11.10 Install on SSD?

[CarlosinFL]

I've located two SATA identical 100 GB SSD's and I'm wondering if it's OK to load 11.10 on them? I've never used SSD's and I have no idea if Linux or 11.10 for that matter can utilize the drives efficiently with use of the TRIM command or some other garbage collection mechanism...

Can anyone tell me if I can use my SSD drives on 11.10 or if I should continue to use my 1 TB spindle drives instead.

Thanks!

[Quatrix]

It's not a concern. Ubuntu had full support for SSDs (including TRIM) since 10.04 or maybe even earlier.

[Muflon]

I am using 11.10 and a SSD with no problems to report.

Muflon

[CarlosinFL]

I was told my other forums / distributions that in order for this to work, I MUST use EXT4 file system ONLY and I would need to use the DISCARD option in /etc/fstab. Can anyone please explain and or clarify on this for me?

[oldfred]

I just installed to a 60GB new SSD, with 2 30GB partitions ( and a tiny bios_grub) so I can rotate my new install. Data is on spinning drives.
Since it is and will only be Linux I used gpt as the partitioning scheme as recommended byt archlinux site.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MagicFab/SSDchecklist

You want journal to speed up system recovery if you have to do repairs or run fsck. But if partition is small then it does not take long to fsck anyway and without journal writing is reduced.
SSD’s, Journaling, and noatime/relatime
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/03/01/ssds-journaling-and-noatimerelatime/
noatime,nodiratime options in fstab to make the ssd last longer when using a ext4 partition

[cbrunos]

Hello,

I bought a SSD today on the internet, and I was wondering what filesystem I should put on it. If I install 11.10 with BTRFS, is TRIM automatically activated, or do I need to edit the fstab like for ext4?

[svast]

I am running 120GB SSD on Ubuntu since 10.04 with no problem at all, upgraded fine to 10.10, 11.04 afterwards of course.
The only trick I applyed was to add the "noatime" option for the drive in /dev/fstab. Several forum topics explain the good part of this applied to the relatively limited life of SSD drives.

[oldfred]

Is there some reason for btrfs?

Comparision test:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=btrfs_linux31_ssd&num=1

[CarlosinFL]

TRIM/Discard appears to ONLY support EXT4. I'm still not clear based on this post if I must enable TRIM support in some configuration file or if it works out of the box from a fresh installation...anyone?

[oldfred]

Another thread with discussion:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1862333

[Bucic]

For #$% sake! I wasted close to 3 hours trying to figure out the set of pre-installation preparation tasks of SSD for Linux and I found NO definite answers. Just contradicting ones = useless!

Alignment:
The most vital issue to be cleared up as it's done before installation. This https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MagicFab/SSDchecklist says partitions should be aligned while askubuntu.com says it's not (ubuntu installer does it by itself) http://askubuntu.com/questions/18900/should-i-align-partitions-on-an-ssd-if-so-how-do-i-do-it-at-install-time

[oldfred]

For the last 3 or 4 versions gparted & the Ubuntu installer changed from starting at sector 63 to using 2048 and using 1MiB boundries. So yes the installer will align correctly unless you use a old version of gparted.

[Bucic]

So how would you explain these?:
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/8397/
http://tytso.livejournal.com/2009/02/20/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MagicFab/SSDchecklist

Especially the third one.

[oldfred]

I think the rule which they all discuss is divide by 8.

I just used gparted, changed to gpt and got this:


Disk /dev/sdd: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 7298 58615703+ ee GPT
fred@fred-MavericDT:~$ sudo parted /dev/sdd unit s print
Model: ATA SSD G2 series 64 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 117231408s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 2048s 616447s 614400s fat32 boot
2 616448s 618495s 2048s bios_grub
3 618496s 58925055s 58306560s ext4 04
4 58925056s 117229567s 58304512s ext4 10




Post on 8-sector boundaries alignment by srs5694
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1685666
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1768635
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1635018

[Bucic]

We're running in circles here. There's an unanswered question - to align per* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MagicFab/SSDchecklist or not (i.e. simply create new partitions using e.g. new version of GParted)?


* I mean the following section

Partition & format your disk aligning the partition blocksize to the SSD erase block size, with the above information (1 partition, no swap, no journaling ext4):
sudo fdisk -H 255 -S 63 /dev/sda
sudo mke2fs -t ext4 -O ^has_journal /dev/sda1

[Bucic]

I did (I think) as per https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MagicFab/SSDchecklist



ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250058268160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488395055 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x112860df

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 89771219 44885578+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 89771220 488392064 199310422+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 89771283 95201189 2714953+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6 95201253 214821179 59809963+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7 214821243 304720919 44949838+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda8 304720983 488392064 91835541 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdb: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
138 heads, 56 sectors/track, 15169 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000cf5a4

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 117231407 58614680 83 Linux
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdb | grep Firmware
Firmware Revision: 2.13
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb | grep sectors
138 heads, 56 sectors/track, 15169 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -H 138 -S 56 /dev/sdb

Command (m for help): o
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x9d03310c.
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4, default 1):
Using default value 1
First sector (2048-117231407, default 2048):
Using default value 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-117231407, default 117231407):
Using default value 117231407

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb | grep sectors
96 heads, 56 sectors/track, 21806 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250058268160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488395055 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x112860df

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 89771219 44885578+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 89771220 488392064 199310422+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 89771283 95201189 2714953+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6 95201253 214821179 59809963+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7 214821243 304720919 44949838+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda8 304720983 488392064 91835541 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdb: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
96 heads, 56 sectors/track, 21806 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9d03310c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 117231407 58614680 83 Linux
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb | grep sectors
96 heads, 56 sectors/track, 21806 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mke2fs -t ext4 -O ^has_journal /dev/sdb1
mke2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
3670016 inodes, 14653670 blocks
732683 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
448 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 29 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.


Did I do anything incorrectly?

On installed ubuntu I get

~$ sudo fdisk -lu /dev/sda
[sudo] password for hg1:

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
96 heads, 56 sectors/track, 21806 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9d03310c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 117231407 58614680 83 Linux

[oldfred]

Gparted would have started you at sector 2048.

If the SSD is only Linux I would prefer gpt over MBR(msdos) as the Arch linux site suggests.

[wolfen69]

In Ubuntu, alignment is automatic when selecting "use whole drive" for install. Not sure about manual partitioning though.

[Bucic]

Still unanswered. Let me try this way...

There are two methods of partition alignment:
1. Basic: i.e. simply create new partitions using e.g. new version of GParted or ubuntu installer.
2. Advanced: as per https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MagicFab/SSDchecklist

Questions:
Q1. Is the advanced method needed at all, i.e. does it have tangible advantages?
Q2. If the advanced method really has any tangible advantages, what are they exactly?



_____________________
Now, in the meantime I've decided to try the https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MagicFab/SSDchecklist and I posted the terminal contents to ask whether I followed the crucial part of the guide correctly (I ask for a confirmation or).

P.S. Please forgive the tone of my first post.

[oldfred]

I think you had to do the manual calculations before gparted (and gdisk for gpt) changed to using sector 2048 as the start and 1MiB boundaries.

[Nokao]

I just tryed to install 11.10 server to my server, but the SSD disk is not found.

It's a brand new Sandisk Ultra HDSSD 2,5 60GB.

Can someone help me to find a way to tweak this ?
Maybe some extra options on kernel load before installation ?

Also, wich options is better to put into fstab after installation ?

p.s. I tryed with Windows 7 and the SSDisk works.

[Nokao]

I open a new thread cause this seems a bug or something else ...

[ivanox1972]

I want to install ubuntu on whole 64gb ssd- do I finally need to do align manually or installer do this. It seems that trim need sto be set up manually? Is there difference between 10.04.3 and 11.10 (otr only newest Ubuntu do this align good)? Now I have windows 7 on this ssd- if i say use whole disc will it format it and install ONLY ubuntu or win 7 will stay (I do not need this). In past i always made manual partitioning so I do not know this option
thanks

[quirino77]

I just tryed to install 11.10 server to my server, but the SSD disk is not found.

It's a brand new Sandisk Ultra HDSSD 2,5 60GB.

Can someone help me to find a way to tweak this ?
Maybe some extra options on kernel load before installation ?

Also, wich options is better to put into fstab after installation ?

p.s. I tryed with Windows 7 and the SSDisk works.

Do your mother board support AHCI? Mine old one doesn't support and i had the same issue with Ubuntu (Windows 7 worked fine). Now i got a new board, with AHCI support and SSD is working fine on Ubuntu.