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Thread: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

  1. #1
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    Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    I have a Lenovo T530 i5 that I purchased last fall with 4GB ram and a 500GB 7200rpm hard drive, with the intention of upgrading it to 16GB and an 256gb SSD when time/funds allowed. That time is now.

    The machine is currently multi-boot Windows 7 Pro, Ubuntu 12.10, openSuSE 12.2 and Linux Mint 14. After a lot of initial fussing around, the latter two get used very little if at all, so I will probably be going to just a dual-boot config. The hard drive is split up with approx. 100GB for Win7, 20GB for each of the Linux distros, 15GB for the Windows recovery partition, 5GB for swap, and the remainder accessible under /srv/data in the various distros.

    When I initially got this machine, the very first thing I did was use clonezilla to image the HDD and store it to a NAS. As I finished doing the various updates, partitioning, more updates, installing other distros, etc. I continued to do periodic images with clonezilla, so I have a pretty good set of backup images that I can go back to for restoration if need be. The user /home directory is backed up using duplicity (Deja Backup) under Ubuntu, also to the NAS.

    What I want to end up with is the SSD as the primary drive, with the Windows system and recover partitions, and Linux partitions as necessary in the remainder, using LVM. The current HDD will be re-purposed and mounted in a caddy in the optical bay under /srv, probably formatted NTFS so its accessible under both Win7 and Linux.

    I was thinking of taking another run with clonezilla and imaging the Win7 install, the Ubuntu install, and the /srv/data partition to the NAS one final time. After that... install the new SSD, restore the necessary partitions to it via clonezilla to get Win7 running again, and then re-install Ubuntu from scratch in the remaining space, and restore /home/$user from the NAS using duplicity. The major fly in the ointment here is getting the linux install back to its previous state, as far as installed programs, PPAs, etc.

    What I'm after here is any suggestions as to any glaring faults with the above schema, and ideas on how to get from where I am to where I want to be when all the bits get here.

    Thanks,

    Monte

  2. #2
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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    Some have reported clonezilla works, others suggest Windows tools for Windows.
    Backup windows before install - post by Mark Phelps
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2040149
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1626990
    http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
    Another suggestion by srs5694
    http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm



    You can export a list of installed apps and use that to reinstall all of them. All the data for the apps should be in your /home backup.
    from lovinglinux - use dpkg to list installed apps
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...75&postcount=5
    http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net/techbl...selectupgrade/
    From old install
    dpkg --get-selections > ~/my-packages
    From New install
    sudo dpkg --set-selections < my-packages
    sudo apt-get -y update
    sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

    I think the issue on PPAs is if changing versions as then there may not be a new PPA yet.

    But do not just import all sources as that can lead to issues of versions:
    http://askubuntu.com/questions/2038/...ftware-sources
    sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list ~/sources.list.backup
    Otherwise if you have added any PPAs or other sources, the tip will only reinstall Ubuntu files,
    UEFI boot install & repair info - Regularly Updated :
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  3. #3
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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    Thanks, the info on backing up and restoring installed packages should prove very helpful. I'll look into the PPAs as well.

    Any ideas on managing the SSD? Elsewhere people have alluded to some additional concerns being necessary when using them compared to regular spinning HDDs... keeping swap and /tmp off the SSD due to excessive writes, etc?

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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    There is disagreement on swap. I find with 4GB of RAM I never use it, so the whole issue is moot. But I have swap on my rotating drive and my installs find it. Someone said having some swap is good for a slightly faster boot. Booting looks for swap and has to time out or not find it, so if it finds it, it may boot very slightly faster.

    How to Tweak Your SSD in Ubuntu for Better Performance
    http://www.howtogeek.com/62761/how-t...r-performance/
    See comment: There’s no reason to use BOTH noatime and nodiratime, using noatime implies nodiratime.
    http://techgage.com/print/enabling_a...rt_under_linux
    Discussion of swap on SSD - best not to)
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1937251

    With SSD or Flash drives, Use ext4 without journal:
    sudo tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/sda1
    sudo tune2fs -o discard /dev/sda1
    No swap or set swapiness or install 'Dynamic Swap Space Manager' from the Ubuntu Software Center
    After installing, change the fstab so that everything gets mounted with noatime.
    Make sure BIOS is in AHCI mode for trim to work.
    change to noop i/o scheduler

    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...hed_2012&num=1

    fred@fred-Precise:~$ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler
    noop deadline [cfq]
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  5. #5
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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    Fred,

    Any thoughts on the necessity of overprovisioning the drive by purposely not allocating all the available space to partitions? It appears that most new drives have ~7% over-provisioning already built in, but I've seen some references to leaving as much as 10-20% unallocated for this purpose...

    Thanks,

    Monte

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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    I think it is in the Arch site that they suggest not using more than 70% of a / partition. I know with NTFS & Windows it slows down a lot if down to 10%, but I do not think Linux has that issue. But it may be about SSDs?

    Arch suggests gpt for SSD. Only if installing Windows on older system may you want MBR as Windows only boots from gpt with UEFI.
    https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2003022
    https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd
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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    Good links, thanks... but (I think) in this case over-provisioning is referring not to limiting how full a given file system is, but reserving a certain amount of drive space (say 25GB as 10% of a 256GB device) to be unused - not part of *any* partition or filesystem - for the purposes of increasing the endurance (longevity) of the device by allowing it to spread some of the write cycles around to reduce the effects of write-amplification as well as being able to work around individual pages that may become defective over time.

    http://www.edn.com/design/systems-de...r-provisioning

    I get that there is a certain amount (~7%) implicit in the decimal-vs-binary storage size rating of a given device; what I'm fuzzy on is whether its actually necessary to set aside even more space when setting up the partition structure for a new drive - or if any unformatted space would even be used at all by the drive controller. The linked article appears to be written by someone involved with one particular company, so I'm unclear on what constituted normal practice and what is their marketing hype.

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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    The decimal vs. binary just means you have less than you really thought you had.

    I think Linux reserves 5% in addition to the space automatically used by ext4 file systems for journal. You should leave that , but if just a data partition on one of the new Multi TB drives can easily make it smaller.

    Also in Linux the default is to reserve 5% of the diskspace for the superuser (this can be adjusted using tune2fs -m).
    sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sdd3


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
    It's the difference between gigabytes (GB) and gibibytes (GiB). One gigabyte = 1000 x 1000 x 1000 bytes (base 10). One gibibyte = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes (base 2).
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  9. #9
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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    Yes, I know the difference between a gigibyte and a gigabyte.... did you actually read the linked article to see what I was talking about?

  10. #10
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    Re: Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

    I think I have seen several similar articles, but do not know enough of the technical details to really know if that helps or if it already is done by how the system internally works or not.
    There is even controversy on whether using trim or just scheduling fstrim is better.
    Alternate to discard, call fstrim via cron
    http://opensuse.14.n6.nabble.com/SSD...td3313048.html

    And then which scheduler is better.
    I changed to noop per some info a couple of years ago.

    fred@fred-Precise:~$ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler
    noop deadline [cfq]

    noop may not be best scheduler for SSD, deadline may be better
    http://www.velobit.com/storage-perfo...SD-Performance
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