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SSD Flash disk as system disk
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Author:  haan [ Wed Aug 15, 2007 5:33 am ]
Post subject:  SSD Flash disk as system disk
I have for a few years used two hard disks in my knoppmyth box. Using the first on as a system disk (+video and music) and a second one for recordings (used /myth/tv as mount point). Currently 200G+320G.
To minimize noise and heat I'm spinning down the second disk when it's idle. This has worked well. Spinning down the system disk seems useless.

I have now been thinking about replacing the system disk with a (fairly small) SSD (Solid State Disk) flash disk. These comes up to 64GB these days but a 8 or 16GB should be able to house the operating system and then mount maybe 1 or 2 500GB ordinary hard drives as /myth.
Spinning down the ordinary hard drives should then give a system with no hard drive noise or heat.

Another upside with the flash disks is that they are extremely fast compared to an ordinary hard drive.

I guess that this would be completely transparent to the system. Has anyone tried this? Comments?

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... shSSD.html

regards
håkan
Author:  tjc [ Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:41 pm ]
Post subject: 
If they're flash based the limited number of write cycles plays poorly with Unix/Linux file systems which tend to get written frequently.
Author:  jmckeown2 [ Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:35 pm ]
Post subject: 
I thought about this recently too, when I walked past a CF->PATA adapter in the discount bin for under $10.

I was thinking it could work with clever partitioning. You'd want swap on a real disk, and /var (is the DB physically on /var? 'cuz the DB should be on a real disk too. The rest, you could probably keep pretty much READ-ONLY on the flash, provided there was some unionfs-type magic to allow things like updating /etc/mtab. I'm thinking more like the way Knoppix runs from CD.

I don't see why it wouldn't work; it would just need someone with more brains & free time then me to figure out the details, and it would probably require so much deviation from the KM base as to almost warrant calling it a new distro.
Author:  Dale [ Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:55 pm ]
Post subject: 
What I have done along these lines is to do an installation to a regular disk and then take that filesystem and create a cloop image like is used on the KnoppMyth installation iso and boot it just like the install cd but from flash. That way there is no attempt to write back to the flash.

I have a VIA box that boots from a 1 GB flash drive like this.
Author:  jmckeown2 [ Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:53 am ]
Post subject: 
Dale wrote:
What I have done along these lines is to do an installation to a regular disk and then take that filesystem and create a cloop image like is used on the KnoppMyth installation iso and boot it just like the install cd but from flash. That way there is no attempt to write back to the flash.


Dale, where were you when they were writing dialog for Star Trek? All you need to do is add something about "phase inducers" or a "tachyon pulse" and you could out-Geordi Geordi LaForge! :lol: :lol: :lol: Seriously, I know I'm not the smartest person on the forum, but I had no idea.


I think I kept up with most of that; you're basically re-mastering the CD on a flash drive, and booting a pre-installed image instead of the installer image -- right?
How do you handle fstab and other references to the disks' actual device's?

What do you do with your database? I assumed that would be really hard.
Author:  Dale [ Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:10 pm ]
Post subject: 
:D Let's see if I can explain it a little better. Yes, its pretty much a remaster using the installed filesystem as the system to compress for the cloop image (as /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX) on the CD image (*.iso). As a result of the process, the flash filesystem looks just like the CDROM contents, but the cloop image is of the _new_ installed & working "stuff".
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