openSuse 12.1 and ssd partitioning

[Cat22]

Hi,
I have a brand new SSD, If i partition it using the yast partitioning app
will it properly align it? Or do I need to do that myself?
Thanks
Cat22

[Vic Titious]

I assume you plan on putting the whole openSuse install on the SSD? If not,
LMK. First thing I will tell you is don't do that.

OK: have some tips for you after scrounging around the openSuse notes (and
Ubuntu, but most of the Ubuntu treatment does not apply). Take a look at my
drive(s):

LABEL=root / ext4 noatime,discard,acl,user_xattr 1 1

My root partition is on the SSD. Add attributes "noatime" and "discard".

LABEL=var /var ext4 acl,user_xattr 1 2

Assign /var to a rotating HD, where atime is OK and many
writes/erasures is no problem. Your goal is to avoid the write erasure
cycles and you do not want /var on your SSD. Can you format this to another
drive?

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-OCZ-VERTEX3_OCZ-7UOH6807P2VF8I1K-part1 swap
swap defaults 0 0

Swap, above, is normal, but on the SSD. If there is an SSD mod for
swap, I do not know of it.

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-OCZ-VERTEX3_OCZ-7UOH6807P2VF8I1K-part3 /home
ext4 noatime,discard,acl,user_xattr 1 2

Note the addition of noatime and "discard" again on the home partition,
again on the SSD.

Now, the cool part. Only on openSuse, to my knowledge, and I do not
understand yet why, once you set the attributes like I mentioned, it will
automatically make many TMPFS sections for you. These exist somewhere
between DRAM and the SSD (another thing I do not understand completely and
hope some Linux whiz will comment on--maybe we can all build a (open
source!) SSD how-to for the Suse people to post.) Ubuntu people and early
SSD users of openSuse were promted to manually create a TMPFS (a temp file
system completely in RAM), but it is done automatically here in 12.1.

I have 6 automatically created file systems, each of which doubled when I
doubled RAM in my system. I have 16 gigs on my desktop. This is what I found
in the partitioner when I was done installing:

7.84 GB TmpFS /dev/shm
7.84 GB TmpFS /run
7.84 GB TmpFS /sys/fs/cgroup
7.84 GB TmpFS /media
7.84 GB TmpFS /var/lock
7.84 GB TmpFS /var run

This autoformatting surprized me and I hope someone can tell me what
triggered this. Either it's kernel support of SSD drives or something Suse
is doing. Really cool.

I sure as hell didn't do all this! And this system screams. However, on
every boot, it will "hang" while configuring these temp file systems for
about 15 seconds, right as you reach KDE's desktop. This reduces your start
time to what a 10k hard disk or raid system might boot in. But with any
other function after reaching KDE it flat out screams.

Every once in a while you want to run:
fstrim -v /
to "trim" the drive. I assume you know about the Trim support.

The less I do it, the faster it seems to go, so I am getting lazier about
it. Try once a week or so at first.

Comments welcomed to anyone with different experiences.

[Cat22]

What about alignment? If i use yast to (auto) create partitionas on the SSD
will they be properly aligned to the erase block size?
Thats the 64$ uestion. If nt then I'll have to do the partitioning myself
using fdisk or something
Thanks
Cat22

[John Bowling]

My desktop system has no SSD, but does have 4G RAM and about 3.6 Tbytes
in 4 standard hard drives. It shows six 1.81 G of TmpFS. I think
openSUSE 12.1 creates them and not related to what type of drive.

My question would be: Where are the 10.86 (total) of TmpFS at? Partially
in swap and part in RAM?

My Eee with a 20G SSD and 1G RAM and 501.97M swap has those same 6 TmpFS
with 492.16M each.

Looks like they are either making magic or the TmpFS sizes are max and
normally much smaller.

Both of those are 12.1. Another system with with 11.1 has no TmpFS at
all, or the Yast partitioner does not show them.

John

[John Bowling]

I have done some re-partioning of my SSD on the Eee. It had about 5
partitions initially, three were small ones and included the BIOS. I
changed the sizes of two that were adjacent in the list to sizes more
appropriate, and spit a 3.2 G one into 2G and 1.2G.

I have not noticed a difference in operation speed - just fast enough
for doing small spread sheets. It was also 11.4 before and now is 12.1.

John

[Cat22]

Ok, so I have no idea what your tying to tell me. I'm just asking if
openSuse 12.1 will properly align SSD partitions if you use yast to
partition the ssd. Alignment is important for optimum ssd performace.
This has nothing at all todo with tmpfs.
Cat22

[Cat22]

No clue as to what LMK is. All I want to do is properly partition and format
my ssd drive. Thats it, no more no less. Will yast do that autmaticaly?
From the responses i see here so far I would say no. Probably will need to
fdisk the thing and do the calualtions myself.
Thanks
Cat22

[Vic Titious]

John Bowling wrote:

> My desktop system has no SSD, but does have 4G RAM and about 3.6 Tbytes
> in 4 standard hard drives. It shows six 1.81 G of TmpFS. I think
> openSUSE 12.1 creates them and not related to what type of drive.
>
> My question would be: Where are the 10.86 (total) of TmpFS at? Partially
> in swap and part in RAM?
>
> My Eee with a 20G SSD and 1G RAM and 501.97M swap has those same 6 TmpFS
> with 492.16M each.
>
> Looks like they are either making magic or the TmpFS sizes are max and
> normally much smaller.
>
> Both of those are 12.1. Another system with with 11.1 has no TmpFS at
> all, or the Yast partitioner does not show them.
>
> John

Cat22, LMK = let me know.

John, I had not seen this temp file system stuff before, so I just assumed
it was a combination of kernel support and Suse tweaking. I still run the
old Xosview, if you're familiar with that, which gives you a graphic RAM
reading, and right now mine is at 5.7 gigs, which will change depending on
what I do. I can't account for all of the 7.84 gig temp files listed.

Possibly something to do with fast booting or sleeping efficiency? Can only
guess. Someone will log in and figure this out, I hope.

Another disk hog I forgot to mention: Pan (/home/~/.pan) keeps a record of
which files were listed, deleted and viewed and its folder can grow
enormously. I would definitely make a link from home and move that data off
the SSD. A big waste of disk usage. Mine's 24 gigs right now.

[Malcolm]

Hi
I'm running a 60GB OCZ, I've set the elevator to noop, and run tmp
(5%) in ram;

/dev/sda2 / ext4 discard,noatime,data=writeback,acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/sda1 /boot ext4 discard,noatime,data=writeback,acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/sda4 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 /data ext4 discard,noatime,data=writeback,acl,user_xattr 1 2
none /tmp tmpfs size=5% 0 0

Since this is a notebook I've disable journalling...

YaST aligns the partitions fine, and checked with parted.

--
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.1 (x86_64) Kernel 3.1.10-1.9-desktop
up 4 days 9:13, 4 users, load average: 0.02, 0.04, 0.05
CPU Intel i5 CPU M5...@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

[Vic Titious]

Malcolm wrote:


> Hi
> I'm running a 60GB OCZ, I've set the elevator to noop, and run tmp
> (5%) in ram;
>
> /dev/sda2 / ext4 discard,noatime,data=writeback,acl,user_xattr 1 1
> /dev/sda1 /boot ext4 discard,noatime,data=writeback,acl,user_xattr 1 2
> /dev/sda4 swap swap defaults 0 0
> /dev/sda3 /data ext4 discard,noatime,data=writeback,acl,user_xattr 1 2
> none /tmp tmpfs size=5% 0 0
>
> Since this is a notebook I've disable journalling...
>
> YaST aligns the partitions fine, and checked with parted.

Didn't realize you could control the RAM percentage (should have guessed)...

Thought I'd pass this along:
http://smackerelofopinion.blogspot.com/2009/06/which-io-scheduler-is-best-
for-ssd.html

On second thought, 2009 is a long time ago for this technology...

[Vic Titious]

houghi wrote:

> Vic Titious wrote:
>> On second thought, 2009 is a long time ago for this technology...
>

> For my memory 2009 is longer ago then the 80-ies. There are things I
> can remember better from many years ago then from (especially)
> yesterday.
>
> I have no idea why I am typing this and send it. Probably so Google will
> find it and I am rememberd for all eternity.
>
> Anywho! Listening to great music and going to their concert in November.
>
> houghi

Hey look:
They warned everyone at Woodstock to stay away from the brown acid.

It could be artificial sweeteners, but get an MRI when you get a minute.

[Daniel v. Wachter]

> Ok, so I have no idea what your tying to tell me. I'm just asking if
> openSuse 12.1 will properly align SSD partitions if you use yast to
> partition the ssd. Alignment is important for optimum ssd performace.
> This has nothing at all todo with tmpfs.
> Cat22

John,
I just discovered this old thread from 12 May 2012. You got no answer
then, the others spoke about other things instead. Have you found the
answer?
It can be done with fdisk:

fdisk -H 224 -S 56 /dev/sdd

See http://www.linux-mag.com/id/8397/. I looked for a way to do it in
the installation but did not find any. Can I simply do it after the
installation with the fdisk command?
Daniel

[Darklight]

an ssd drive is no different to a hdd when it comes to partitioning!

[Daniel v. Wachter]

I have found out in the meantime that fdisk version >= 2.17.1 does it
all automatically well. Before this one had to do what is described in
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/8397/.

The mount options noatime and discard have to be added manually.

Daniel