Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
Am 04.01.2010 21:50, schrieb Stefan G. Weichinger:
> I wonder if /var and /home should be on the ssd or not. It is very nice
> to have a silent machine ... but maybe this does more harm than good.
I had repeated I/O-errors while having /home on the ssd, with kernel
2.6.32-tuxonice and 2.6.32-tuxonice-r1 ... now I use my hdd-based /home
again and the errors are gone (so far, maybe the re-occur after sending
this mail, you know ...).
The home-related I/O-errors still happened after poweroff, the "fsck -f"
showed no errors.
example from /var/log/messages:
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x20
SErr 0x400100 action 0x6 frozen
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: irq_stat 0x0800, interface
fatal error
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5: SError: { UnrecovData Handshk }
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: cmd
61/08:28:38:d6:79/00:00:01:00:00/40 tag 5 ncq 4096 out
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: res 40/00:2c:38:d6:79/00:00:01:00:00/40
Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error)
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: status: { DRDY }
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5: hard resetting link
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123
SControl 300)
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: configured for UDMA/133
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5: EH complete
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: exception Emask 0x10 SAct
0x4000 SErr 0x400100 action 0x6 frozen
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: irq_stat 0x0800, interface
fatal error
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5: SError: { UnrecovData Handshk }
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: cmd
61/d0:f0:b0:d3:d9/01:00:02:00:00/40 tag 30 ncq 237568 out
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: res 40/00:f4:b0:d3:d9/00:00:02:00:00/40
Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error)
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: status: { DRDY }
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5: hard resetting link
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123
SControl 300)
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5.00: configured for UDMA/133
Jan 18 18:49:24 hiro kernel: ata5: EH complete
--
My root-fs is still on the ssd, root-fs AND home-fs are ext4 ...
Just for the records and discussion ...
Stefan
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
Am 25.12.2009 11:37, schrieb Stefan G. Weichinger: > What I still wonder: > > * I copied my gentoo over while the ssd still was on firmware 02HA, I > upgraded to 02HD (latest Intel-firmware for the X25-M G2) with the os > already on the drive. Does that somehow make a difference to data > written *after* the upgrade? I just wonder if I should somehow restart > from scratch with the new firmware, just to "do it right" or "get the > optimum". > http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7272 > > says: > >> So at the moment, ext4 informs the block layer that blocks that >> belong to deleted files can be discard, so once TRIM-capable SSD’s >> become available, and the Linux block layer actually sends the TRIM >> command to the hard drives, everything will be all set to go. Another follow-up-myself, just to document my tests: Repartitioned the ssd today, as Ted Ts'o describes at: http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/02/20/aligning-filesystems-to-an-ssds-erase-block-size/ Ok, this might not be necessary/helpful anymore for the Intel X25-M G2 ... but anyway, I had to get rid of those unnecessary XP-partitions anyway ;-) Wanted to do a secure erase with hdderase (on the ultimate boot cd), didn't detect my ssd even with AHCI off in bios and legacy mode ... also "hdparm --security-erase" didn't work. I decided to skip that and wait for TRIM in 2.6.33 or later. I wonder if /var and /home should be on the ssd or not. It is very nice to have a silent machine ... but maybe this does more harm than good. So far the ssd is nice to have. I am looking forward to try it inside my thinkpad someday ... Stefan
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
Am 20.12.2009 08:14, schrieb Alan McKinnon: > On Saturday 19 December 2009 12:19:05 Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: >> I expected more WOW in terms of overall speed ... > > SSDs are not a magic bullet, it's unlikely they will give you a > killer performance improvement that makes you go "WOW!!!" sad to hear ;-) > SSDs suck at random writes. Typical usage scenario on a workstation > is lots of random writes compared to relatively few random reads - > reads tend not to be all that random as you re-read the same thing > often and it gets cached. > > Intel SSDs are far superior at random writes than any other SSD out > there but it's still nowhere near as optimised as spinning drives, > and kernels by and large are still optimised for spinning drives > too. Acknowledged. Just for reference, I switched over to the noop-IO-scheduler and checked that /sys/block/sdX/queue/rotational is detected/set correctly at value 0 for the ssd. These are two ssd-related modifications I know of ... > This may account for your overall feeling of under-whelmedness why > still seeing a significant boot-time speed up. You also have enough > RAM so that almost an entire typical workstation session could fit in > RAM and seldom touch the disk especially with a large interval > between disk syncs Yes, you are right. Thanks. What I still wonder: * I copied my gentoo over while the ssd still was on firmware 02HA, I upgraded to 02HD (latest Intel-firmware for the X25-M G2) with the os already on the drive. Does that somehow make a difference to data written *after* the upgrade? I just wonder if I should somehow restart from scratch with the new firmware, just to "do it right" or "get the optimum". * The new firmware supports TRIM. As far as I understand, the block-layer in the linux kernel 2.6.32 does not yet support it, correct? Any way to use that command with my current 2.6.32? ext4 supports it (I use ext4 for the root-partition) but I am not sure if that is enough when libata does not? When I google I get different results, some saying the kernel supports TRIM since 2.6.28 ... Hmm, good info here: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7272 says: > So at the moment, ext4 informs the block layer that blocks that > belong to deleted files can be discard, so once TRIM-capable SSD’s > become available, and the Linux block layer actually sends the TRIM > command to the hard drives, everything will be all set to go. Does anyone have more recent info? Thanks, best greetings, have some peaceful days ... Stefan
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
On Saturday 19 December 2009 12:19:05 Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: > Am 19.12.2009 09:08, schrieb Stroller: > >> Could anyone comment? > > > > Might it help if you said WHY you're unimpressed? > > might be ;-) > > It seems as if my system doesn't benefit that much: > > With 8 gigs of RAM, suspend-to-ram, preload and only a handful of rather > lightweight binaries in regular use this system is already pretty fast > with hdds only. > > I expected more WOW in terms of overall speed ... SSDs are not a magic bullet, it's unlikely they will give you a killer performance improvement that makes you go "WOW!!!" SSDs suck at random writes. Typical usage scenario on a workstation is lots of random writes compared to relatively few random reads - reads tend not to be all that random as you re-read the same thing often and it gets cached. Intel SSDs are far superior at random writes than any other SSD out there but it's still nowhere near as optimised as spinning drives, and kernels by and large are still optimised for spinning drives too. This may account for your overall feeling of under-whelmedness why still seeing a significant boot-time speed up. You also have enough RAM so that almost an entire typical workstation session could fit in RAM and seldom touch the disk especially with a large interval between disk syncs -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
Am 19.12.2009 09:08, schrieb Stroller: >> Could anyone comment? > > Might it help if you said WHY you're unimpressed? might be ;-) It seems as if my system doesn't benefit that much: With 8 gigs of RAM, suspend-to-ram, preload and only a handful of rather lightweight binaries in regular use this system is already pretty fast with hdds only. I expected more WOW in terms of overall speed ... OK, I have to admit that it boots way faster, yup. Around under 25 secs from grub to gdm-login on ssd compared to 45-50 secs on hdds. I just moved /var to ssd as well so that apart from the larger data-LVs the whole gentoo-os runs from ssd now. Just to check ... The difference might be more noticeable compared to slower hdds as in notebooks (might give it a try in my thinkpad as well) and with apps doing more i/o. My daily apps are only a few: thunderbird, opera, firefox, gnome-terminal, openoffice, acrobat reader, skype, gwibber ... vmware-server ... and the usual utilities like gthumb and stuff ... so there are no heavyweights afai see. All of these get cached pretty soon (I think) so that the overall experience is rather fast with the hdd-based-raid1-root-fs as well. Maybe I just have to use it for a while and then boot back from hdds to really get the picture :-) Stefan
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
On 18 Dec 2009, at 22:31, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: ... Received my Intel Postville 80G G2 today. ... It boots and works OK but I have to admit that I am not as impressed as I had imagined to be. ... Could anyone comment? Might it help if you said WHY you're unimpressed? Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
Am 19.11.2009 23:47, schrieb Stefan G. Weichinger: > I am thinking of getting one of those shiny new SSDs for my main > workstation. A status quo followup: Received my Intel Postville 80G G2 today. Copied my gentoo-root-fs to it (mkfs-ext4, then rsync), and my /home as well. It boots and works OK but I have to admit that I am not as impressed as I had imagined to be. The relevant mounts (sdc=ssd, sda & sdb: SATA-hdds, building parts of the LVM-vgs): # mount rootfs on / type rootfs (rw) /dev/sdc1 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,barrier=1,data=ordered) proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime) rc-svcdir on /lib64/rc/init.d type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1024k,mode=755) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime) securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime) udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=10240k,nr_inodes=1014583) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620) shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime) tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,mode=1777) none on /mnt/ramportage type tmpfs (rw,nr_inodes=1M,size=4000m,mode=1777) /dev/mapper/ssd-home on /home type ext4 (rw,noatime) /dev/mapper/VG02-var on /var type ext4 (rw,noatime) /dev/mapper/noraid-src on /usr/src type xfs (rw,noatime) /dev/mapper/noraid-portage on /usr/portage type ext4 (rw,noatime) usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,devmode=0664,devgid=85) rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw) nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) I was too curious at first to have a look for firmware so I did the firmware-update from 02HA to 02HD *after* having copied my root-fs. Could that matter? I am not sure. I am also not so sure about those ext4-parameters. Could anyone comment? Thanks a lot, Stefan
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
Am 20.11.2009 00:05, schrieb Volker Armin Hemmann: > since ssds don't like write/erase cycles you should only put your system on > the ssd. Everything else, PORTDIR, PKGDIR, /var, /tmp, /usr/tmp and /usr/src > should be on a harddisk. What do you think about /home ? ssd or hdd ? I tend to ssd as my thunderbird-3-profile-dir is in there as well and might profit much of the local caching/indexin of my imap-dirs ... Looking forward to getting my shiny new ssd, my dealer informed me that he will send it tomorrow ;-) Stefan
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
I think that buying an SSD right now is not worth it. If you are going to buy one, get the intel G2 ones, but in my opinion it is always better to first max out your RAM in your PC. After all the SSD is going to help when you first boot your PC or open a program. After that everything is cached in RAM and there will be no speed difference. Only in the rare case that you use so many programs (that don't fit in cache) and compile things everyday (which messes up the cache) you are going to need it. Also you don't need to mess with many fstab/scheduler settings, it is not worth it imo. Just add "noatime" to your favorite file system and you are good to go. On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 12:47 AM, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: > > Greets, gentoo-users, > I hope not to bring up some boring ricer-topic ;-) > > I am thinking of getting one of those shiny new SSDs for my main > workstation. Not that I really *need* it, my box is performing well, I > admit that I am curious and somehow childish ... some way of getting > myself a christmas present or something like that ... > > anyway > > Although I read of Intel's various firmware-problems with their SSDs, I > tend to buy one of their 80GB X25-M G2 Postville SSDs. > > I definitely *know* that I will shake my head a few months later at how > I could spend that much money for those few and slow gigs of ssd ... but > ... (think 100$ for 128MB usb-stick ... you know ...) > > I think of using that ssd for my gentoo-os-partition(s) and I wonder if > one of you is already doing that. And I would like to hear of any > problems/blockers/sensations this brings. > > Thanks for any infos, I'd be happy to hear whatever your experience is ... > > Stefan > > >
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
Volker Armin Hemmann schrieb: > since ssds don't like write/erase cycles you should only put your system on > the ssd. Everything else, PORTDIR, PKGDIR, /var, /tmp, /usr/tmp and /usr/src > should be on a harddisk. Thanks for the hint ...
Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: > Greets, gentoo-users, > I hope not to bring up some boring ricer-topic ;-) > > I am thinking of getting one of those shiny new SSDs for my main > workstation. Not that I really *need* it, my box is performing well, I > admit that I am curious and somehow childish ... some way of getting > myself a christmas present or something like that ... > > anyway > > Although I read of Intel's various firmware-problems with their SSDs, I > tend to buy one of their 80GB X25-M G2 Postville SSDs. > > I definitely *know* that I will shake my head a few months later at how > I could spend that much money for those few and slow gigs of ssd ... but > ... (think 100$ for 128MB usb-stick ... you know ...) > > I think of using that ssd for my gentoo-os-partition(s) and I wonder if > one of you is already doing that. And I would like to hear of any > problems/blockers/sensations this brings. > > Thanks for any infos, I'd be happy to hear whatever your experience is ... > > Stefan > since ssds don't like write/erase cycles you should only put your system on the ssd. Everything else, PORTDIR, PKGDIR, /var, /tmp, /usr/tmp and /usr/src should be on a harddisk.
[gentoo-user] gentoo on ssds? intel anyone?
Greets, gentoo-users, I hope not to bring up some boring ricer-topic ;-) I am thinking of getting one of those shiny new SSDs for my main workstation. Not that I really *need* it, my box is performing well, I admit that I am curious and somehow childish ... some way of getting myself a christmas present or something like that ... anyway Although I read of Intel's various firmware-problems with their SSDs, I tend to buy one of their 80GB X25-M G2 Postville SSDs. I definitely *know* that I will shake my head a few months later at how I could spend that much money for those few and slow gigs of ssd ... but ... (think 100$ for 128MB usb-stick ... you know ...) I think of using that ssd for my gentoo-os-partition(s) and I wonder if one of you is already doing that. And I would like to hear of any problems/blockers/sensations this brings. Thanks for any infos, I'd be happy to hear whatever your experience is ... Stefan
