advice on best practices for installation on an older SSD

Machine #2

I am doing a fresh install on my PC of Tumbleweed. [Net install]
I will be installing OS to an older SSD using the ext4 file system. [OCZ Vertex 4 128GB].
I have Secure Erased the SSD.
In trying to set up the SSD properly, I have found two articles with suggestions on what to do and would like to know if they apply to an install in 2022.

#1] https://lizards.opensuse.org/2015/02/06/ssd-configuration-for-opensuse/
This article was Posted on 06/02/2015. Would All info still apply to today’s version of Tumbleweed?

#2] https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:SSD_performance
This page was last modified on 6 May 2021. Is the info current enough?

Is there a better or more current article to follow?
Any other suggestions are welcome.

Thank you.

Hi
What type of booting, Legacy or UEFI?

Here is an old Lenovo with Legacy boot (Tumbleweed) btrfs (but that shouldn’t matter), …


smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl 7.2 2021-09-14 r5237 [x86_64-linux-5.16.8-1-default] (SUSE RPM)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org


=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Indilinx Barefoot_2/Everest/Martini based SSDs
Device Model:     OCZ-VERTEX4
....


lsblk


NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0 119.2G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0     8M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0    40G  0 part /var
│                                /root
│                                /usr/local
│                                /srv
│                                /opt
│                                /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi
│                                /boot/grub2/i386-pc
│                                /
├─sda3   8:3    0    78G  0 part /home
└─sda4   8:4    0   1.2G  0 part [SWAP]


gdisk -l /dev/sda


GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.8


Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present


Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 250069680 sectors, 119.2 GiB
Model: OCZ-VERTEX4     
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 29E89543-F477-4FED-BB09-AD72E595BBA0
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 250069646
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)


Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048           18431   8.0 MiB     EF02  
   2           18432        83904511   40.0 GiB    8300  
   3        83904512       247482367   78.0 GiB    8300  
   4       247482368       250069646   1.2 GiB     8200  


parted -l /dev/sda


Model: ATA OCZ-VERTEX4 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: pmbr_boot


Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name  Flags
 1      1049kB  9437kB  8389kB                        bios_grub
 2      9437kB  43.0GB  42.9GB  btrfs                 legacy_boot
 3      43.0GB  127GB   83.8GB  xfs
 4      127GB   128GB   1325MB  linux-swap(v1)        swap

Hi
Don’t play with the scheduler…


cat /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler

[mq-deadline] kyber bfq none

No need to move tmpfs it’s already there…

Swappiness I change;


cat /etc/sysctl.d/98-lenovo.conf 


#disable swap
vm.swappiness=1
#Decrease from 200 to 50 12-4-21
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

@malcolmlewis
Thank you for taking your time to help.

You asked:

What type of booting, Legacy or UEFI?
UEFI is what I am using.

These are from article #1.
a]

BE CAREFUL: Don’t create a swap partition. If you already have enough memory (4GB), you don’t need it. Swap memory is “destroying” your SSD.

Is the argument valid? My ram = 16 gb. I usually create swap as a partition on the same drive as my /home drive, which is not my SSD.

b]

To restore the folder structure within /var/log at each reboot, you add some lines to /etc/rc.local.sudo nano /etc/rc.d/boot.local

I don’t have this folder, should I create it?

c]

Now, move everything to RAM. You can do that by adding the following lines to fstab.tmpfs /var/log tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=0755 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/spool tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0

When you say

No need to move tmpfs it’s already there…
is the above QUOTE [c] what you are referring to?

Hi
Many changes since those articles, as you see in my output I have a small swap partition, SSD’s are pretty robust these days, that Vertex (same as yours) has 42,000 hours on it, with 16GB of ram you should be fine without swap, but AFAIK it may get grumpy if none allocated (it may be needed for a NET install) you can always delete afterwards. But that comment about is a bit of FUD, never had an issue.

The tmpfs is already taken care off in Tumbleweed, so can ignore that part.

The fstrim AFAIK is all taken care of as well, no need to touch, I’ve never needed to.

I don’t see any readahead services present…

Never worried about changing to noatime, I leave it at the defaults.

Here is a UEFI example (openSUSE Leap 15.3, my ADS-B machine) with ext4 and UEFI boot.


lsblk
 
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 111.8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   260M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0    60G  0 part /
├─sda3   8:3    0    50G  0 part /home
└─sda4   8:4    0   1.5G  0 part [SWAP]




parted -l /dev/sda


Model: ATA Crucial_CT120M50 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 120GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 


Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name                  Flags
 1      1049kB  274MB   273MB   fat16           EFI system partition  msftdata
 2      274MB   64.7GB  64.4GB  ext4            Linux filesystem
 3      64.7GB  118GB   53.7GB  xfs             Linux filesystem
 4      118GB   120GB   1649MB  linux-swap(v1)  Linux swap            swap

My nvme uses none, again mq-deadline is the option for SSD’s these days. If you want a definative answer, head over to the openSUSE Kernel mailing list and ask there.

My desktop has 64GB of RAM, I still have a small swap that gets used at times when load all 24 threads up with multiple virtual machines :wink:

Thankyou @ malcolmlewis

You have answered my ?'s . I will try setup as you have outlined.

I have another PC with a newer nvme .m2 [pcie] that I am about to redo also and will post about that later when I get closer to doing it.

thanks for your help.