drive ( \ Tupelo, MS 38801 ^^ supp...@happypenguincomputers.com 662-269-2706 662-205-6424 http://happypenguincomputers.com/ A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:47 PM, Bruce Hill da...@happypenguincomputers.com wrote: I won't buy any SATA mechanical drives except Hitachi. Hitachi's storage division was sold off and split up last year. Their 2.5 HDD and SDD lines now belong to Western Digital (who continue to sell the *Star models under the HGST brand name), while their 3.5 HDD lines now belong to Toshiba who are selling them under the Toshiba brand name. Toshiba never made 3.5 HDD's before, and they purchased Hitachi's brands, designs, patents and factories relating to 3.5 HDDs. Many of the Toshiba HDD's being sold today, in Toshiba boxes with Toshiba labels and new model numbers, in fact still have the Hitachi brand name and model number embedded in the chipset when you hook it up to your computer.
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Friday 19 Jul 2013 17:43:39 Dale wrote: luis jure wrote: on 2013-07-19 at 01:56 Dale wrote: Do you really want to put /home on a SSD? well, not actually the whole /home, the SSD is too small for that. i'm not sure yet, i might keep /home on a HDD and mount the partition on the SSD as a directory under /home for some special uses. or the other way around... Size was one issue I thought of but I was more concerned with the wear and tear part but that was explained by others. It seems that is not as much a issue any more. At one time, I had a /data directory. I stored large stuff there: camera pics, videos, audio stuff and such. If you put /home on SSD, you could always put the larger stuff on another mount point. One thing about Linux, you can mount stuff wherever you want. Post back how it works out and any speed improvements you see. I'm really curious since I would like to get one that is at least big enough for the OS itself. My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. lol Dale :-) :-) I have a MUCH smaller /home than Dale and on a new box I was thinking of having it on a HDD, along with all things portage related. I typically resync 3 -4 times a week but I am not sure how much erase/write cycles this represents. Also, /home is written all the time with mail and various application profile folders, browser cache and what have you. That's why I was thinking that /usr/portage, /var/tmp/portage, /var/log, /home and /swap were candidates for HDD. I guess the rest under / does not change that often and a weekly or even monthly back up would be all that is necessary to facilitate recovery when the SSD dies on me. Am I being too cautious with current technology SSDs? BTW, unless anyone advises differently, I was thinking of buying a SanDisk Extreme II, SATA III, 2.5 240GB SSD. I read that its SLC cache improves speed and reliability, but I don't know if true. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Bruce Hill wrote: On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 08:58:59PM -0300, luis jure wrote: i had a 30Tb partition for my system in my old HDD, and the breathing space wasn't quite plenty. often i found myself with less than the 6Gb free required by libreoffice to compile, and i had to clean up a bit. other than that yes, 30Gb is more than enough. in this new SSD i just installed i made a partition of 40Gb for / . Stop using disk and build in RAM: tmpfs /var/tmp/portagetmpfs size=7000M,nr_inodes=1M 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shmtmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0 workstation ~ # free -m total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem: 15798 3711 12087 0 0937 -/+ buffers/cache: 2772 13025 Swap: 8103 0 8103 He may not have enough to do that tho. Some folks only have 4Gbs or less still. That won't be enough for LOo. Heck, my 16Gbs wasn't enough at one time. I had to either let it be on HDD or set it to a higher amount than the default half. I also tested the time difference once before, it didn't really make much difference. It just saves wear on a drive is all. Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration - caveat
On 20/07/13 07:44, luis jure wrote: from my recent experience, a caveat if you're using GPT to partition your disk and intend to boot from it: grub won't install on the disk (at least if you have an old plain BIOS system, i understand this doesn't happen with UEFI ??? ). when i tried to run grub2-install i got this error message: this GPT partition label contains no BIOS Boot Partition so i had to re-partition the disk and create a small partition at the beginning without file system and with the bios_grub flag activated. after that grub installed OK, and i can boot from my GPT partitioned SSD. i don't know if this can be of use to somebody. best, lj You have to map the drive so grub can find it: olympus ~ # cat /boot/grub/device.map (hd0) /dev/sda olympus Also, you can put the boot MBR on any disk - even an old spinner and still have root on the ssd (as above, my ssd is actually /dev/sdd), but the motherboard cant find any (non-usb) boot device unless I create a device.map) - once grub is installed its fine and I think I could delete it. BillK
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 20 July 2013, at 00:03, Dale wrote: Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:43:39 -0500, Dale wrote: My /home is over 1Tb, that is Tb too. I'm not buying one big enough for all that. 1Tb is only 125GB, well within the capacity of current SSDs :P ... Mine is mostly videos and some smaller amount of pics. 1 Tb is 125Gb? 1Tb is 1,000Gb or so. I would also be concerned about the cost of one that large too. I wouldn't have bothered making this distinction, but I think: 1TB = 1000GB 1Tb = 125GB HTH, Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 08:34:27PM -0500, Dale wrote: Stop using disk and build in RAM: tmpfs /var/tmp/portagetmpfs size=7000M,nr_inodes=1M 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shmtmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0 workstation ~ # free -m total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem: 15798 3711 12087 0 0937 -/+ buffers/cache: 2772 13025 Swap: 8103 0 8103 He may not have enough to do that tho. Some folks only have 4Gbs or less still. That won't be enough for LOo. Heck, my 16Gbs wasn't enough at one time. I had to either let it be on HDD or set it to a higher amount than the default half. I also tested the time difference once before, it didn't really make much difference. It just saves wear on a drive is all. Dale If 16GB of RAM wasn't enough, ydiw. I've used that line of 7G forever, and run app-office/libreoffice, as well as firefox and some other big app (forget it's name) and _never_ had a problem. -- Happy Penguin Computers ') 126 Fenco Drive ( \ Tupelo, MS 38801 ^^ supp...@happypenguincomputers.com 662-269-2706 662-205-6424 http://happypenguincomputers.com/ A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 19 July 2013, at 19:58, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:45:36 +0100, Mick wrote: I have a MUCH smaller /home than Dale and on a new box I was thinking of having it on a HDD, along with all things portage related. … /home is written all the time with mail and various application profile folders, browser cache and what have you. Which is why you want it on the fastest device possible. The whole point of a faster drive is to speed up IO intensive operations. If you then consign specifically those operations to the old HDD, why bother? I don't know how any Linux apps compare, but I've found on the Mac in the past that defragmentation of a single browser file - I think it was the history file, and I think it was around 100meg in size - made a significant difference to Safari's behaviour. The difference can be so much on a heavily fragmented system that the browser could become unusable, yet snappy and responsive after copying the file and replacing it. This really illustrated to me how unaware I was of SSD / hard-disk behaviour. I aways thought I knew when ~ was being accessed - that's when I'm opening a photo or saving a letter, right? Well, I was wrong - files in home are being read and written not only every time the browser opens a webpage, but also lots of other times we're unaware of the activity. IMO this is why it's flawed to try and pick and mix which directories to put on an SSD. I mean, if you've ripped your DVD collection and you have terrabytes of movies then it's easy to exclude those, but nevertheless it's easy to accumulate so much crap that it'll no longer fit on an affordable SSD. IMO it should be left to the o/s to decide what should be on a spinning platter and what on an SSD. I don't know if these are yet good enough, but they're what I'd look at first: http://www.h-online.com/open/features/What-s-new-in-Linux-3-9-1845705.html http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_itempx=MTM2ODM Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration - caveat
on 2013-07-20 at 09:51 William Kenworthy wrote: You have to map the drive so grub can find it: no, i don't think that's the problem. the problem is that with GPT disks you need a BIOS Boot Partition since they don't have a MBR. is that correct? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Install_to_GPT_BIOS_boot_partition http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2012/10/the-difference-between-booting-mbr-and-gpt-with-grub/
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
Bruce Hill wrote: On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 08:34:27PM -0500, Dale wrote: Stop using disk and build in RAM: tmpfs /var/tmp/portagetmpfs size=7000M,nr_inodes=1M 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shmtmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0 workstation ~ # free -m total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem: 15798 3711 12087 0 0937 -/+ buffers/cache: 2772 13025 Swap: 8103 0 8103 He may not have enough to do that tho. Some folks only have 4Gbs or less still. That won't be enough for LOo. Heck, my 16Gbs wasn't enough at one time. I had to either let it be on HDD or set it to a higher amount than the default half. I also tested the time difference once before, it didn't really make much difference. It just saves wear on a drive is all. Dale If 16GB of RAM wasn't enough, ydiw. I've used that line of 7G forever, and run app-office/libreoffice, as well as firefox and some other big app (forget it's name) and _never_ had a problem. Well, a while back, OOo and LOo wanted more than 8Gbs. It wasn't my need but what portage looked for. Then someone did some changes and reduced that need and it worked. From my understanding, there was some code clean up that helped in that. I think it looks for 6Gbs now. From the ebuild: CHECKREQS_MEMORY=512M CHECKREQS_DISK_BUILD=6G It used to be more than that. If it didn't have enough, it stopped. Even when I would override that setting, it would still run out of space more often than not. As a matter of fact, I still have the command in my freq used commands file that I used to fix it: mount -t tmpfs -o size=12g tmpfs /var/tmp/portage Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration - caveat
from luis jure l...@internet.com.uy: on 2013-07-20 at 09:51 William Kenworthy wrote: You have to map the drive so grub can find it: no, i don't think that's the problem. the problem is that with GPT disks you need a BIOS Boot Partition since they don't have a MBR. is that correct? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Install_to_GPT_BIOS_boot_partition http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2012/10/the-difference-between-booting-mbr-and-gpt-with-grub/ I think to boot directly from a hard drive, you would need a BIOS Boot Partition or EFI System Partition, depending on whether the motherboard has legacy BIOS or UEFI. I still boot from a USB stick or System Rescue CD with Syslinux or isolinux and the GRUB2 giant-floppy image (not intended to be written to any actual floppy disk). I have also made FreeBSD and NetBSD installations on GPT-partitioned USB sticks without any GRUB, using a boot partition (FreeBSD) or installboot in the root partition (NetBSD), not sure how to do this with Linux. But this only works when one OS is installed on the drive, quite OK for a USB stick in most cases. Tom
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
I used ssd from workstation to server. I created partitions with fdisk and then I usually push all in with dd from the old disk. For the grub you can install it like a normal disk. If you want you can install a new system and then copy the home directory. The only directory that you can put on a normal disk is the portage's temp compiling dir. I saw on the WWW that someone are still working to a new filesystem that can be better to use with the ssd but I never test it. Good work. Davide Il giorno 18/lug/2013 23:23, luis jure l...@internet.com.uy ha scritto: hello list, i want to migrate my system, currently in a HD, to a new SSD. i thought it would be easy, but i decided to read a little before partitioning the disk (my first SDD) and now i'm really confused... i intend to have only two partitions in the SSD: one for / and the other for /home. i have another HD for storage, where i'm going to put swap. apparently it's better to use a GPT partitioning. are there any catches i should take into account? what about grub, can i just install it later on the ssd? thanks for any comment or pointers, i found so many different guides saying different things that i'm really confused. best, lj
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
on 2013-07-18 at 23:40 Davide De Prisco wrote: I created partitions with fdisk and then I usually push all in with dd from the old disk. For the grub you can install it like a normal disk. did you use GPT or plain old MBR? so there's nothing special with grub and gpt partitioned disks? thanks for your answer, lj
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 4:22 PM, luis jure l...@internet.com.uy wrote: hello list, Hi! i want to migrate my system, currently in a HD, to a new SSD. i thought it would be easy, but i decided to read a little before partitioning the disk (my first SDD) and now i'm really confused... i intend to have only two partitions in the SSD: one for / and the other for /home. i have another HD for storage, where i'm going to put swap. Sounds like a good plan. I used the same strategy here. apparently it's better to use a GPT partitioning. are there any catches i should take into account? what about grub, can i just install it later on the ssd? GPT is not required, if you use MBR it should work just as well. If you use GPT you must enable GUID partition table support in your kernel and ensure your boot loader supports it. thanks for any comment or pointers, i found so many different guides saying different things that i'm really confused. Here are the basic steps I used for doing the same thing: 1. partition SSD (start sector at a multiple of 1MB to ensure proper alignment) 2. format new partitions using discard-capable filesystem like ext4, xfs, btrfs 3. mount them in a temporary mount point 4. rsync your filesystem from old drive to new drive 5. edit /etc/fstab on the new drive to use the new mount points 6. edit boot loader config to point to correct drive 7. install boot loader on new drive if it becomes your new boot device 8. (optionally) swap drive cables so the new drive shows up first if it is your new boot device Depending on whether you use UUID, labels, or device names you may not need to change names or swap cables in your computer so drives show up in the correct order. Good luck :)
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
On 19/07/13 06:23, Paul Hartman wrote: On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 4:22 PM, luis jure l...@internet.com.uy wrote: hello list, Hi! i want to migrate my system, currently in a HD, to a new SSD. i thought it would be easy, but i decided to read a little before partitioning the disk (my first SDD) and now i'm really confused... i intend to have only two partitions in the SSD: one for / and the other for /home. i have another HD for storage, where i'm going to put swap. Sounds like a good plan. I used the same strategy here. apparently it's better to use a GPT partitioning. are there any catches i should take into account? what about grub, can i just install it later on the ssd? GPT is not required, if you use MBR it should work just as well. If you use GPT you must enable GUID partition table support in your kernel and ensure your boot loader supports it. thanks for any comment or pointers, i found so many different guides saying different things that i'm really confused. Here are the basic steps I used for doing the same thing: 1. partition SSD (start sector at a multiple of 1MB to ensure proper alignment) 2. format new partitions using discard-capable filesystem like ext4, xfs, btrfs 3. mount them in a temporary mount point 4. rsync your filesystem from old drive to new drive 5. edit /etc/fstab on the new drive to use the new mount points 6. edit boot loader config to point to correct drive 7. install boot loader on new drive if it becomes your new boot device 8. (optionally) swap drive cables so the new drive shows up first if it is your new boot device Depending on whether you use UUID, labels, or device names you may not need to change names or swap cables in your computer so drives show up in the correct order. Good luck :) Apple laptop (ssd only) - boot, swap and /. btrfs, very fast and stable but only gets light use. Storage server for data and VM's with an (intel) ssd for boot, swap and OS with data on WD 2G green drives (ceph cluster). btrfs was a disaster, etx4 is holding up ok but being an ssd I cant use reiserfs which is my first choice, particularly where a filesystem gets hammered. I tried a number of configurations and the ceph journals are a lot faster on ssd, and swap on ssd is also a big speedup (including hibernate/resume). Been running for few months now. With the apple I dont get a choice where to put swap (which even with 8G ram gets used) but tests between the server ssd and a 1rpm spinner sees the ssd win hands down most of the time. The ceph journals are definitely slower on spinner ... but did seem less prone to disaster. My main point is ssd's are fast, but make sure you have good backups if you are stressing them :) BillK
Re: [gentoo-user] SSD partitioning and migration
on 2013-07-18 at 17:23 Paul Hartman wrote: Hi! hi paul, thanks for your detailed answer! 1. partition SSD (start sector at a multiple of 1MB to ensure proper alignment) 2. format new partitions using discard-capable filesystem like ext4, xfs, btrfs yes and yes (using ext4) 4. rsync your filesystem from old drive to new drive yes, i found some info on that. i'm at that right now. 5. edit /etc/fstab on the new drive to use the new mount points yes, i'm using labels, so that part is easy. 6. edit boot loader config to point to correct drive 7. install boot loader on new drive if it becomes your new boot device well, it's been a long time since i last installed a new system... i'll have to re-check the docs about that. best, lj
