I've been using an Intel X25-M 80 Go "PostVille" as the boot drive on my
main server (Dell PE 2900) for 1 1/2 years. I have no issue at all. I
didn't tweak the filesystem or whatnot, it just works.
It runs the OS, there is a swap partition on it, and the system drives
of all my most important/used VMs are stored on it (many running 24/7
as the server does.)
Below some system info reported from 4 commands, to see for yourself.
Some comments:
i) when I wrote comments in fstab years ago I lied: the system drive
is not call sda, it is indeed sdc
ii) /proc/cmdline contains the current grub boot options. How do you
like that ?
iii) as said, a plain ext3 drive. Last partition is used for /home/vms
where my VMs HDD images are.
iv) In the very thorough smartctl trace you'll read a huge value under
"228 Power-off_Retract_Count". After worrying (given the funky way the
drive is powered, via the unused floppy power feed) and googling, it
appears that this report is erroneous due to an old smartmontool
version. The drive is indeed O.K.
Code:
--------------------
$ grep -C8 Intel /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
##
## System disk (SATA Port 0 - Located in floppy drive slot - Powered via
floppy_pwr, 3.3V only)
## Intel SSD 80G - Jul 25 2010
## A Dell diags partition is under sda1.
##
# sda6
LABEL=SYS-100725 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# sda2
LABEL=BOOT-100725 /boot ext3 defaults 0 2
# sda5
LABEL=SWAP1-20G none swap sw 0 0
$ cat /proc/cmdline
root=LABEL=SYS-100725 ro selinux=0 apparmor=0 security="" console=tty0
console=ttyS1,57600n8 quiet noresume
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdc
Disk /dev/sdc: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x373f9603
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/sdc2 6 30 200812+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc3 31 9729 77907217+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 31 2463 19543041 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc6 2464 9729 58364113+ 83 Linux
$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdc
smartctl 5.40 2010-07-12 r3124 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Intel X25-M SSD
Device Model: INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC
Serial Number: CVPO017001SP080JGN
Firmware Version: 2CV102HD
User Capacity: 80,026,361,856 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 1
Local Time is: Tue Feb 21 23:02:27 2012 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine
completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 1) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x75) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Abort Offline collection upon new
command.
No Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 5
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED
WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0020 100 100 000 Old_age Offline
- 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline
- 0
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
- 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
- 12999
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
- 60
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
- 23
225 Host_Writes_Count 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline
- 54568
226 Load-in_Time 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
- 946
227 Torq-amp_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
- 0
228 Power-off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always
- 4279035330
232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always
- 0
233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always
- 0
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0033 100 100 099 Pre-fail Always
- 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]
Note: selective self-test log revision number (0) not 1 implies that no
selective self-test has ever been run
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 0
Note: revision number not 1 implies that no selective self-test has ever been
run
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
--------------------
FWIW, running once an embedded system off a CF card, which is not
exactly the same sport, I did worry a little about journal writes and
especially using a swap partition on a fixed location.
- I used a debian package that handles swap as files, same as windows
or the mac (could have been "swapspace"), expecting the files to dance
a little more and limit the issue.
- I used laptop-like kernel options to limit the OS "swappiness" and
for the ext3 journal I used a longer commit time.
NB: The commit time option needs (needed?) to be included to kernel
boot options, and repeated in /etc/fstab. Otherwise the kernel would
boot and start using the system drive with default commit values,
before coming to read the fstab.
Unfortunately I did not use that system long enough to see if these
options were doing any good.
In any case, an Intel SSD is *not* a CF card. You should not encounter
issues using it as any plain hard drive.
And, one last thing. With my ext3 data drives, I was used to specifying
long journal commit options. Less drive wakes, I thought. On the 1st
generation of WD "green" drives this worked well. On the 2010 models I
bought later, this same option had a side effect due to changes in the
firmware, making drives age prematurely. I had to revert to standard
values, and could indeed measure an improvement from the smartctl
reports.
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (Voltaire) ~ If it ain't broken, don't
fix it (TB Lance ?)
--
epoch1970
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