Request advice on hard drive setup

English Hardware
#1

I’m about to get an older tower that is newer than what I have on my desk now. It is running Windows 7 on a 250 gb drive. While small by today’s standards, it is actually larger than what I use now. My practice has been to take a box like this and add a hd to install openSUSE as my primary OS.

I am thinking about getting an SSD for the second drive. Am I correct in thinking that the SSD should be for OS and apps only? Or just the OS? Or everything? If the OS only, how small can I go? Is there a “sweet spot” on value vs. size on an SSD?

Also, if I want to share data between Windows and openSUSE, how should I go about it? Right now, I’m using the cloud to share docs and spreadsheets. Thanks for your help.

#2

On Wed 03 Dec 2014 02:06:01 AM CST, Prexy wrote:

I’m about to get an older tower that is newer than what I have on my
desk now. It is running Windows 7 on a 250 gb drive. While small by
today’s standards, it is actually larger than what I use now. My
practice has been to take a box like this and add a hd to install
openSUSE as my primary OS.

I am thinking about getting an SSD for the second drive. Am I correct in
thinking that the SSD should be for OS and apps only? Or just the OS? Or
everything? If the OS only, how small can I go? Is there a “sweet spot”
on value vs. size on an SSD?

Also, if I want to share data between Windows and openSUSE, how should I
go about it? Right now, I’m using the cloud to share docs and
spreadsheets. Thanks for your help.

Hi
Is the system SATAII or SATAIII, if only SATAII does it have PCI-e x 1
slots? The reason I ask is I have a desktop system (HP Pavilion P6624Y)
it only has SATAII, so brought a IO Crest 2 Port SATA III PCI-Express
x1 Card (SY-PEX40039) US$14.00 and then run a SATAIII SSD off it, not
full 6.0Gb/s but close enough.

SSD’s I have a Crucial M500 120GB for all, but the M500 240GB ones are
around US$80 at present, so for US$100 have a nice speed up :wink:

With the SSD (which on the desktop is an OCZ) I use part of the SSD
with bcache to improve the rotating rust speed, so maybe a
consideration (I used 10% of the HDD which is 46.6G of the SSD), then a
separate /boot with the rest for / and swap (in my case 8.0GB).


lsblk

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda           8:0    0 119.2G  0 disk
├─sda1        8:1    0   512M  0 part /boot
├─sda2        8:2    0  64.2G  0 part /
├─sda3        8:3    0     8G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sda4        8:4    0  46.6G  0 part
└─bcache0 253:0    0 465.8G  0 disk /data
sdb           8:16   0 465.8G  0 disk
└─sdb1        8:17   0 465.8G  0 part
└─bcache0 253:0    0 465.8G  0 disk /data

I blogged about bcache here;
https://forums.opensuse.org/entry.php/159-Setting-up-bcache-on-openSUSE-13-2

If you only have SATAII speeds they are still fast with a SSD…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.28-4-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
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#3

I have an NTFS partition where I keep all my DATA; Documents, Images, Spreadsheets, Videos, Music, etc.

This DATA partition loads as D: drive in Windows, and I point the My_Documents folders, etc., to a Directory on that partition. I also place my Firefox and my Thunderbird e-mail profiles there.

In openSUSE, I load that NTFS partition, and that is where I save everything.

NOTE that it is NOT set as my /home, which is in another partition of its own, so unless I say otherwise, my Linux & KDE configurations remain in the /home partition and not on that DATA partition.

Works like a charm for what I want to do.

#4

I might add that I do not automount the NTFS partition, although it can be set up that way.

Instead, when I boot up and log into my desktop the first time, I have Dolphin set to autolaunch. When it pops up, I simply click on the NTFS DATA partition and enter the root password when prompted, mounting it that way.

Note that the Firefox and Thunderbird profiles I mentioned earlier are shared between openSUSE and Windows: I point the Linux versions to the same profiles on that DATA partition.

#5

@malcolmlewis I will have to return to this post. I don’t have the box yet, so I don’t know if it will be SATAII or SATAIII. But if a $14 card will boost performance, that is worth it. I had hoped to be working on it now but haven’t had the chance to go pick it up!

@Fraser_Bell thanks for reminding me that I can read NTFS. When I posted, I was thinking about the old days.

Neither of you mentioned the longevity of the drives. I have a 15 year old drive that I can plug in and read. The drives in this old box must be at least 7 years old. If the SSD has a limited read-write life, I think putting the data on an NTFS partition is the cautious thing to do. Of course, if the SSD is around 250 gb, I could put everything on it and mirror the data on the other drive… and the cloud… and a dvd … and …

#6

Okay, here is my mention:

The older drives, from just under a decade ago and older, were much better built than most drives today. That is why a 3-yr warranty was pretty much standard on most HDs then, while most now come with only a 1-yr (if you are lucky) warranty.

I have a bunch of older drives – some dating back as far as the early 1990s – that saw extremely heavy use and are still going strong. I have a handfull of drives from the past 7 to 2 years that saw relatively lighter workloads and are already dead-dead-dead.

Most of the later-year dead ones are (surprisingly) WD drives (a Toshiba or two in there somewhere).

But, I just purchased a new 750-Gig WD HD for a mere $50.00 … why? Because it has a 5-yr warranty.

You need to look closely at the details of the various drives, even from the same manufacturer, to find which ones they have done a better job with and offer longer warranties. WD has some with 1-yr warranties, some with 2-yr warranties, and – as I mentioned above – some with a 5-yr warranty. They determine their warranties by statistical analysis. Believe me, they do not put a long warranty on something that is likely to fail early. A handfull will fail, but a handfull will also last a lot longer.

Oh, yes … and don’t forget you asked me to write this!:stuck_out_tongue:

#7

On Thu 04 Dec 2014 08:06:01 AM CST, Fraser Bell wrote:

Prexy;2680616 Wrote:
> Neither of you mentioned the longevity of the drives.

Okay, here is my mention:

The older drives, from just under a decade ago and older, were much
better built than most drives today. That is why a 3-yr warranty was
pretty much standard on most HDs then, while most now come with only a
1-yr (if you are lucky) warranty.

I have a bunch of older drives – some dating back as far as the early
1990s – that saw -extremely heavy use- and are -still- going
strong. I have a handfull of drives from the past 7 to 2 years that saw
relatively lighter workloads and are already -dead-dead-dead-.

Most of the later-year dead ones are (surprisingly) WD drives (a Toshiba
or two in there somewhere).

But, I just purchased a new 750-Gig WD HD for a mere $50.00 … why?
Because it has a -5-yr warranty-.

You need to look closely at the details of the various drives, even from
the same manufacturer, to find which ones they have done a better job
with and offer longer warranties. WD has some with 1-yr warranties,
some with 2-yr warranties, and – as I mentioned above – some with a
5-yr warranty. They determine their warranties by statistical analysis.
Believe me, they do not put a long warranty on something that is likely
to fail early. A handfull -will- fail, but a handfull will also last
-a lot longer-.

Oh, yes … and don’t forget -you asked me- to write this!:stuck_out_tongue:

Hi
My OCZ vertex4 has a five year warranty. My 1 yr old WD Black died last
week 320GB (no power up…) it had a five year warranty, should get the
replacement next week… The Crucial M500 has a three year warranty.

But what ever SSD, check for daily writes (OCZ is 20GiB/s per day) in
the specs.

I still have two WD 36GB Raptors circa 2002 still going over 45000
hrs…

Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.28-4-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

#8

I have e wd 250 gb from dell xps410,
after about 3 years or so, one died then after that other died. I try to look for warranty but found nothing, i think bc Dell took it as OEM from WD, i bough it from 2007.
after that i never touch or buy a another WD.
i got 2 seagate 1 tb drive, quickly it fail about 1 in a years, get a warranty replace withrefurbish certified,still going strong to today, 6 years so far. Other 1 tb seagate drive fail after 3 years using not heavy load, under moderate. Get a replacement, good to today so far. Both of this seagate have 5 years warranty.
today, I don’t see many hard drive manufacture give a 5 years warranty unless the expensive one. One thing i see cheaper drive come with 2 years warranty, I don’t trust that brand.

#9

Well, it is tougher to cram so much more into such a small space, not just available storage, but also so many more features on the electronics on the drives … then try to keep the prices down to where we can afford them, at the same time.

And, they need to allow for the fact that some will fail early, and some will last a lot longer. Then, when they decide the warranty time, they need to find a balance where the profits are maximized by the cost of replacing a certain number of failed drives. There is a sweet spot in that calculation: Too few failures in warranty time, profits are down, too many failures and costs kill profits.

Bottom line, of course, is profit. Why else would you be in the business?

#10

Hi Prexy,

I’m about to upgrade my desktop when I get a break from work, and bought a couple samsung EVO 840 SSDs (250 GB each). So I’ve been looking into this. See here if you want to see the whole enchilada: https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/502604-Seeking-advice-about-filesystems-SSD-NVidia-VMPlayer-etc-for-new-desktop-installation?p=2677076#post2677076

I intend to partition one SSD for W7, oS13.2 and bcache (thanks malcolmlewis). I don’t think longevity is an issue anymore, at least on recent SSDs, but some precautions may be indicated:

  1. don’t use discard in fstab, prefer a cron job.
  2. no problem using part of it for swap, if you are not on very low RAM.
  3. / and /home on separate partitions, of course, with selected /home subdirectories mounted in a 1TB HDD partition, as well as /var
  4. Not sure if it’s a good idea - or if it makes any difference - to mount /tmp in the SSD or HDD, as I think it defaults to a ramdrive or something. This is something I have to look in deeper, or perhaps put it in the HDD anyway.
  5. W7 C: drive will probably be in the SSD, and part of the same 1TB HDD partitioned as D:

Note that if you intend to follow oS default install with / on BTRFS and snapshots enabled, oS manual recommends allocating roughly twice the “normal” space in /. In my experience, this would amount to a 40 GB / partition (normally I use 20GB).

#11

Also the 63byte sector start x 4K sector start is not a problem in modern OSes, but it may be worth checking if your SSD is second hand or something.

All considered, from what I’ve been reading around it’s OK to use a SSD like you use a HDD, installation-wise.