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Installing Debian on an SSD
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Grześ Andruszkiewicz
Jan 8, 2013, 2:40:01 PM1/8/13
to
Hi,
Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs? I.e. I heard
that you need to align the partitions to 32bit virtual clusters (is it
actually true?). Are there any other things I need to take into
account while installing Debian on SSD?
I bought the Samsung 840 250GB drive, if it makes any difference.
Thanks,
Grzegorz
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Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs? I.e. I heard
that you need to align the partitions to 32bit virtual clusters (is it
actually true?). Are there any other things I need to take into
account while installing Debian on SSD?
I bought the Samsung 840 250GB drive, if it makes any difference.
Thanks,
Grzegorz
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Dick Thomas
Jan 8, 2013, 2:40:02 PM1/8/13
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I don't know if the hardware failure was due to Debian or not but I doubt it
Dick
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Bob Proulx
Jan 8, 2013, 2:50:03 PM1/8/13
to
Grześ Andruszkiewicz wrote:
> Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs?
Wheezy 7.0, yes. Squeeze 6.0, no.
> Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs?
> I.e. I heard that you need to align the partitions to 32bit virtual
> clusters (is it actually true?).
Earlier in this mailing list there has been much discussion about
partition alignments because people see what looks like wasted space
but is there specifically to work with the new advanced format
partitioning. It will work fine.
> Are there any other things I need to take into account while
> installing Debian on SSD?
Optionally however there are some changes that you _may_ make to to
improve performance. But it will also work acceptably well (you won't
notice) without doing anything. (But adding "discard" to ext4
filesystems may improve performance by making the trim command
available. I haven't done it because I am still running Stable
Squeeze 6.0 on my SSD.)
There is a wiki page with various information. It is probably more
information than really needed. It has seen a long evolution of edits
to get to this point in time. I think I would ignore about half of
it. The problem is research each item and deducing which half.
http://wiki.debian.org/SSDoptimization
Bob
Sposkpat Sposkpat
Jan 8, 2013, 3:50:02 PM1/8/13
to
I installed Squeeze over a year ago. Still OK (60 Gb SSD)
--- On Tue, 1/8/13, Grześ Andruszkiewicz <gand...@gmail.com> wrote:
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1357677936.36001...@web120102.mail.ne1.yahoo.com
Lisi Reisz
Jan 8, 2013, 5:50:02 PM1/8/13
to
On Tuesday 08 January 2013 19:48:05 Bob Proulx wrote:
> Grześ Andruszkiewicz wrote:
> > Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs?
>
> Wheezy 7.0, yes. Squeeze 6.0, no.
Sorry, Bob, but I disagree. I installed Squeeze on an SSD both four months
> Grześ Andruszkiewicz wrote:
> > Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs?
>
> Wheezy 7.0, yes. Squeeze 6.0, no.
ago on my own new box and last weekend on my husband's, both times with no
issues at all that were due to the SSD. The only "problem" was that I do net
installs, and there was a driver issue with the ethernet card on the newer
box. But that is a motherboard problem, not an SSD one.
I did not install Gnome, which may, of course, be relevant.
Lisi
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Patrick Bartek
Jan 8, 2013, 9:10:02 PM1/8/13
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----- Original Message -----
> From: Bob Proulx <b...@proulx.com>
> To: debia...@lists.debian.org
> Cc:
> Sent: Tuesday, January 8, 2013 11:48 AM
> Subject: Re: Installing Debian on an SSD
>
> [snip]
>> I.e. I heard that you need to align the partitions to 32bit virtual
>> clusters (is it actually true?).
>
> The Wheezy 7.0 installer will do the right thing automatically.
>
> Earlier in this mailing list there has been much discussion about
> partition alignments because people see what looks like wasted space
> but is there specifically to work with the new advanced format
> partitioning. It will work fine.
> [snip]
I'm the one who started the discussion. Can you elaborate on the details of why the "gapping" is needed? Or a reference link would be even better.
Thanks.
B
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Bob Proulx
Jan 11, 2013, 1:20:02 AM1/11/13
to
Lisi Reisz wrote:
> Bob Proulx wrote:
> > Grześ Andruszkiewicz wrote:
> > > Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs?
> >
> > Wheezy 7.0, yes. Squeeze 6.0, no.
>
> Sorry, Bob, but I disagree.
I could be wrong. :-)
> Bob Proulx wrote:
> > Grześ Andruszkiewicz wrote:
> > > Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs?
> >
> > Wheezy 7.0, yes. Squeeze 6.0, no.
>
> Sorry, Bob, but I disagree.
The part in particular I am thinking of is the installer partitioning
the SSD disk. I didn't think the Squeeze installer did 4k byte
alignment. I thought it did only 512 byte alignment. If the
partitions are not aligned then performance will suffer. Since as far
as I know all SSD devices use 4k alignments.
> I installed Squeeze on an SSD both four months ago on my own new box
> and last weekend on my husband's, both times with no issues at all
> that were due to the SSD.
force the alignment prior to installing.
Could you check your disk alignment?
# sfdisk -d /dev/sda
Bad (for SSDs, okay for spinning disks):
/dev/sda1 : start= 63, size= 995967, Id=83
Good:
/dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size= 997376, Id=83
If it says 2048 and you didn't do anything to force it then I am wrong
and Squeeze supports it okay. And thank you for correcting me. :-)
I had remembered needing to force the alignment. But maybe that was
in the previous release and I am simply confusing the two. I am sure
that the Wheezy 7.0 installer sets up the alignment properly.
> The only "problem" was that I do net installs, and there was a
> driver issue with the ethernet card on the newer box. But that is a
> motherboard problem, not an SSD one.
>
> I did not install Gnome, which may, of course, be relevant.
Bob
Bob Proulx
Jan 11, 2013, 2:00:01 AM1/11/13
to
Patrick Bartek wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_format
And therefore need to be aligned properly to avoid wasted block
reads. I don't have a list of known good references but searching
just now turned up these that seemed interesting and useful. YMMV. I
am sure I missed many other excellent references.
http://blog.nuclex-games.com/2009/12/aligning-an-ssd-on-linux/
http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-sure-your-partitions-are-correctly-aligned-for-optimal-solid-state-drive-performance
http://tytso.livejournal.com/2009/02/20/
Bob
> > Bob Proulx wrote:
> > Earlier in this mailing list there has been much discussion about
> > partition alignments because people see what looks like wasted space
> > but is there specifically to work with the new advanced format
> > partitioning. It will work fine.
> > [snip]
>
> I'm the one who started the discussion. Can you elaborate on the
> details of why the "gapping" is needed? Or a reference link would
> be even better.
As far as I know all SSDs use the Advanced Format 4k sector size.
> > Earlier in this mailing list there has been much discussion about
> > partition alignments because people see what looks like wasted space
> > but is there specifically to work with the new advanced format
> > partitioning. It will work fine.
> > [snip]
>
> I'm the one who started the discussion. Can you elaborate on the
> details of why the "gapping" is needed? Or a reference link would
> be even better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_format
And therefore need to be aligned properly to avoid wasted block
reads. I don't have a list of known good references but searching
just now turned up these that seemed interesting and useful. YMMV. I
am sure I missed many other excellent references.
http://blog.nuclex-games.com/2009/12/aligning-an-ssd-on-linux/
http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-sure-your-partitions-are-correctly-aligned-for-optimal-solid-state-drive-performance
http://tytso.livejournal.com/2009/02/20/
Bob
Lisi Reisz
Jan 11, 2013, 5:40:02 AM1/11/13
to
On Friday 11 January 2013 06:15:52 Bob Proulx wrote:
> Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > Bob Proulx wrote:
> > > Grześ Andruszkiewicz wrote:
> > > > Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs?
> > >
> > > Wheezy 7.0, yes. Squeeze 6.0, no.
> >
> > Sorry, Bob, but I disagree.
>
> I could be wrong. :-)
>
> The part in particular I am thinking of is the installer partitioning
> the SSD disk. I didn't think the Squeeze installer did 4k byte
> alignment. I thought it did only 512 byte alignment. If the
> partitions are not aligned then performance will suffer. Since as far
> as I know all SSD devices use 4k alignments.
>
> > I installed Squeeze on an SSD both four months ago on my own new box
> > and last weekend on my husband's, both times with no issues at all
> > that were due to the SSD.
>
> I run Squeeze just fine on my SSD too. But I recall that I needed to
> force the alignment prior to installing.
>
> Could you check your disk alignment?
>
> # sfdisk -d /dev/sda
>
> Bad (for SSDs, okay for spinning disks):
> /dev/sda1 : start= 63, size= 995967, Id=83
> Good:
> /dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size= 997376, Id=83
root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# sfdisk -d /dev/sda
> Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > Bob Proulx wrote:
> > > Grześ Andruszkiewicz wrote:
> > > > Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs?
> > >
> > > Wheezy 7.0, yes. Squeeze 6.0, no.
> >
> > Sorry, Bob, but I disagree.
>
> I could be wrong. :-)
>
> The part in particular I am thinking of is the installer partitioning
> the SSD disk. I didn't think the Squeeze installer did 4k byte
> alignment. I thought it did only 512 byte alignment. If the
> partitions are not aligned then performance will suffer. Since as far
> as I know all SSD devices use 4k alignments.
>
> > I installed Squeeze on an SSD both four months ago on my own new box
> > and last weekend on my husband's, both times with no issues at all
> > that were due to the SSD.
>
> I run Squeeze just fine on my SSD too. But I recall that I needed to
> force the alignment prior to installing.
>
> Could you check your disk alignment?
>
> # sfdisk -d /dev/sda
>
> Bad (for SSDs, okay for spinning disks):
> /dev/sda1 : start= 63, size= 995967, Id=83
> Good:
> /dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size= 997376, Id=83
# partition table of /dev/sda
unit: sectors
/dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size= 58591232, Id=83, bootable
/dev/sda2 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
/dev/sda3 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
/dev/sda4 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
root@Tux-II:/home/lisi#
> If it says 2048 and you didn't do anything to force it then I am wrong
> and Squeeze supports it okay. And thank you for correcting me. :-)
> I had remembered needing to force the alignment. But maybe that was
> in the previous release and I am simply confusing the two. I am sure
> that the Wheezy 7.0 installer sets up the alignment properly.
adding print server and ssh server at the tasksel stage.
Lisi
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Bob Proulx
Jan 11, 2013, 3:00:02 PM1/11/13
to
Lisi Reisz wrote:
> root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# sfdisk -d /dev/sda
> # partition table of /dev/sda
> unit: sectors
>
> /dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size= 58591232, Id=83, bootable
That 2048 there shows that it did the right thing. So I am wrong and
> root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# sfdisk -d /dev/sda
> # partition table of /dev/sda
> unit: sectors
>
> /dev/sda1 : start= 2048, size= 58591232, Id=83, bootable
Squeeze does handle it correctly. Thank you for correcting my error. :-)
(And now that I have dug into it further I see that I should have been
able to determine this myself from other machines I could have
checked. Just never enough time. But I now I see on Squeeze installs
that it does align SSD installations correctly.)
> > If it says 2048 and you didn't do anything to force it then I am wrong
> > and Squeeze supports it okay. And thank you for correcting me. :-)
>
> No forcing! That is on my box. My husband's is in use.
server so that I can always connect to my laptop without knowing what
address it is dynamically using at the moment. You could then log in
remotely and check on things like this without disturbing him. (smile)
> > I had remembered needing to force the alignment. But maybe that was
> > in the previous release and I am simply confusing the two. I am sure
> > that the Wheezy 7.0 installer sets up the alignment properly.
>
> I just do practically a default installation, apart from refusing
> Gnome and adding print server and ssh server at the tasksel stage.
Bob
Lisi Reisz
Jan 11, 2013, 5:30:01 PM1/11/13
to
On Friday 11 January 2013 19:58:47 Bob Proulx wrote:
> As a side note I always set up OpenVPN between my laptops and my home
> server so that I can always connect to my laptop without knowing what
> address it is dynamically using at the moment. You could then log in
> remotely and check on things like this without disturbing him. (smile)
:-)
> As a side note I always set up OpenVPN between my laptops and my home
> server so that I can always connect to my laptop without knowing what
> address it is dynamically using at the moment. You could then log in
> remotely and check on things like this without disturbing him. (smile)
That is why I start with ssh server at installation. It means that I can use
fish from the get-go. But there was a problem with my husband's computer
(Supplier. It's a long story) and it was an 80th birthday present. It was
meant to be fully set up before he got back from a trip, but because of the
problems I had barely installed the OS and the DE, so had to minimise the
time spent on anything else. He has not long been back. But I shall get
access and then .....
Come to think of it, I could have used fish anyway. I generally install ssh
server _and_ client before trying to use either, but I should not be so hide
bound.
Lisi
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'2+
Jan 11, 2013, 6:20:01 PM1/11/13
to
i didnt fully read the conversation but
when i install debian on my mini9's ssd
i start from expert-install (even tho am not at all ;) )
and at the patitioning stage i choose ext2 and even go to the option menu
to choose the top of of it which seems to be the safe one for ssd
starting from a expert-commandline-install is also nice for building a
minimal system
and in that case i choose dwm for its windowmanager
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when i install debian on my mini9's ssd
i start from expert-install (even tho am not at all ;) )
and at the patitioning stage i choose ext2 and even go to the option menu
to choose the top of of it which seems to be the safe one for ssd
starting from a expert-commandline-install is also nice for building a
minimal system
and in that case i choose dwm for its windowmanager
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Hormatzhan Yiltiz
Jan 12, 2013, 4:10:01 PM1/12/13
to
This page, as you pointed out, is more than a guideline. Can someone please
polish this up a little bit? That would be a wonderful and appreciative.
Bob
Chris Bannister
Jan 12, 2013, 10:10:02 PM1/12/13
to
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 05:05:12AM +0800, Hormatzhan Yiltiz wrote:
>
> This page, as you pointed out, is more than a guideline. Can someone please
> polish this up a little bit? That would be a wonderful and appreciative.
Huh?
>
> This page, as you pointed out, is more than a guideline. Can someone please
> polish this up a little bit? That would be a wonderful and appreciative.
Start here:
http://wiki.debian.org/FrontPage?action=newaccount
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who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the
oppressing." --- Malcolm X
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Selim T. Erdogan
Jan 20, 2013, 6:00:02 PM1/20/13
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Grześ Andruszkiewicz, 8.01.2013:
special, but if your computer is somewhat old and doesn't support
SATA-2 speeds properly, then the wheezy installer doesn't let you
force SATA-1 speed. (Actually, this is probably not necessarily an SSD
problem but I had it when I replaced a dead hard drive with an SSD.)
A few months ago I tried to install wheezy on a new 128GB Kingston SSD
(bought Fall 2012) placed in a Sony Vaio VGN-NS140, bought Fall 2008.
The laptop theoretically supports SATA-2 but in practice it either
had problems completing the install or, when it installed okay, quickly
produced errors. A guaranteed way to produce the errors right away was
to measure speed using "hdparm -t /dev/sda" and this would also lead to
messages saying the link speed got dropped to 1.5Gbps (from 3Gbps).
I think there was a problem with the motherboard trying to do the
negotiation to determined what speed to use. (I also read online about
various laptops being crippled in their BIOS, limiting speed to 1.5G
with there being an unofficial new BIOS for old Thinkpads to fix this.)
I also noticed later that the old hard drive had a jumper limiting
operation to 1.5Gbps --- further evidence that the laptop manufacturers
knew it might have a problem with higher speeds.
Unfortunately, the new SSD had no such jumper, as far as I could find
out. Fortunately, there's a kernel module parameter to force this:
"libata.force=1.5G" Alas, the new module loading system in Debian,
kmod, which replaced module-init-tools, had a bug where you couldn't add
this as a boot parameter. (It gets parsed incorrectly so it doesn't
work.) I filed a bug report with a patch and it's been fixed upstream I
think, but the fix has not made it back into Debian yet, so the wheezy
installer won't recognize this boot parameter, AFAIK. (I was able to
complete my installation by modifying the initrd.gz of the installer to
add the module parameter into a file.)
I doubt that many people will run into this issue but I wanted to put it
out there for the unlucky souls that do. :)
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>
> Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs? I.e. I heard
> that you need to align the partitions to 32bit virtual clusters (is it
> actually true?). Are there any other things I need to take into
> account while installing Debian on SSD?
>
> I bought the Samsung 840 250GB drive, if it makes any difference.
I think you should be okay installing without needing to do anything
> Does the Debian installer work out of the box for SSDs? I.e. I heard
> that you need to align the partitions to 32bit virtual clusters (is it
> actually true?). Are there any other things I need to take into
> account while installing Debian on SSD?
>
> I bought the Samsung 840 250GB drive, if it makes any difference.
special, but if your computer is somewhat old and doesn't support
SATA-2 speeds properly, then the wheezy installer doesn't let you
force SATA-1 speed. (Actually, this is probably not necessarily an SSD
problem but I had it when I replaced a dead hard drive with an SSD.)
A few months ago I tried to install wheezy on a new 128GB Kingston SSD
(bought Fall 2012) placed in a Sony Vaio VGN-NS140, bought Fall 2008.
The laptop theoretically supports SATA-2 but in practice it either
had problems completing the install or, when it installed okay, quickly
produced errors. A guaranteed way to produce the errors right away was
to measure speed using "hdparm -t /dev/sda" and this would also lead to
messages saying the link speed got dropped to 1.5Gbps (from 3Gbps).
I think there was a problem with the motherboard trying to do the
negotiation to determined what speed to use. (I also read online about
various laptops being crippled in their BIOS, limiting speed to 1.5G
with there being an unofficial new BIOS for old Thinkpads to fix this.)
I also noticed later that the old hard drive had a jumper limiting
operation to 1.5Gbps --- further evidence that the laptop manufacturers
knew it might have a problem with higher speeds.
Unfortunately, the new SSD had no such jumper, as far as I could find
out. Fortunately, there's a kernel module parameter to force this:
"libata.force=1.5G" Alas, the new module loading system in Debian,
kmod, which replaced module-init-tools, had a bug where you couldn't add
this as a boot parameter. (It gets parsed incorrectly so it doesn't
work.) I filed a bug report with a patch and it's been fixed upstream I
think, but the fix has not made it back into Debian yet, so the wheezy
installer won't recognize this boot parameter, AFAIK. (I was able to
complete my installation by modifying the initrd.gz of the installer to
add the module parameter into a file.)
I doubt that many people will run into this issue but I wanted to put it
out there for the unlucky souls that do. :)
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Osamu Aoki
Jan 21, 2013, 11:40:02 AM1/21/13
to
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 05:05:12AM +0800, Hormatzhan Yiltiz wrote:
If you can help, please make sensible editting.
Osamu
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Hormatzhan Yiltiz
Feb 17, 2013, 1:20:01 AM2/17/13
to
D
ear fellas,
Why there is no anything-sync-daemon, goanysync or profile-sync-daemon in Debian, even in Sid?!
祝好，
========================
He who is worthy to receive his days and nights is worthy to receive all else from you (and me).
The Prophet, Gibran Kahlil Gibran
Andrei POPESCU
Feb 17, 2013, 4:30:01 AM2/17/13
to
On Du, 17 feb 13, 14:09:38, Hormatzhan Yiltiz wrote:
> D
> ear fellas,
> Why there is no anything-sync-daemon, goanysync or profile-sync-daemon in
> Debian, even in Sid?!
How is this related to SSDs? Please write a new message with a proper
> D
> ear fellas,
> Why there is no anything-sync-daemon, goanysync or profile-sync-daemon in
> Debian, even in Sid?!
subject explaining what you need and we might be able to give you some
hints.
Kind regards,
Andrei
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