Solid State Drive tweaks
20110923 SSD, Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal 64 bit
Prepare
- check for ssd firmware updates
- Enable SATA AHCI mode in the BIOS (if available)
Note: in a dual boot configuration with Windows 7, Windows will not boot after changing AHCI. You will need to make some changes in Windows before proceeding.
Format SSD
Format drive as ext4, journaling disabled.
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Physical drive: "sdb", partition "sdb1"
sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb | grep sectors
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders
sudo fdisk -H 255 -S 63 /dev/sdb "d" delete partition "n" new partition, primary, 1 "w" to write partition table and exit sudo mke2fs -t ext4 -O ^has_journal /dev/sdb1
TRIM and access time
The TRIM function prepares (wipes) free space for faster writing. Enable the TRIM command support using the "discard" mounting option.
The "relatime" option writes the time-of-access to disk and causes unnecessary additional writes to disk. Mount volumes using the "noatime" option in stead of the "relatime" option
sudo cp /etc/fstab ~/fstab-backup sudo gedit /etc/fstab UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx / ext4 noatime,discard,data=writeback,errors=remount-ro 0 1
reboot
To test if TRIM is working:
Swap
- lower the likelyness of swap
sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf # add/edit these lines # minimum swappiness vm.swappiness=0 # weak inode cache schrinking vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
I/O scheduler
- change I/O scheduler strategy to "noop" (or "deadline")
Note: there are alternatives to add this option to grub or to install a "sysutils" package
cat /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler
noop anticipatory deadline [cfq]
sudo gedit /etc/rc.local
# add thise lines before exit 0 for drive "sda" echo noop > /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler # reboot
Temporary files
Use RAM disk for temporary files to reduce the number of writes to the SSD.
sudo gedit /etc/fstab
Add after the last line (exact text)
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec,mode=1777 0 0
After reboot, using df you should see a line like
df tmpfs xxxxxx yyyyy zzzzzz n% /tmp
Move firefox cache to the earlier created /tmp
- in firefox go to "about:config"
- filter for "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory" Set the value to "/tmp"
Other
Did this from other Ubuntu and then it booted
sudo tune2fs -o journal_data_writeback /dev/sdb1
- moved aMule and Vuze folders to Data drive, NB: aMule will reset the folder when it is not found
