Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-30 Thread Drew
> Hmmm sector still had random data after rm tmpfile and sync;
>
> /dev/sda3 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,discard)
>
> Device Model: KINGSTON SS100S216G
> Serial Number:    16GB40013421
> Firmware Version: D100719
>
> Suppose to support TRIM.

Just so you know, in Jan '09 there was a thread on the linux raid list
where they discussed the TRIM command on SSD's. The gist of the
conversation (as I understood it) was that for SATA based SSD's, the
results of a raw read afterward were non-deterministic, ie you
couldn't be certain what you'd get back.


-- 
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"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
--Marie Curie

"This started out as a hobby and spun horribly out of control."
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-30 Thread John Doe
From: Steve Clark 
> Unfortunately when I try it on SL 6.0 hdparm gets a segment 
> Hmmm sector still had random data after rm tmpfile and sync;


If SL 6.0 does not support it, I wonder if CentOS 6.0 (or even RH) will... 
damn.  :/

Guess you have no option to test it with the latest Fedora?

Anybody else could confirm that TRIM is working for them...?


JD

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread Steve Clark

On 05/27/2011 10:04 AM, John Doe wrote:

From: Steve Clark

Unfortunately when I try it on SL 6.0 hdparm gets a segment

 violation on the --read-sector command.


The fedora one is 9.36
And the one we used on CentOS 5.6 was 9.37 (compiled it).

Maybe try a more recent version...



Hmmm sector still had random data after rm tmpfile and sync;

/dev/sda3 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,discard)

Device Model: KINGSTON SS100S216G
Serial Number:16GB40013421
Firmware Version: D100719

Suppose to support TRIM.

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread John Doe
From: Steve Clark 
> Unfortunately when I try it on SL 6.0 hdparm gets a segment
violation on the --read-sector command.


The fedora one is 9.36
And the one we used on CentOS 5.6 was 9.37 (compiled it).

Maybe try a more recent version...


JD

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread Steve Clark

On 05/27/2011 08:28 AM, John Doe wrote:

From: Steve Clark

On 05/27/2011 05:29 AM, John Doe wrote:

Test = 
https://sites.google.com/site/lightrush/random-1/checkiftrimonext4isenabledandworking
 Tested on Fedora (15) and it worked.

Hmmm How do you determine whether TRIM worked or not?

Thanks,

Unfortunately when I try it on SL 6.0 hdparm gets a segment violation on the 
--read-sector command.
hdparm-9.16-3.4.el6.i686
[root@Z764041 ~]# hdparm --fibmap tempfile

tempfile: underlying filesystem: blocksize 4096, begins at LBA 168; 
assuming 512 byte sectors
 byte_offset  begin_LBAend_LBAsectors
   044958804496903   1024
  52428845542484557319   3072
 209715245245524536839  12288
 838860845655124651527  86016
[root@Z764041 ~]# hdparm --read-sector 4495880 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Segmentation fault


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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread Thomas Harold
On 5/26/2011 8:04 AM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:
> John Hodrien wrote:
>> On Thu, 26 May 2011, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:
>>
>>> Personally, I'm averse to using SSD with any important long term data
>>> is the nightmare that I could one day wake up to find everything gone
>>> without any means of recovery. Compared that to a hard disk, which
>>> barring catastrophic physical damage, I could pay somebody to just
>>> read the data off the platter.
>>>
>>> As a performance boosting intermediary storage, yes, long term...
>>> maybe not quite yet.
>>
>> That's what backups are for.
>>
> Unless you are away on important business trip and you loose your system
> just minutes before the meeting. Yes, it can happen to regular HDD, it's
>much lesser probability for now.
>

In a situation like a business trip, where the machine absolutely has to 
boot in order to do the sales presentation or demo, then a secondary 
traditional HD is a smart move.  Mirror the system image just prior to 
the trip onto the external drive.  If the internal dies, swap drives and 
carry on.  It's a $50-$100 investment vs not having a bootable drive at 
all.  If it's that important to you that a drive failure would kill the 
trip, then you should be doing even now with traditional drives.

All the user data should be backed up either to an external device or a 
server somewhere (including the data files required to do the 
presentation or configure one-of-a-kind software).  Which means that 
even if the backup drive is a few days out of date, you should be able 
to drop it in and synchronize the user data back up with the external 
source within a few minutes.

I'd also still stick with the bigger names in SSDs right now.  Intel for 
sure, then maybe consider the lesser players.  The oldest SSD we have in 
use was bought back in '09 and that unit has shown zero issues.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread John Doe
From: Steve Clark 
>On 05/27/2011 05:29 AM, John Doe wrote: 
>>Test = 
>>https://sites.google.com/site/lightrush/random-1/checkiftrimonext4isenabledandworking
>> Tested on Fedora (15) and it worked.
> Hmmm How do you determine whether TRIM worked or not? 


See the link.

JD

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread Steve Clark

On 05/27/2011 05:29 AM, John Doe wrote:

From: "aurfal...@gmail.com"

In Windows and OSX its easy to get TRIM working, does any know of TRIM 
for linux?

You apparently need a 2.6.33+ kernel (I read somewhere RH backported what was 
needed to their 2.6.32) and an fs like ext4 or brtfs.
Read some people giving advice to setup the ctrl to AHCI instead of IDE, but 
apparently worked for us in IDE...
Test = 
https://sites.google.com/site/lightrush/random-1/checkiftrimonext4isenabledandworking
Tested on Fedora (15) and it worked.
Tested on CentOS 5.6 with custom 2.6.35 kernel and, while it mounted with
discard without complaining, it did not actualy trim in the tests...
Will retest with 6.0...


Hmmm How do you determine whether TRIM worked or not?


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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread John Doe
From: "aurfal...@gmail.com" 

> In Windows and OSX its easy to get TRIM working, does any know of TRIM  
> for linux?

You apparently need a 2.6.33+ kernel (I read somewhere RH backported what was 
needed to their 2.6.32) and an fs like ext4 or brtfs.
Read some people giving advice to setup the ctrl to AHCI instead of IDE, but 
apparently worked for us in IDE...
Test = 
https://sites.google.com/site/lightrush/random-1/checkiftrimonext4isenabledandworking
Tested on Fedora (15) and it worked.
Tested on CentOS 5.6 with custom 2.6.35 kernel and, while it mounted with 
discard without complaining, it did not actualy trim in the tests...
Will retest with 6.0...

JD
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread Ljubomir Ljubojevic
John Hodrien wrote:
> On Thu, 26 May 2011, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:
> 
>> So having SSD in laptop (if they are unreliable) is not much of an
>> option, unless I am going to carry duplicate HDD/SSD just in case this
>> one crashes.
> 
> I'd argue that's just one of the risks you run with a laptop.  In a laptop
> you've typically got one battery, one charger, one screen, one disk (SSD or
> not), a less reliable DVD drive.  I'm just not convinced SSDs are the pit of
> doom you seem to think they are.  I'd personally guess that coffee is a bigger
> threat to travelling laptops than SSD failures.
> 

But I would not.

- I battery dies, I would run on PSU.
- If PSU is dead I would run on battery until I locally buy universal 
PSU for my voltage.
- If DVD dies, I would borrow/locally buy USB rack/Drive.
- If integrated LAN dies I would buy cheap USB LAN NIC or use wireless 
(buy Wireless AP if needed)
- If integrated Wireless radio dies I would buy another wireless radio 
or use LAN (buy Wireless AP/client if needed)
- If Screen or MB dies, or anything else **except** HDD (in any form and 
with my system) I will unplug my system HDD (some 
laptops/notebooks/netbooks have SSD + HDD) or even copy system partition 
to another HDD and boot it and finish my mission/task. I am able to 
successfully, and *every* time boot old system (either Windows or Linux) 
on any new MB/HDD controller chipset, but I am not able to reinstall 
entire system will all the custom settings is short time.

So, from *my* point of view, reliability always takes precedence before 
  speed, unless I can have both.

Ljubomir - 11 years in backing up and repairing OS-es
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-27 Thread John Hodrien
On Thu, 26 May 2011, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:

> So having SSD in laptop (if they are unreliable) is not much of an
> option, unless I am going to carry duplicate HDD/SSD just in case this
> one crashes.

I'd argue that's just one of the risks you run with a laptop.  In a laptop
you've typically got one battery, one charger, one screen, one disk (SSD or
not), a less reliable DVD drive.  I'm just not convinced SSDs are the pit of
doom you seem to think they are.  I'd personally guess that coffee is a bigger
threat to travelling laptops than SSD failures.

jh
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Emmanuel Noobadmin
On 5/26/11, Simon Matter  wrote:
>> On 5/26/11, Kevin K  wrote:
>>> Though thumb drives are flash, they tend to use a slower flash than what
>>> is
>>> used in hard drive replacement units.
>>
>> No actual industry facts for this, but I think the Flash used in thumb
>> drives are not really any slower by nature/design. This is because I
>> see that the fastest SSD currently tend to use 8 channel controllers
>> for 200+ MB/s performance which translate to 20~30MB/sec per channel.
>
> There is quite a difference between common USB flash drives and SSDs. SSDs
> are supposed to replace a HDD while USB drives are not designed for it.
> One difference is the type of wear leveling, also documented here
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling

Just to point out, that articles says the wear leveling used in USB
flash drives result in faster performance which runs counter to
Kevin's original claim of "slower flash". ;)

The key thing I was pointing out is that, the underlying Flash
technology doesn't appear to be different in SSD Hard disks or USB
flash drives.

The key differentiating component always seems to be the controller,
i.e. 8-channel on the SATA Flash vs 1 channel on the USB Flash and the
controller using different write leveling algorithm to map logical
addresses to actual physical cells.

So the difference between a USB Thumbdrive and a USB SSD is like the
difference between an eSATA single disk enclosure and an eSATA two
disk RAID 0 enclosure.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread aurfalien
On May 26, 2011, at 4:36 PM, Kevin K wrote:

>
> On May 26, 2011, at 3:49 AM, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:
>
>> On 5/26/11, John Hodrien  wrote:
>>> Spinning disks seem an awful lot like victorian technology taken  
>>> too far.
>>> In
>>> the long term, what's *not* to like about the idea of fully solid  
>>> state
>>> storage?
>>
>> Personally, I'm averse to using SSD with any important long term data
>> is the nightmare that I could one day wake up to find everything gone
>> without any means of recovery. Compared that to a hard disk, which
>> barring catastrophic physical damage, I could pay somebody to just
>> read the data off the platter.
>>
>> As a performance boosting intermediary storage, yes, long term...
>> maybe not quite yet
>
> multiple layers of backup.  My main system has a main system.  With  
> scheduled backups to an external hard drive, and online.  I have a  
> lot of data on it like pictures that I wouldn't want to lose.  A SSD  
> would replace my main boot drive, with faster access to data as  
> used.  But the external drive would still be there for backup.

I back up to traditional disk/tape as well.

Thing is, even though I use the Intel X25M for a mostly read only app  
server, there is still the issue on TRIM.

In Windows and OSX its easy to get TRIM working, does any know of TRIM  
for linux?

Also, for rock solid write performance, I've been using the IOExtreme  
which is pricy, hence biz use only.  Its not bootable but very good  
read/write reliable I/O.

- aurf
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Kevin K

On May 26, 2011, at 8:12 AM, John Hodrien wrote:

> On Thu, 26 May 2011, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:
> 
>> Unless you are away on important business trip and you loose your system
>> just minutes before the meeting. Yes, it can happen to regular HDD, it's
>> much lesser probability for now.
> 
> If I'm going to a meeting where I've got documents I need, they'll be on the
> laptop, on a USB stick, and probably on a network accessible store as well.
> 
> I doubt an SSD is likely to be the least reliable part of a laptop.

I've done that too.  Travel, with data or code on hard drive, backup USB drive, 
and also burned to DVD or CD.  I may ship the computer, but hand carry the DVD 
or thumb drive.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Kevin K

On May 26, 2011, at 3:49 AM, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:

> On 5/26/11, John Hodrien  wrote:
>> Spinning disks seem an awful lot like victorian technology taken too far.
>> In
>> the long term, what's *not* to like about the idea of fully solid state
>> storage?
> 
> Personally, I'm averse to using SSD with any important long term data
> is the nightmare that I could one day wake up to find everything gone
> without any means of recovery. Compared that to a hard disk, which
> barring catastrophic physical damage, I could pay somebody to just
> read the data off the platter.
> 
> As a performance boosting intermediary storage, yes, long term...
> maybe not quite yet

multiple layers of backup.  My main system has a main system.  With scheduled 
backups to an external hard drive, and online.  I have a lot of data on it like 
pictures that I wouldn't want to lose.  A SSD would replace my main boot drive, 
with faster access to data as used.  But the external drive would still be 
there for backup.

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Kevin K

On May 26, 2011, at 3:36 AM, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:

> On 5/26/11, Kevin K  wrote:
>> Though thumb drives are flash, they tend to use a slower flash than what is
>> used in hard drive replacement units.
> 
> No actual industry facts for this, but I think the Flash used in thumb
> drives are not really any slower by nature/design. This is because I
> see that the fastest SSD currently tend to use 8 channel controllers
> for 200+ MB/s performance which translate to 20~30MB/sec per channel.
> 
> The better USB 2.0 thumb drives can do about 20+ MB, Kingston even has
> a new one that will supposedly do 70+ when connected via USB 3.0. If
> we take 8 of these and RAID 0 them which is pretty much what the
> 8-channel controller is doing, we're looking at pretty similar numbers
> between the flash cells in thumb drives and "SSD".
> 
> 
>> I think that many people, when talking about SSD, may be thinking of drives 
>> in the form factor of a hard drive.  Either 2.5" or 3.5".  Which would 
>> probably not be called a thumb
>> drive :)
> 
> Only because it doesn't come with a USB connector! ;)

OK.  Not really slower for the flash, but still slower than what an USB based 
SSD drive would be.  But since they are designed for USB, performance can be 
lower.  Especially for the cheaper drives.  I would assume, but don't know, 
that those drives marketed as ReadyBoost (?) for Vista or later may be faster .

Another thing that probably makes them seem slow is when some systems default 
to write cache disabled.  For protection on systems like Windows where people 
might not remember to "safely remove".

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Ljubomir Ljubojevic
John Hodrien wrote:
> On Thu, 26 May 2011, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:
> 
>> Unless you are away on important business trip and you loose your system
>> just minutes before the meeting. Yes, it can happen to regular HDD, it's
>> much lesser probability for now.
> 
> If I'm going to a meeting where I've got documents I need, they'll be on the
> laptop, on a USB stick, and probably on a network accessible store as well.
> 
> I doubt an SSD is likely to be the least reliable part of a laptop.
> 
I knew someone will use that. But I am not talking about documents, but 
the system for example with let say architect design app, or demo 
version of developers new application with set database server and who 
knows what.

I know people that are unwilling to pay for good antivirus (MS Win 
naturally) because "it is easier/faster to just reinstall it, you only 
need 30-60 minutes" but they do not even think about how much time takes 
to configure ones environment, especially in business. I have several 
customers that don't even know their own passwords for e-mail accounts, 
and they expect me to know them, and to have their PC "just running".

So having SSD in laptop (if they are unreliable) is not much of an 
option, unless I am going to carry duplicate HDD/SSD just in case this 
one crashes.

Ljubomir
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread John Hodrien
On Thu, 26 May 2011, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:

> Unless you are away on important business trip and you loose your system
> just minutes before the meeting. Yes, it can happen to regular HDD, it's
> much lesser probability for now.

If I'm going to a meeting where I've got documents I need, they'll be on the
laptop, on a USB stick, and probably on a network accessible store as well.

I doubt an SSD is likely to be the least reliable part of a laptop.

jh
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Ljubomir Ljubojevic
John Hodrien wrote:
> On Thu, 26 May 2011, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:
> 
>> Personally, I'm averse to using SSD with any important long term data
>> is the nightmare that I could one day wake up to find everything gone
>> without any means of recovery. Compared that to a hard disk, which
>> barring catastrophic physical damage, I could pay somebody to just
>> read the data off the platter.
>>
>> As a performance boosting intermediary storage, yes, long term...
>> maybe not quite yet.
> 
> That's what backups are for.
> 
Unless you are away on important business trip and you loose your system 
just minutes before the meeting. Yes, it can happen to regular HDD, it's 
  much lesser probability for now.

Ljubomir
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread John Hodrien
On Thu, 26 May 2011, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:

> Personally, I'm averse to using SSD with any important long term data
> is the nightmare that I could one day wake up to find everything gone
> without any means of recovery. Compared that to a hard disk, which
> barring catastrophic physical damage, I could pay somebody to just
> read the data off the platter.
>
> As a performance boosting intermediary storage, yes, long term...
> maybe not quite yet.

That's what backups are for.

jh
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Simon Matter
> On 5/26/11, Kevin K  wrote:
>> Though thumb drives are flash, they tend to use a slower flash than what
>> is
>> used in hard drive replacement units.
>
> No actual industry facts for this, but I think the Flash used in thumb
> drives are not really any slower by nature/design. This is because I
> see that the fastest SSD currently tend to use 8 channel controllers
> for 200+ MB/s performance which translate to 20~30MB/sec per channel.

There is quite a difference between common USB flash drives and SSDs. SSDs
are supposed to replace a HDD while USB drives are not designed for it.
One difference is the type of wear leveling, also documented here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling

There are exceptions of course, for example there some "industrial grade"
devices, but the commonly used ones can not be compared.

Simon

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Emmanuel Noobadmin
On 5/26/11, John Hodrien  wrote:
> Spinning disks seem an awful lot like victorian technology taken too far.
> In
> the long term, what's *not* to like about the idea of fully solid state
> storage?

Personally, I'm averse to using SSD with any important long term data
is the nightmare that I could one day wake up to find everything gone
without any means of recovery. Compared that to a hard disk, which
barring catastrophic physical damage, I could pay somebody to just
read the data off the platter.

As a performance boosting intermediary storage, yes, long term...
maybe not quite yet.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread John Hodrien
On Thu, 26 May 2011, Timothy Murphy wrote:

> But I'm generally puzzled by the emphasis many people put on speed.
> Unless one is a gamer, it doesn't seem to me to make much difference
> if it takes 13 second or 30 seconds to boot up.
> Either way it is going to take the same time to get to an URL.

It all comes down to price.  SSDs aren't massively popular yet just because of
the price per unit of storage.  When the price comes close to that of disk
(and it doesn't have to match it), they'll romp away.

If you're talking from a clean boot, your SSD laptop is going to beat you to
the URL too, as your browser's going to load faster.  And your disk cache for
the browser suddenly becomes much faster and much more useful.  Your URL
happens to contain a java applet, so you'll be grinding away for a bit while
the VM springs itself to life.

It's funny what a diffence it seems to make.  Try running a VM in a ramdisk to
feel what fast storage can feel like.

So the argument is to throw so much memory into your machine that you never
touch the disk, and never reboot it.  Sound argument (as long as you don't
mind risking your data on writes by not syncing), but expensive.  So you go
for the cheaper option of adding a ~32Gbyte SSD into your system.  Cheaper
than RAM, but faster than disk, and faster than being safe with just lots of
memory.  You back all that with a 2Tb 3.5" disk for bulk storage.

Spinning disks seem an awful lot like victorian technology taken too far.  In
the long term, what's *not* to like about the idea of fully solid state
storage?

jh
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-26 Thread Emmanuel Noobadmin
On 5/26/11, Kevin K  wrote:
> Though thumb drives are flash, they tend to use a slower flash than what is
> used in hard drive replacement units.

No actual industry facts for this, but I think the Flash used in thumb
drives are not really any slower by nature/design. This is because I
see that the fastest SSD currently tend to use 8 channel controllers
for 200+ MB/s performance which translate to 20~30MB/sec per channel.

The better USB 2.0 thumb drives can do about 20+ MB, Kingston even has
a new one that will supposedly do 70+ when connected via USB 3.0. If
we take 8 of these and RAID 0 them which is pretty much what the
8-channel controller is doing, we're looking at pretty similar numbers
between the flash cells in thumb drives and "SSD".


>I think that many people, when talking about SSD, may be thinking of drives in 
>the form factor of a hard drive.  Either 2.5" or 3.5".  Which would probably 
>not be called a thumb
> drive :)

Only because it doesn't come with a USB connector! ;)
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-25 Thread Timothy Murphy
Thomas Harold wrote:

>> I've read most of the articles in this thread,
>> and I haven't seen anything that persuades me
>> SSD would be a good investment in my case,
>> either in servers or laptops.

> *whistles* If you have not tried out a SSD laptop or desktop then you're
> in for a big surprise.

Actually I have an SSD laptop (in fact two),
and they are no faster for what I do,
once I have booted up.

> Especially if you multi-task at all or work with
> a few thousand small files.

I guess I don't do either.
I often look at a few remote computers from my laptop,
and perhaps download a file while editing a document,
but that is about all.

The question is, which of us is more typical?

I was going to say, more typical of CentOS users,
but I only run CentOS on two servers, and rarely login to them;
I run Fedora on my laptops.

> The main downside right now is cost and how big of a disk you can
> afford.  SSDs are wonderful, but still in the $1.50-$2.00/GB range.
> Better then it was, but I was disappointed with Intel's 25nm pricing.

For me, having a small SSD on a laptop would be much more inconvenient
than any increase in speed.

As I said, it all depends which of us is more typical of Linux users.

But I'm generally puzzled by the emphasis many people put on speed.
Unless one is a gamer, it doesn't seem to me to make much difference
if it takes 13 second or 30 seconds to boot up.
Either way it is going to take the same time to get to an URL.


-- 
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tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-25 Thread Kevin K

On May 25, 2011, at 3:28 PM, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:

> I don't know... "SSD drive with a USB interface" sounds a big
> mouthful... most people I know just call thumb drives :D

Though thumb drives are flash, they tend to use a slower flash than what is 
used in hard drive replacement units.  I think that many people, when talking 
about SSD, may be thinking of drives in the form factor of a hard drive.  
Either 2.5" or 3.5".  Which would probably not be called a thumb drive :)

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-25 Thread Emmanuel Noobadmin
On 5/24/11, Benjamin Franz  wrote:
> On 05/24/2011 08:25 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>> I know you get some USB type SSD's, but people still refer to them as
>> SSD drives, and not USB drives
>>
> The correct way to describe it is 'a SSD drive *with a USB interface*'
> or 'a SSD drive *with a SATA interface*'.

I don't know... "SSD drive with a USB interface" sounds a big
mouthful... most people I know just call thumb drives :D
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-25 Thread Keith Roberts
On Wed, 25 May 2011, Kevin K wrote:

> To: CentOS mailing list 
> From: Kevin K 
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition
> 
>
> To bad I don't make purchasing decisions at work, or I 
> would like a SSD for my Linux system, probably to be 
> upgraded to 6 later in the year.

You try to convince them that it would help improve your 
productivity - so would be a great saving in the long term?

Keith

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-25 Thread Kevin K

To bad I don't make purchasing decisions at work, or I would like a SSD for my 
Linux system, probably to be upgraded to 6 later in the year.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-25 Thread Keith Roberts

On Tue, 24 May 2011, Kevin K wrote:


To: CentOS mailing list 
From: Kevin K 
Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition


On May 24, 2011, at 10:25 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:




But don't you think that a SSD, or rather Solid State Drive, would
still be seen as a different type of drive than a SATA drive, even
though they share the same type of bus & connector + power cable?

I know you get some USB type SSD's, but people still refer to them as
SSD drives, and not USB drives


Depends on what level you are looking.  Generically, it is 
a sequence of blocks, just like a rotating hard drive 
appears.  Proper ID commands can find out more detailed 
information on it.


Some computers, like the Macbook Air, have SSD but it is 
NOT SATA.  It is plugged into an expansion slot.  I have 
also seen other SSDs that plug into PCI Express slots.


The OWC drive I'm looking at is a 2.5" SSD drive with SATA 
II 3.0 Gb/s interface. It can also be used with a SATA 
-> IDE/ATA adaptor, that would make it appear to the OS as a 
P-ATA EIDE drive.


http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Extreme_Pro/Legacy_Edition

"Add a technological supercharger to your existing Mac or PC 
with the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro Legacy Edition SSD. Thanks 
to the special PATA adapter included , it’s the fastest, 
most reliable IDE/ATA mechanism available to breathe 
lightning fast performance into that trusty machine and 
extend its usefulness.


Includes IDE/ATA adapter for use in 3.5" IDE/ATA desktop 
drive bays. With PATA adapter removed, SATA I (1.5Gb/s) and 
SATA II (3.0Gb/s) interface supported, SATA 2.6 Compliant."


So I could use this in a desktop as an EIDE ATA 133Mbs 
drive with the PATA adaptor, or as a SATA II desktop drive, 
or in a laptop as a SATA drive.


The only thing I don't like is the fact that it's a MLC SSD. 
I'd much rather find a SLC drive, due to the x10 reliability 
factor.


The SATA -> EIDE drive adaptors are on ebay cheap.

I think this is a 2-way adapter; SATA -> PATA or vice 
versa.


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320645765177&ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT

The other option is to throw in a PCI(e) SATA controller 
card, and run the SSD as a native SATA II drive in a legacy 
IDE desktop.


Kind Regards,

Keith Roberts













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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Ross Walker
On May 24, 2011, at 11:40 AM, Bowie Bailey  wrote:

> On 5/24/2011 11:25 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Bowie Bailey  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Personally, I would call it an SATA HDD vs an SATA SSD.  The same would
>>> be true of a SCSI HDD vs a SCSI SSD.
>>> 
>>> At the moment, if you say "SATA drive", most people will understand you
>>> to mean hard drive simply because the solid state drives are not common
>>> enough.  If the price drops and they start taking over the market, then
>>> the understanding of "SATA drive" will probably change to refer to an SSD.
>>> 
 From Wikipedia:
>>> Serial ATA (SATA or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a computer
>>> bus interface for connecting host bus adapters to mass storage devices
>>> such as hard disk drives and optical drives.
>> 
>> But don't you think that a SSD, or rather Solid State Drive, would
>> still be seen as a different type of drive than a SATA drive, even
>> though they share the same type of bus & connector + power cable?
>> 
>> I know you get some USB type SSD's, but people still refer to them as
>> SSD drives, and not USB drives
> 
> We are discussing two different things here.
> 
> 1) What does SATA mean?
> 
> 2) What do people mean when they say "SATA drive"?
> 
> Unfortunately, common language tends to be general and vague.  People
> tend to use terms in ways that are not technically correct -- ever heard
> someone refer to their tower case as a "CPU"?
> 
> Technically, SATA refers to the bus, connector, and power.  Whether the
> general understanding of "SATA drive" will shift when SSDs become more
> prevalent is unknown (but likely).
> 
> Personally, I understand the general meaning of terms like "SATA drive",
> but I know what the technical term actually means and if someone seems
> to be confusing the technical term with the (non-technical) general
> usage, then I will correct them.

A SATA drive can be either a HDD or SSD, the term drive tends to refer to fixed 
media block device as opposed to say a multimedia (optical) or streaming media 
(tape) block device. Each device type has it's own particular command set. 
Though SSD drives and their TRIM command kind of changes things for fixed media 
devices, but the SCSI PUNCH command has found a common use.

Transport, commands and interface make up the standard. Things get a little 
strange though when SATA is tunneled through USB or SAS and SATA commands, like 
TRIM, which don't have a corresponding SCSI command aren't supported, so you 
can't TRIM a SATA SSD on a SAS controller. The SCSI equivalent to TRIM is PUNCH 
which is safer then TRIM, but more complex and the two can't interoperate, it 
is intended to be used in SANs as well as SSDs so the initiators can free up 
thin provisioned space as needed.

-Ross


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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Kevin K

On May 24, 2011, at 10:25 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> But don't you think that a SSD, or rather Solid State Drive, would
> still be seen as a different type of drive than a SATA drive, even
> though they share the same type of bus & connector + power cable?
> 
> I know you get some USB type SSD's, but people still refer to them as
> SSD drives, and not USB drives

Depends on what level you are looking.  Generically, it is a sequence of 
blocks, just like a rotating hard drive appears.  Proper ID commands can find 
out more detailed information on it.

Some computers, like the Macbook Air, have SSD but it is NOT SATA.  It is 
plugged into an expansion slot.  I have also seen other SSDs that plug into PCI 
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Rudi Ahlers
On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 8:01 PM, John R Pierce  wrote:
>
> (and, please folks, UPS's are great, but they fail too, you can't rely
> on them for data protection).
>
>
> --
> john r pierce                            N 37, W 123
> santa cruz ca                         mid-left coast
>
> ___



RAID cards, and RAID Card's battery caches also fail :)


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Rudi Ahlers
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Steve Clark

On 05/24/2011 02:01 PM, John R Pierce wrote:

On 05/24/11 10:32 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:

On 05/24/2011 09:57 AM, John R Pierce wrote:

  also you want SSD that has a supercap on its internal cache so pending
  writes aren't lost in a power failure scenario.

You know, I've asked people about that in the past since the whole block
read/erase/write cycle seems like a risk in the event of power loss, but
never got any satisfactory answer.  What manufacturers/models offer that
feature?  Are most drives with caps clearly labeled?

I just looked at OCZ's marketing fluff--err--webpile and it appears the
Vertex EX and PRO drives advertise that they have a supercapacitor.  the
others I sampled didn't.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-vertex-2-pro-series-sata-ii-2-5-ssd.html


my superficial scan of Intel's webpile didn't turn up any reference to
them on the x25-e or 510 drives. ah, the intel 320 series has power
failure protection which presumably means something like a supercap to
supply sufficient power to complete any pending write cycles..

There's an article on anandtech detailing datalosses on many SSDs on
power failure scenarios.

(and, please folks, UPS's are great, but they fail too, you can't rely
on them for data protection).



Thats why you have servers with redundant power supplies with each power supply 
plugged into a separate ups.



--
Stephen Clark
*NetWolves*
Sr. Software Engineer III
Phone: 813-579-3200
Fax: 813-882-0209
Email: steve.cl...@netwolves.com
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread John R Pierce
On 05/24/11 10:32 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
> On 05/24/2011 09:57 AM, John R Pierce wrote:
>> >  also you want SSD that has a supercap on its internal cache so pending
>> >  writes aren't lost in a power failure scenario.
> You know, I've asked people about that in the past since the whole block
> read/erase/write cycle seems like a risk in the event of power loss, but
> never got any satisfactory answer.  What manufacturers/models offer that
> feature?  Are most drives with caps clearly labeled?

I just looked at OCZ's marketing fluff--err--webpile and it appears the 
Vertex EX and PRO drives advertise that they have a supercapacitor.  the 
others I sampled didn't.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-vertex-2-pro-series-sata-ii-2-5-ssd.html


my superficial scan of Intel's webpile didn't turn up any reference to 
them on the x25-e or 510 drives. ah, the intel 320 series has power 
failure protection which presumably means something like a supercap to 
supply sufficient power to complete any pending write cycles..

There's an article on anandtech detailing datalosses on many SSDs on 
power failure scenarios.

(and, please folks, UPS's are great, but they fail too, you can't rely 
on them for data protection).


-- 
john r pierceN 37, W 123
santa cruz ca mid-left coast

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Steven Crothers
If you're referring to capacitors, I do not believe modern SSD's used
those. Or at least ones I've seen didn't (that I recall).

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Gordon Messmer  wrote:
> On 05/24/2011 09:57 AM, John R Pierce wrote:
>> also you want SSD that has a supercap on its internal cache so pending
>> writes aren't lost in a power failure scenario.
>
> You know, I've asked people about that in the past since the whole block
> read/erase/write cycle seems like a risk in the event of power loss, but
> never got any satisfactory answer.  What manufacturers/models offer that
> feature?  Are most drives with caps clearly labeled?
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Gordon Messmer
On 05/24/2011 09:57 AM, John R Pierce wrote:
> also you want SSD that has a supercap on its internal cache so pending
> writes aren't lost in a power failure scenario.

You know, I've asked people about that in the past since the whole block 
read/erase/write cycle seems like a risk in the event of power loss, but 
never got any satisfactory answer.  What manufacturers/models offer that 
feature?  Are most drives with caps clearly labeled?
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread John R Pierce
On 05/24/11 9:36 AM, Devin Reade wrote:
> --On Monday, May 23, 2011 05:05:38 PM -0700 R - elists
>   wrote:
>
>> what specific units are considered server grade ssd's ?
> What you want to look for in your drive specs are the acronyms
> SLC and MLC.
>
> SLC is enterprise grade, smaller capacity, expensive
> MLC is consumer grade, larger capacity, cheap(er)
>
> Expected lifetimes are typically at least 10x better for SLC.

also you want SSD that has a supercap on its internal cache so pending 
writes aren't lost in a power failure scenario.


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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Devin Reade
--On Monday, May 23, 2011 05:05:38 PM -0700 R - elists
 wrote:

> what specific units are considered server grade ssd's ?

What you want to look for in your drive specs are the acronyms
SLC and MLC.

   SLC is enterprise grade, smaller capacity, expensive
   MLC is consumer grade, larger capacity, cheap(er)

Expected lifetimes are typically at least 10x better for SLC.

Devin

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Benjamin Franz
On 05/24/2011 08:25 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>
> But don't you think that a SSD, or rather Solid State Drive, would
> still be seen as a different type of drive than a SATA drive, even
> though they share the same type of bus&  connector + power cable?

Interface and media type are completely independent. You can have SATA 
DVD, SSD, hard drives, Blue Ray, magnetic tape drives, etc.. You can 
have SAS DVD, SSD, hard drives, Blue Ray,tape drives, etc.. You can have 
USB DVD, SSD, hard drives, Blue Ray, magnetic tape drives, etc..

That a drive uses a SATA interface tells you *nothing* about the 
physical media itself.

You are making a category error. It is as if you claimed a laptop was 
fundamentally different because you were using it with a 230V AC to DC 
power adaptor instead of a 120V AC to DC power adaptor.

> I know you get some USB type SSD's, but people still refer to them as
> SSD drives, and not USB drives
>

I know a lot of people who call hard drives 'memory' - that doesn't make 
them right.

The correct way to describe it is 'a SSD drive *with a USB interface*' 
or 'a SSD drive *with a SATA interface*'.

-- 
Benjamin Franz

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Bowie Bailey
On 5/24/2011 11:25 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Bowie Bailey  wrote:
>>
>> Personally, I would call it an SATA HDD vs an SATA SSD.  The same would
>> be true of a SCSI HDD vs a SCSI SSD.
>>
>> At the moment, if you say "SATA drive", most people will understand you
>> to mean hard drive simply because the solid state drives are not common
>> enough.  If the price drops and they start taking over the market, then
>> the understanding of "SATA drive" will probably change to refer to an SSD.
>>
>> >From Wikipedia:
>> Serial ATA (SATA or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a computer
>> bus interface for connecting host bus adapters to mass storage devices
>> such as hard disk drives and optical drives.
>
> But don't you think that a SSD, or rather Solid State Drive, would
> still be seen as a different type of drive than a SATA drive, even
> though they share the same type of bus & connector + power cable?
>
> I know you get some USB type SSD's, but people still refer to them as
> SSD drives, and not USB drives

We are discussing two different things here.

1) What does SATA mean?

2) What do people mean when they say "SATA drive"?

Unfortunately, common language tends to be general and vague.  People
tend to use terms in ways that are not technically correct -- ever heard
someone refer to their tower case as a "CPU"?

Technically, SATA refers to the bus, connector, and power.  Whether the
general understanding of "SATA drive" will shift when SSDs become more
prevalent is unknown (but likely).

Personally, I understand the general meaning of terms like "SATA drive",
but I know what the technical term actually means and if someone seems
to be confusing the technical term with the (non-technical) general
usage, then I will correct them.

-- 
Bowie
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread John Hodrien
On Tue, 24 May 2011, Rudi Ahlers wrote:

> But don't you think that a SSD, or rather Solid State Drive, would
> still be seen as a different type of drive than a SATA drive, even
> though they share the same type of bus & connector + power cable?

A SATA SSD is different to a SATA HDD.  Yes.  And the OS can tell (if it wants
to) that they are different.  But a SATA drive is a term that encompasses both
if you ask me.

> I know you get some USB type SSD's, but people still refer to them as
> SSD drives, and not USB drives

I think we're just saying be carefuly what you say.  SSD after all stands for
Solid State Drive.  So SATA drive (as you keep saying) sounds like the
superset of HDDs and SSDs if you ask me, rather than SATA HDD which is what
you're trying to say.

Other people using ambiguous terms doesn't make you more right.

jh
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Rudi Ahlers
On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Bowie Bailey  wrote:
> On 5/24/2011 10:05 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 3:51 PM, Bowie Bailey  wrote:
>>> On 5/23/2011 7:42 PM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
 On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:30 AM, Kevin K  wrote:
> A SSD drive can be a SATA drive.  SATA is the connection/protocol between 
> the drive and the computer.

 Not quite. SATA is a type of drive, same as IDE / ATA, SCSI, SATA :)
>>> SATA is the connection.  This is why you can have SATA hard drives and
>>> DVD drives.  The same goes for IDE, SCSI, USB, and Firewire.  They are
>>> connection types for accessing storage devices.  They can connect to
>>> traditional hard drives, SSD drives, DVD drives, raid enclosures, etc.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Bowie
>>> ___
>>
>> So what do you call an actual SATA HDD then It's still a SATA HDD,
>> and it's still different from IDE, SCSI, SAS, SSD
>
> Personally, I would call it an SATA HDD vs an SATA SSD.  The same would
> be true of a SCSI HDD vs a SCSI SSD.
>
> At the moment, if you say "SATA drive", most people will understand you
> to mean hard drive simply because the solid state drives are not common
> enough.  If the price drops and they start taking over the market, then
> the understanding of "SATA drive" will probably change to refer to an SSD.
>
> >From Wikipedia:
> Serial ATA (SATA or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a computer
> bus interface for connecting host bus adapters to mass storage devices
> such as hard disk drives and optical drives.
>
> --
> Bowie
> ___




But don't you think that a SSD, or rather Solid State Drive, would
still be seen as a different type of drive than a SATA drive, even
though they share the same type of bus & connector + power cable?

I know you get some USB type SSD's, but people still refer to them as
SSD drives, and not USB drives


-- 
Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
SoftDux

Website: http://www.SoftDux.com
Technical Blog: http://Blog.SoftDux.com
Office: 087 805 9573
Cell: 082 554 7532
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Bowie Bailey
On 5/24/2011 10:05 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 3:51 PM, Bowie Bailey  wrote:
>> On 5/23/2011 7:42 PM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>>> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:30 AM, Kevin K  wrote:
 A SSD drive can be a SATA drive.  SATA is the connection/protocol between 
 the drive and the computer.
>>>
>>> Not quite. SATA is a type of drive, same as IDE / ATA, SCSI, SATA :)
>> SATA is the connection.  This is why you can have SATA hard drives and
>> DVD drives.  The same goes for IDE, SCSI, USB, and Firewire.  They are
>> connection types for accessing storage devices.  They can connect to
>> traditional hard drives, SSD drives, DVD drives, raid enclosures, etc.
>>
>> --
>> Bowie
>> ___
>
> So what do you call an actual SATA HDD then It's still a SATA HDD,
> and it's still different from IDE, SCSI, SAS, SSD

Personally, I would call it an SATA HDD vs an SATA SSD.  The same would
be true of a SCSI HDD vs a SCSI SSD.

At the moment, if you say "SATA drive", most people will understand you
to mean hard drive simply because the solid state drives are not common
enough.  If the price drops and they start taking over the market, then
the understanding of "SATA drive" will probably change to refer to an SSD.

>From Wikipedia:
Serial ATA (SATA or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a computer
bus interface for connecting host bus adapters to mass storage devices
such as hard disk drives and optical drives.

-- 
Bowie
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Rudi Ahlers
On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 3:51 PM, Bowie Bailey  wrote:
> On 5/23/2011 7:42 PM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:30 AM, Kevin K  wrote:
>>>
>>> A SSD drive can be a SATA drive.  SATA is the connection/protocol between 
>>> the drive and the computer.
>>
>>
>> Not quite. SATA is a type of drive, same as IDE / ATA, SCSI, SATA :)
>
> SATA is the connection.  This is why you can have SATA hard drives and
> DVD drives.  The same goes for IDE, SCSI, USB, and Firewire.  They are
> connection types for accessing storage devices.  They can connect to
> traditional hard drives, SSD drives, DVD drives, raid enclosures, etc.
>
> --
> Bowie
> ___


So what do you call an actual SATA HDD then It's still a SATA HDD,
and it's still different from IDE, SCSI, SAS, SSD


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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Bowie Bailey
On 5/23/2011 7:42 PM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:30 AM, Kevin K  wrote:
>>
>> A SSD drive can be a SATA drive.  SATA is the connection/protocol between 
>> the drive and the computer.
>
>
> Not quite. SATA is a type of drive, same as IDE / ATA, SCSI, SATA :)

SATA is the connection.  This is why you can have SATA hard drives and
DVD drives.  The same goes for IDE, SCSI, USB, and Firewire.  They are
connection types for accessing storage devices.  They can connect to
traditional hard drives, SSD drives, DVD drives, raid enclosures, etc.

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-24 Thread Michael Simpson
On 23 May 2011 11:04, John Hodrien  wrote:
> On Mon, 23 May 2011, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>
>> Doesn't SATA and SAS drives also wear out?
>
> Not in such a clear way related to usage.  You could have a SATA disk that you
> write to 24 hours a day and it could last for years.  With an SSD, you'd be
> certain to kill your disk in months if you treated it like that.
>
> On the other hand, I'd imagine an SSD used for solely reads could last a
> *very* long time.
>

i have been using an 8GB PATA interface SSD (mlc) for *years* now as
the sole disc on a laptop running centos for several hours on a daily
basis. Other than a noticeable slowdown once it got to the point of
having to do the erase before write (that TRIM would alleviate though
not on this drive) it is still way faster than the spinning drive it
replaced. This laptop (Dell Latitude L400) also has only 256MB of RAM
and runs a desktop so swap is used an awful lot. I now have a lot of
SSDs in production and have only seen spinning discs go bad for no
real reason (especially WD 3.5inch and hitachi 2,5inch for some
reason) whereas the SSDs have been rock solid. Either i am just lucky
or maybe the guys that were recommending several years ago using SSDs
for the zil in super large ZFS disc storage setups were correct. :)

Pretty soon extra large storage will be flash on PCIe -> SSD
->spinning discs as the data ages. Quite where it will then go to for
really long term i'm not sure ?tape ?cloud.

I can heartily recommend moving to SSD for OS / swap / cache / db
especially when CentOS 6 comes out
-though in order to use TRIM on non-swap partitions you will need to
be using ext4 (no LVM) and have the discard option set.

mike
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Gordon Messmer
On 05/23/2011 12:24 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
> yes,butt   SSD has to erase and write a LARGE block all at once, so
> they don't do so well with the sorts of 8k random writes that write
> intensive applications like relational databases commonly perform.

Many SSD are faster at writing even to already used blocks than disk 
drives are.  Still, to stay on topic, the suggestion that I put forth 
was to use the SSD for external journals for ext3 filesystems with 
journal=data.  In that case, the OS should pretty much always be writing 
full blocks to the SSD, so there should be even less concern about small 
random writes.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Thomas Harold
On 5/23/2011 7:03 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> yonatan pingle wrote:
>
>> On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Keith Roberts
>
>> anyways - if it's for home usage  Don't think twice get an SSD .
>
> Why?
> I've read most of the articles in this thread,
> and I haven't seen anything that persuades me
> SSD would be a good investment in my case,
> either in servers or laptops.
>

*whistles* If you have not tried out a SSD laptop or desktop then you're 
in for a big surprise.  Especially if you multi-task at all or work with 
a few thousand small files.  It can make even a 10k RPM SATA seem slow 
when you try to do multiple things at once.  Boot the machine up, start 
doing work while things are still loading up.  Which is a situation that 
would bury a 7200 or 5400 RPM drive in seeks.

After having a 10k RPM SATA on the desktop for a few years, 7200 RPM 
seem slow and 5400 RPM drives seem glacial.  The SSD in the laptop can 
make the 10k RPM SATA seem slow in comparison.  It's the difference 
between 200-300 seeks/second for a mechanical and a few thousand seeks 
per second.

The main downside right now is cost and how big of a disk you can 
afford.  SSDs are wonderful, but still in the $1.50-$2.00/GB range. 
Better then it was, but I was disappointed with Intel's 25nm pricing.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Drew
>> A SSD drive can be a SATA drive.  SATA is the connection/protocol between 
>> the drive and the computer.
>
> Not quite. SATA is a type of drive, same as IDE / ATA, SCSI, SATA :)

I disagree. :)

IDE/ATA, SATA, SAS, SCSI are all just interfaces. The underlying
media, whether spinning rust or MLC/SLC NAND Flash is the drive.

So SSD's can be SATA, SAS, built into custom PCIe cards (OCZ Revo
Drive's & the ilk) or even ATA (never seen one). Regardless it's still
an SSD drive.


-- 
Drew

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
--Marie Curie

"This started out as a hobby and spun horribly out of control."
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Rudi Ahlers
On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:30 AM, Kevin K  wrote:
>
> On May 23, 2011, at 4:48 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>
>> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Kevin Thorpe
>>  wrote:
>>> Just be aware that SSDs wear out. They have a limited number of write
>>> cycles.
>>> Nowadays they all do 'wear levelling' to even the writes across the drive
>>> but
>>> even so they don't last very long in heavy write usage.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Doesn't SATA and SAS drives also wear out?
>
> A SSD drive can be a SATA drive.  SATA is the connection/protocol between the 
> drive and the computer.



Not quite. SATA is a type of drive, same as IDE / ATA, SCSI, SATA :)


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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread R - elists

> Do note that the server-grade SSDs are far more reliable than 
> the consumer-grade crap.
> 
>   mark
> 

mark,

what specific units are considered server grade ssd's ?

have you bought and used them with CentOS? other opsys ?

where are you sourcing and what are you paying?

 - rh

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Kevin K

On May 23, 2011, at 4:48 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:

> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Kevin Thorpe
>  wrote:
>> Just be aware that SSDs wear out. They have a limited number of write
>> cycles.
>> Nowadays they all do 'wear levelling' to even the writes across the drive
>> but
>> even so they don't last very long in heavy write usage.
>> 
> 
> 
> Doesn't SATA and SAS drives also wear out?

A SSD drive can be a SATA drive.  SATA is the connection/protocol between the 
drive and the computer.


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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Benjamin Franz
On 05/23/2011 12:27 PM, Ray Van Dolson wrote:
>
>> Quote from
>> http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/newmds-ssdtuning.html
>> :
>>
>>  Red Hat also warns that software RAID levels 1, 4, 5, and 6 are not
>>  recommended for use on SSDs. During the initialization stage of these
>>  RAID levels, some RAID management utilities (such as mdadm) write to
>>  all of the blocks on the storage device to ensure that checksums
>>  operate properly. This will cause the performance of the SSD to degrade
>>  quickly.
>>
> Huh.  Maybe LVM mirroring would be alright.

Not actually a problem if you are just using it for journaling. Journals 
max out at 400MB -  so you are using only a tiny fraction of the entire 
SSD for the journal while getting a large performance pop on small 
writes since the OS can safely return to you before the data is actually 
written to the slower magnetic disk. Another alternative is to *not use 
the entire SSD*. Deliberately leave say 25% or so unallocated. Kind of 
like short stroking a disk for performance: You sacrifice capacity for 
speed.

-- 
Benjamin Franz

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread John R Pierce
On 05/23/11 12:45 PM, Keith Roberts wrote:
> Would a defrag program work on a SSD?

for some values of 'work'.as its completely unaware of the internal 
block remapping of the SSD, all it would really do would be to churn the 
data around.

I've read the only way to reset the block remapping on most consumer 
SSDs is to write all zeros on them, some vendors say twice.   so, make a 
full file system backup, zero the disk (maybe zero it again), then 
restore that backup.  NOW your data is all contiguous both in file 
system logical space AND in remapped SSD block space.

ugh.


-- 
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santa cruz ca mid-left coast

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Keith Roberts
On Mon, 23 May 2011, Ray Van Dolson wrote:

> To: centos@centos.org
> From: Ray Van Dolson 
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition
> 
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 02:29:22PM -0500, Robert Nichols wrote:
>> On 05/23/2011 01:44 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:
>>>
>>> But, for paranoia's sake, I would RAID1 the SSD with a second SSD.
>>>
>>
>> Quote from
>> http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/newmds-ssdtuning.html
>> :
>>
>> Red Hat also warns that software RAID levels 1, 4, 5, and 6 are not
>> recommended for use on SSDs. During the initialization stage of these
>> RAID levels, some RAID management utilities (such as mdadm) write to
>> all of the blocks on the storage device to ensure that checksums
>> operate properly. This will cause the performance of the SSD to degrade
>> quickly.
>>
>
> Huh.  Maybe LVM mirroring would be alright.

Quote from above link.

"In addition, keep in mind that MD (software raid) does not 
support discards. In contrast, the logical volume manager 
(LVM) and the device-mapper (DM) targets that LVM uses do 
support discards. The only DM targets that do not support 
discards are dm-snapshot, dm-crypt, and dm-raid45. Discard 
support for the dm-mirror was added in Red Hat Enterprise 
Linux 6.1."

It's not a very large article. A quick 5-10 minute read 
maybe.

Keith

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Keith Roberts
On Mon, 23 May 2011, John R Pierce wrote:

> To: centos@centos.org
> From: John R Pierce 
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition
> 
> On 05/23/11 9:54 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
>> On 05/23/2011 07:23 AM, Michael Schumacher wrote:
>>> As far as I understand, SSD are fast at reading and slow at writing.
>> A good SSD will be substantially faster at writes than a disk drive, as
>> well.  Because there's no head seeking around a platter, latency is
>> vastly better, which provides a massive performance advantage in many
>> (if not most) use patterns.
>
> yes,butt   SSD has to erase and write a LARGE block all at once, so
> they don't do so well with the sorts of 8k random writes that write
> intensive applications like relational databases commonly perform.To
> write a single 8K block would require reading the whole flash block
> (something like 64k or 256k), flash erasing that block, then rewriting
> the whole thing.  This would be painfully slow.So, what the drives
> do instead is remap blocks rather randomly onto 'new' space, caching
> them in drive-local buffer memory, then flashing whole blocks at once.
> once the new space is used up, performance tends to degrade as they have
> to scavenge scattered free blocks.

Would a defrag program work on a SSD?

Keith

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Keith Roberts
On Mon, 23 May 2011, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
*snip*
> ZFS can use a SATA, SAS or SSD drive as cache drive to speed up common
> reads & writes. I have seen some small improvements even when using a
> cheaper grade SATA & SAS drive (as part of an experiment). The speed
> improvement is quite a bit more evident on larger storage arrays.
>
> You could also use 2 cheaper MLC type SSD's, one in a "cold standy"
> type setup - where it's already in mounted in the server and then you
> simply tell ZFS to stop using SSD1, and start using SSD2 instead.

Here's a follow on link from another posters link:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/ssd-value-performance,review-1455.html

Apparently, SLC are supposed to last ~10x longer than MLC ?

Keith

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Ray Van Dolson
On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 02:29:22PM -0500, Robert Nichols wrote:
> On 05/23/2011 01:44 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:
> >
> > But, for paranoia's sake, I would RAID1 the SSD with a second SSD.
> >
> 
> Quote from 
> http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/newmds-ssdtuning.html
>  
> :
> 
> Red Hat also warns that software RAID levels 1, 4, 5, and 6 are not
> recommended for use on SSDs. During the initialization stage of these
> RAID levels, some RAID management utilities (such as mdadm) write to
> all of the blocks on the storage device to ensure that checksums
> operate properly. This will cause the performance of the SSD to degrade
> quickly.
> 

Huh.  Maybe LVM mirroring would be alright.

Ray
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Robert Nichols
On 05/23/2011 01:44 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:
>
> But, for paranoia's sake, I would RAID1 the SSD with a second SSD.
>

Quote from 
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/newmds-ssdtuning.html
 
:

Red Hat also warns that software RAID levels 1, 4, 5, and 6 are not
recommended for use on SSDs. During the initialization stage of these
RAID levels, some RAID management utilities (such as mdadm) write to
all of the blocks on the storage device to ensure that checksums
operate properly. This will cause the performance of the SSD to degrade
quickly.

-- 
Bob Nichols "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
 Do NOT delete it.

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread John R Pierce
On 05/23/11 9:54 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
> On 05/23/2011 07:23 AM, Michael Schumacher wrote:
>> As far as I understand, SSD are fast at reading and slow at writing.
> A good SSD will be substantially faster at writes than a disk drive, as
> well.  Because there's no head seeking around a platter, latency is
> vastly better, which provides a massive performance advantage in many
> (if not most) use patterns.

yes,butt   SSD has to erase and write a LARGE block all at once, so 
they don't do so well with the sorts of 8k random writes that write 
intensive applications like relational databases commonly perform.To 
write a single 8K block would require reading the whole flash block 
(something like 64k or 256k), flash erasing that block, then rewriting 
the whole thing.  This would be painfully slow.So, what the drives 
do instead is remap blocks rather randomly onto 'new' space, caching 
them in drive-local buffer memory, then flashing whole blocks at once.  
once the new space is used up, performance tends to degrade as they have 
to scavenge scattered free blocks.


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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Rudi Ahlers
On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 8:44 PM, Jerry Franz  wrote:
> On 05/23/2011 11:01 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>> Now, the question is, is is there any way to tell EXT3/4 to use a
>> separate drive as a cache drive for the same purpose? OR, how about
>> telling CentOS to use a separate drive for caching purposes in the
>> same way?
>
> You can use an external journal on a SSD to speed up at least writes by
> quite a lot.
>
> http://insights.oetiker.ch/linux/external-journal-on-ssd/
>
> But, for paranoia's sake, I would RAID1 the SSD with a second SSD.
>
> --
> Benjamin Franz
> ___



Interesting, and it seems like it's similar to the ZFS cache drive
scenario but will probably work better for what the OP had in mind,
than putting the swap & logs onto the SSD drive.

I don't know if running SSD's in RAID1 will be that much more
reliable. Surely if the exact same data is read & written (aka same
amount of reads & writes take place) on both drive, then both will
fail at the same time?




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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Jerry Franz
On 05/23/2011 11:01 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> Now, the question is, is is there any way to tell EXT3/4 to use a
> separate drive as a cache drive for the same purpose? OR, how about
> telling CentOS to use a separate drive for caching purposes in the
> same way?

You can use an external journal on a SSD to speed up at least writes by 
quite a lot.

http://insights.oetiker.ch/linux/external-journal-on-ssd/

But, for paranoia's sake, I would RAID1 the SSD with a second SSD.

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Rudi Ahlers
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 12:29 AM, yonatan pingle
 wrote:
> Hi Keith
> not sure about OCZ reliability for production , but i can confirm
> Intel x-25 drives work great with centos ( about 11 month's now ).
> I use two drives as /var in md mirror , using it for SQL and logs -
> it's an amazing boost vs ordinary drives.
>
>
> if you use the SSD for swap, don't put anything important on them, I
> have managed to destroy a drive which was used for heavy swap
> operations.
> (insane experiment with KVM virtual machines got to that situation ).
> the machines used the drive as RAM. ( that was an intel drive! ).
>
> I did experience a bad OCZ drive in the past, that's the reason i gone
> for the intel disks instead for production.
> the OCZ one died from normal usage on a laptop as a single drive.
>
> the intels might be slower then other SSD drives, but i find them to
> be very reliable in contrast for normal (sane) usage.
>
>



ZFS can use a SATA, SAS or SSD drive as cache drive to speed up common
reads & writes. I have seen some small improvements even when using a
cheaper grade SATA & SAS drive (as part of an experiment). The speed
improvement is quite a bit more evident on larger storage arrays.

You could also use 2 cheaper MLC type SSD's, one in a "cold standy"
type setup - where it's already in mounted in the server and then you
simply tell ZFS to stop using SSD1, and start using SSD2 instead.

15K SAS drives also add some level of improvement if you need speed  +
reliability on a tight budget.

Now, the question is, is is there any way to tell EXT3/4 to use a
separate drive as a cache drive for the same purpose? OR, how about
telling CentOS to use a separate drive for caching purposes in the
same way?


-- 
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Rudi Ahlers
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Keith Roberts
On Mon, 23 May 2011, Jerry Franz wrote:
*snip*
> However, SSD drive reliability itself has been very poor in the field.
> The failure rate is obscene.
>
> See Jeff Atwood's 'The Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale':
> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html>


Quote

"I have a 64 GB Patriot SSD that's three years old and still 
going strong. It came with a ten year warranty which seems pretty
incredible. I wonder what their replacement strategy is in 
nine years."

That sounds a better deal - a 10 year warranty!

Kind Regards,

Keith

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Gordon Messmer
On 05/23/2011 07:23 AM, Michael Schumacher wrote:
>
> As far as I understand, SSD are fast at reading and slow at writing.

A good SSD will be substantially faster at writes than a disk drive, as 
well.  Because there's no head seeking around a platter, latency is 
vastly better, which provides a massive performance advantage in many 
(if not most) use patterns.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread m . roth
Jerry Franz wrote:
> On 05/23/2011 09:39 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
>> On 05/23/2011 02:31 AM, Kevin Thorpe wrote:
>>> Just be aware that SSDs wear out. They have a limited number of write
>>>   cycles. Nowadays they all do 'wear levelling' to even the writes
>>> across the drive but even so they don't last very long in heavy write
>>> usage.
>> Yes, there's a limit number of writes.  With wear leveling you should be
>> able to write to the drive at its full rate, constantly, for years
>> before you actually wear out the drive.
>
> However, SSD drive reliability itself has been very poor in the field.
> The failure rate is obscene.

Do note that the server-grade SSDs are far more reliable than the
consumer-grade crap.

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Jerry Franz
On 05/23/2011 09:39 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
> On 05/23/2011 02:31 AM, Kevin Thorpe wrote:
>> Just be aware that SSDs wear out. They have a limited number of write
>>   cycles. Nowadays they all do 'wear levelling' to even the writes
>> across the drive but even so they don't last very long in heavy write
>> usage.
> Yes, there's a limit number of writes.  With wear leveling you should be
> able to write to the drive at its full rate, constantly, for years
> before you actually wear out the drive.

However, SSD drive reliability itself has been very poor in the field. 
The failure rate is obscene.

See Jeff Atwood's 'The Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale': 
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html>

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Gordon Messmer
On 05/23/2011 02:31 AM, Kevin Thorpe wrote:
> Just be aware that SSDs wear out. They have a limited number of write
>  cycles. Nowadays they all do 'wear levelling' to even the writes
> across the drive but even so they don't last very long in heavy write
> usage.

Yes, there's a limit number of writes.  With wear leveling you should be 
able to write to the drive at its full rate, constantly, for years 
before you actually wear out the drive.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Gordon Messmer
On 05/23/2011 01:22 AM, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:
> If I'm not mistakened, one issue with using SSD was limited write
> cycles of the cells? So two SSD used for repeated rewrite operations
> would likely die around the same time, wouldn't they?

An SLC drive with wear leveling should last far longer than the system 
in which it's used.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread John Doe
Here, we are waiting for CentOS 6 for the discard (trim) option from the new 
kernel...
Also, RedHat has some advices:
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/newmds-ssdtuning.html

JD
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Keith Roberts
On Mon, 23 May 2011, Michael Schumacher wrote:

> To: CentOS mailing list 
> From: Michael Schumacher 
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition
> 
> Keith,
>
> On Friday, May 20, 2011 you wrote:
>
>> I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD
>> for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so
>> often. Plus putting SWAP onto a decent SSD should speed
>> things up somewhat.
>
> As far as I understand, SSD are fast at reading and slow at writing.
> They are strong if data rarely changes and if it is mainly read like root
> partitions.
>
> This may be useful for webservers that hold the content in /var/www.
>
> Putting your often changing data like swap and /var/log on a SSD may
> slow down your system.
>
> A swap partition is used to save expensive RAM. Don't use much more
> expensive FLASH-ROM to replace it.
>
> Beside that, if your system is heavily swapping, a SSD will wear out
> quickly.

OK Michael. Thankyou for that - I understand what you are 
saying.

Regards,

Keith



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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Michael Schumacher
Keith,

On Friday, May 20, 2011 you wrote:

> I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD
> for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so 
> often. Plus putting SWAP onto a decent SSD should speed 
> things up somewhat.

As far as I understand, SSD are fast at reading and slow at writing.
They are strong if data rarely changes and if it is mainly read like root
partitions.

This may be useful for webservers that hold the content in /var/www.

Putting your often changing data like swap and /var/log on a SSD may
slow down your system.

A swap partition is used to save expensive RAM. Don't use much more
expensive FLASH-ROM to replace it.

Beside that, if your system is heavily swapping, a SSD will wear out
quickly.


best regards
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Keith Roberts
On Sun, 22 May 2011, Gordon Messmer wrote:

> To: CentOS mailing list 
> From: Gordon Messmer 
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition
> 
> On 05/20/2011 01:26 PM, Keith Roberts wrote:
>> I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD
>> for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so
>> often.
>
> Yes, it's often a really good idea.  If you're doing software RAID on
> Linux, you really should either disable disk drives' write cache or have
> the system on a UPS with monitoring and automated shutdown.  Most people
> will opt for the latter.  Using an SSD can boost write performance and
> reliability for other systems.  I just found this write-up on the topic:
>
> http://insights.oetiker.ch/linux/external-journal-on-ssd.html
>
>> Plus putting SWAP onto a decent SSD should speed
>> things up somewhat.
>
> Well, only if you're using swap space.  If that's the case, adding RAM
> to the system will probably be less expensive and a lot more effective.

Thanks for that Gordon, and all the other replies so far. 
This has given something to certainly consider doing 
sometime soon.

Kind Regards,

Keith Roberts

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Timothy Murphy
yonatan pingle wrote:

> On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Keith Roberts

> anyways - if it's for home usage  Don't think twice get an SSD .

Why?
I've read most of the articles in this thread,
and I haven't seen anything that persuades me
SSD would be a good investment in my case,
either in servers or laptops.

As far as swap is concerned, I'm not sure this has ever
gone outside the 6GB RAM on my server,
or even the 2GB RAM on my laptops.

As far as speed is concerned,
the only operations I would like to speed up concern the internet, 
and I don't think SSD would help in this case.


-- 
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread John Hodrien
On Mon, 23 May 2011, Rudi Ahlers wrote:

> Doesn't SATA and SAS drives also wear out?

Not in such a clear way related to usage.  You could have a SATA disk that you
write to 24 hours a day and it could last for years.  With an SSD, you'd be
certain to kill your disk in months if you treated it like that.

On the other hand, I'd imagine an SSD used for solely reads could last a
*very* long time.

jh
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Rudi Ahlers
On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Kevin Thorpe
 wrote:
> Just be aware that SSDs wear out. They have a limited number of write
> cycles.
> Nowadays they all do 'wear levelling' to even the writes across the drive
> but
> even so they don't last very long in heavy write usage.
>


Doesn't SATA and SAS drives also wear out?

-- 
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Kevin Thorpe
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 6:18 PM, Gordon Messmer  wrote:

> On 05/20/2011 01:26 PM, Keith Roberts wrote:
> > I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD
> > for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so
> > often.
>

Just be aware that SSDs wear out. They have a limited number of write
cycles.
Nowadays they all do 'wear levelling' to even the writes across the drive
but
even so they don't last very long in heavy write usage.

If you're talking swap and tmp then you can get a DRAM drive which will be
lightning fast but even with battery backup you can't expect the contents to
be kept through a power cycle.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-23 Thread Emmanuel Noobadmin
On 5/22/11, yonatan pingle  wrote:
> the only way to go with SSD is RAID due to these reasons.
> it's unlikely that two disks will die at the same time, so it's
> possible to use and enjoy them ,
> but don't forget to have a fresh backup and a raid array. ( that
> should be done also with an ordinary disk array anyways ).

If I'm not mistakened, one issue with using SSD was limited write
cycles of the cells? So two SSD used for repeated rewrite operations
would likely die around the same time, wouldn't they?
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-22 Thread Gordon Messmer
On 05/20/2011 01:26 PM, Keith Roberts wrote:
> I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD
> for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so
> often.

Yes, it's often a really good idea.  If you're doing software RAID on 
Linux, you really should either disable disk drives' write cache or have 
the system on a UPS with monitoring and automated shutdown.  Most people 
will opt for the latter.  Using an SSD can boost write performance and 
reliability for other systems.  I just found this write-up on the topic:

http://insights.oetiker.ch/linux/external-journal-on-ssd.html

> Plus putting SWAP onto a decent SSD should speed
> things up somewhat.

Well, only if you're using swap space.  If that's the case, adding RAM 
to the system will probably be less expensive and a lot more effective.
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-22 Thread yonatan pingle
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Keith Roberts  wrote:
> On Sun, 22 May 2011, yonatan pingle wrote:
>
>> To: CentOS mailing list 
>> From: yonatan pingle 
>> Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition
>>
>> On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 10:57 AM, Steven Crothers
>>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I was running on 3gbps sata bus, and the  performance was great, it
>>>> just dies in one big crash without  giving any clues about it.
>>>
>>> If only SSD's were a viable solution for long-term storage, we could
>>> theoretically increase our virtualization many times over. It's to bad
>>> the technology hasn't come far enough to be used that way though
>>> without costing an arm and leg.
>
> But it's going in the right direction now.
>
>>> --
>>> Steven Crothers
>>> steven.croth...@gmail.com
>
>
>> the only way to go with SSD is RAID due to these reasons.
>> it's unlikely that two disks will die at the same time, so it's
>> possible to use and enjoy them ,
>> but don't forget to have a fresh backup and a raid array. ( that
>> should be done also with an ordinary disk array anyways ).
>
> That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. Two 40GB SSD drives in a RAID array
> would not cost much at all. Move all the disk intensive stuff to that. I
> only have two root partitions of 20GB each for my main install - everything
> else is on other partitions on 2 x 500GB E-IDE drives. So putting the root
> partion on a small SSD (possibly RAIDed) is another option. Like most new
> electronics components, as time passes the mass production cost fall
> dramatically, and the technology improves. Look at the way HDD technology
> continues to advance.
>
> Maybe in 5 years time the cost of SSD's will be alot cheaper? Possibly in
> another 15 years time HDD's with moving parts will be consigned to history
> and science museums? I'm watching this technology very closely, and I'm very
> tempted to buy a small 40GB SSD like OWC's.
>
> They keep performing at optimal speed according to the specs for that drive.
>
> The OWC SSD's are supposed to have a MTTF of 2 million hours, PLUS they do
> not degrade over time. So if an OWC keeps going until MTTF, that's 24 x 365
> = 8760 HPY. 200 / 8760 = 228.31 years MTTF ?
>
> So why does it only have a 3 year warranty? - LOL
>
> For me anything on SWAP has to be better than a s/h drive thats had almost a
> years running time according to the SMART data on the drive:
>
> 9 Power_On_Hours  0x0032   090   090   000
>  Old_age   Always       -       7913
>
> 329 days running time already - let's see how long this one lasts before it
> kicks the bucket.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Keith Roberts
>
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>

I hardly swap to disk these days , and after the bad experience with
ssd as swap only ... i would stick to RAM & sata.

 RAM is so cheap , just get extra ram , and use PAE if 32bit (?)
adjust vm.swappiness ( sysctl ) to a lower value then 60 ( default ) ,
and you will be fine swapping on sata drives if and when needed.

if you are afraid of memory fragmentation , don't be .. in most cases
you will be rebooting the server when a new kernel update will come
out as it is
the main question is , which kind of applications are you planning to
run on your machine, and what is your actual hardware *needs*, that
only you can tell.

also, for /tmp , you might like the idea of a ramdisk ( or tmpfs ) ,
it is a great way to speed up things without breaking the piggy bank.

this is what i use in /etc/fstab for my home desktop as /tmp :

/tmpfs   /tmp tmpfs
size=512M,nr_inodes=5k,noatime,nodiratime,noexec 0 0

does the job well.

anyways - if it's for home usage  Don't think twice get an SSD .
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-22 Thread Keith Roberts

On Sun, 22 May 2011, yonatan pingle wrote:


To: CentOS mailing list 
From: yonatan pingle 
Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 10:57 AM, Steven Crothers
 wrote:

I was running on 3gbps sata bus, and the  performance was great, it
just dies in one big crash without  giving any clues about it.


If only SSD's were a viable solution for long-term storage, we could
theoretically increase our virtualization many times over. It's to bad
the technology hasn't come far enough to be used that way though
without costing an arm and leg.


But it's going in the right direction now.


--
Steven Crothers
steven.croth...@gmail.com




the only way to go with SSD is RAID due to these reasons.
it's unlikely that two disks will die at the same time, so it's
possible to use and enjoy them ,
but don't forget to have a fresh backup and a raid array. ( that
should be done also with an ordinary disk array anyways ).


That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. Two 40GB SSD drives in a 
RAID array would not cost much at all. Move all the disk 
intensive stuff to that. I only have two root partitions of 
20GB each for my main install - everything else is on other 
partitions on 2 x 500GB E-IDE drives. So putting the 
root partion on a small SSD (possibly RAIDed) is another 
option. Like most new electronics components, as time passes 
the mass production cost fall dramatically, and the 
technology improves. Look at the way HDD technology 
continues to advance.


Maybe in 5 years time the cost of SSD's will be alot 
cheaper? Possibly in another 15 years time HDD's with moving 
parts will be consigned to history and science museums? I'm 
watching this technology very closely, and I'm very tempted 
to buy a small 40GB SSD like OWC's.


They keep performing at optimal speed according to the specs 
for that drive.


The OWC SSD's are supposed to have a MTTF of 2 million 
hours, PLUS they do not degrade over time. So if an OWC 
keeps going until MTTF, that's 24 x 365 = 8760 HPY. 200 
/ 8760 = 228.31 years MTTF ?


So why does it only have a 3 year warranty? - LOL

For me anything on SWAP has to be better than a s/h drive 
thats had almost a years running time according to the SMART 
data on the drive:


9 Power_On_Hours  0x0032   090   090   000
  Old_age   Always   -   7913

329 days running time already - let's see how long this 
one lasts before it kicks the bucket.


Kind Regards,

Keith Roberts

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-22 Thread yonatan pingle
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 10:57 AM, Steven Crothers
 wrote:
>> I was running on 3gbps sata bus, and the  performance was great, it
>> just dies in one big crash without  giving any clues about it.
>
> If only SSD's were a viable solution for long-term storage, we could
> theoretically increase our virtualization many times over. It's to bad
> the technology hasn't come far enough to be used that way though
> without costing an arm and leg.
>
> --
> Steven Crothers
> steven.croth...@gmail.com
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>



the only way to go with SSD is RAID due to these reasons.
it's unlikely that two disks will die at the same time, so it's
possible to use and enjoy them ,
but don't forget to have a fresh backup and a raid array. ( that
should be done also with an ordinary disk array anyways ).


-- 
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Yonatan Pingle
RHCT | RHCSA | CCNA1
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-22 Thread Steven Crothers
> I was running on 3gbps sata bus, and the  performance was great, it
> just dies in one big crash without  giving any clues about it.

If only SSD's were a viable solution for long-term storage, we could
theoretically increase our virtualization many times over. It's to bad
the technology hasn't come far enough to be used that way though
without costing an arm and leg.

-- 
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steven.croth...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-22 Thread yonatan pingle
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 2:40 AM, Steven Crothers
 wrote:
> On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 6:29 PM, yonatan pingle
>  wrote:
>> if you use the SSD for swap, don't put anything important on them, I
>> have managed to destroy a drive which was used for heavy swap
>> operations.
>> (insane experiment with KVM virtual machines got to that situation ).
>> the machines used the drive as RAM. ( that was an intel drive! ).
>
> I have to ask, how was your performance before death? I don't have a
> sacrificial SSD laying around so I can't exactly test myself. I
> imagine the gains had to be pretty high?
>
> Were you running a 3 or 6 gbps sata bus?
>
> --
> Steven Crothers
> steven.croth...@gmail.com

I was running on 3gbps sata bus, and the  performance was great, it
just dies in one big crash without  giving any clues about it.




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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-21 Thread Steven Crothers
That's expensive, don't know about you but I don't factor in drives to
be dead within 3-4 months of installation for my machines. Running
swap on an MLC SSD will most definitely kill it in 3-4 months. You
expect to get at least 18-36 months out of a drive before it either
dies or requires an upgrade.

500GB Sata disks = $150 for good ones, that's $150 every 30 months (2
1/2 years).

A CHEAP OCZ MLC drive is $100 for 40GB, burn one of those every 4
months and you have to buy 8 in the same 2 1/2 years.

That's a $650 operating increase, or an additional $21/mo for a rented
server before profit mark up. Why not just use what Linux was designed
to use? A regular spinning disk, if you want performance get into Raid
10 with SAS drives. You'll get a significant speed increase at a lower
monthly operating cost due to the longevity of the drives, and you can
avoid all that pesky restore from backup situation 4 times a year.

Lets face it, a var partition goes and you're gonna have a hard time
starting up some services on boot, depending on your setup SSH wont
start. So now you're entering the realm of remote hands and eyes fees,
and at minimum that's going to be $50/hr with a hefty commit (if
you're in a quality datacenter of course).

On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 9:22 PM, Eero Volotinen  wrote:
>> It's really neat when an OCZ drive fails, it doesn't tick. You just
>> lose all your data. Here today, gone tomorrow.
>
> Just swap drive and restore from backup, no problem ?
>
> --
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-21 Thread Eero Volotinen
> It's really neat when an OCZ drive fails, it doesn't tick. You just
> lose all your data. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Just swap drive and restore from backup, no problem ?

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-21 Thread Steven Crothers
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 6:29 PM, yonatan pingle
 wrote:
> if you use the SSD for swap, don't put anything important on them, I
> have managed to destroy a drive which was used for heavy swap
> operations.
> (insane experiment with KVM virtual machines got to that situation ).
> the machines used the drive as RAM. ( that was an intel drive! ).

I have to ask, how was your performance before death? I don't have a
sacrificial SSD laying around so I can't exactly test myself. I
imagine the gains had to be pretty high?

Were you running a 3 or 6 gbps sata bus?

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-21 Thread Steven Crothers
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Eero Volotinen  wrote:
>
> Just buy fastest ocz drive than you can find from stores.
>
> --
> Eero

Simply buying OCZ because its cheap is wrong. OCZ drives use MLC
flash, I'm sure you know the difference between single level cells and
multiple level cells since you are making a product recommendation.
However in case you don't, your statement is incorrect. Using an OCZ
drive as swap is probably the worst thing you can do to it, when you
add in the fact you're also running some caches from var on it with
ext3... Well the results will not be pleasant in 1-2 years to say the
least.

It's really neat when an OCZ drive fails, it doesn't tick. You just
lose all your data. Here today, gone tomorrow.

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-21 Thread yonatan pingle
Hi Keith
not sure about OCZ reliability for production , but i can confirm
Intel x-25 drives work great with centos ( about 11 month's now ).
I use two drives as /var in md mirror , using it for SQL and logs -
it's an amazing boost vs ordinary drives.


if you use the SSD for swap, don't put anything important on them, I
have managed to destroy a drive which was used for heavy swap
operations.
(insane experiment with KVM virtual machines got to that situation ).
the machines used the drive as RAM. ( that was an intel drive! ).

I did experience a bad OCZ drive in the past, that's the reason i gone
for the intel disks instead for production.
the OCZ one died from normal usage on a laptop as a single drive.

the intels might be slower then other SSD drives, but i find them to
be very reliable in contrast for normal (sane) usage.




On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 9:56 AM, Keith Roberts  wrote:
> On Sat, 21 May 2011, Eero Volotinen wrote:
>
>> To: CentOS mailing list 
>> From: Eero Volotinen 
>> Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition
>>
>> 2011/5/20 Keith Roberts :
>>> Has anyone actually used a SSD in a Centos setup?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>
>>> I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD
>>> for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so
>>> often. Plus putting SWAP onto a decent SSD should speed
>>> things up somewhat.
>>
>> Just buy fastest ocz drive than you can find from stores.
>>
>
> Regards,
>
> Keith
>


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Yonatan Pingle
RHCT | RHCSA | CCNA1
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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-20 Thread Keith Roberts
On Sat, 21 May 2011, Eero Volotinen wrote:

> To: CentOS mailing list 
> From: Eero Volotinen 
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition
> 
> 2011/5/20 Keith Roberts :
>> Has anyone actually used a SSD in a Centos setup?
>
> Yes.
>
>
>> I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD
>> for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so
>> often. Plus putting SWAP onto a decent SSD should speed
>> things up somewhat.
>
> Just buy fastest ocz drive than you can find from stores.
>
>>
>> Here's a short video of a laptop fitted with a SSD drive
>> booting macOS, compared to a similar laptop booting from
>> the standard HDD.
>>
>> The laptop with the SSD boots and loads some apps in 28
>> seconds. The other one takes twice as long.
>
> So, slow? My macbook pro with ocz ssd boots much faster :)

Thanks for your reply Eero.

Do you have a link to the specs for your exact OCZ SSD model 
please, so I can take a look and compare it with the OWC 
drives? What size is the SDD in GB?

Regards,

Keith

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Re: [CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-20 Thread Eero Volotinen
2011/5/20 Keith Roberts :
> Has anyone actually used a SSD in a Centos setup?

Yes.


> I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD
> for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so
> often. Plus putting SWAP onto a decent SSD should speed
> things up somewhat.

Just buy fastest ocz drive than you can find from stores.

>
> Here's a short video of a laptop fitted with a SSD drive
> booting macOS, compared to a similar laptop booting from
> the standard HDD.
>
> The laptop with the SSD boots and loads some apps in 28
> seconds. The other one takes twice as long.

So, slow? My macbook pro with ocz ssd boots much faster :)

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Eero
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[CentOS] SSD for Centos SWAP /tmp & /var/ partition

2011-05-20 Thread Keith Roberts
Has anyone actually used a SSD in a Centos setup?

My little experiment with a s/h WD drive for /tmp and SWAP 
partitions kicked the bucket on Wednesday, when the poor WD 
drive caught the click-of-death. It was a s/h drive 
to start with and lasted about 4 months. But that was 
without the /var/log/ partition being written to it, as I 
mounted that back onto /var/log from the original drive.

So I had to install another (WD) drive, and repartion it and 
rebuild my RPM package database, from the backed-up Packages 
file. That seems to be all OK now.

I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to use a new SSD 
for moving all the disk i/o to, that Linux likes to do so 
often. Plus putting SWAP onto a decent SSD should speed 
things up somewhat.

Here's a short video of a laptop fitted with a SSD drive 
booting macOS, compared to a similar laptop booting from 
the standard HDD.

The laptop with the SSD boots and loads some apps in 28 
seconds. The other one takes twice as long.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G/?utm_source=thessdreview&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=042111

Kind Regards,

Keith Roberts

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