SSD on desktop linux

[William Weaver]

Many SSD come with their own mounts currently and new cases offer great
ways to mount them in previously unusable space. Mine actually mounts it
flush on the bottom of the case.

Also something that was pointed out to me. Its always worth buying a faster
drive than mob allows. Sata 6MB drives with Sata 3MB mobo will be sure to
max the connection speed while a sata 3MB might only transfer at 2.5

My 2

Will Weaver
On Jan 11, 2013 7:21 PM, "William O'Higgins Witteman" <
william.ohiggins-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> This fall I decided to spend a little (very little - $60) on a small SSD
> to act as my primary hard drive - for /, /tmp, /var /usr - basically
> everything except /home.  I had heard a lot about them, and though my
> motherboard does not support SATA3, it does support SATA2, so I thought
> it might be worth a try.  At worst, I knew I could put it into an old,
> enfeebled laptop that would then be rejuvenated by the new drive and the
> installation of linux.
>
> I put the drive in and started the installation process - I chose to
> manually partition so that I could specify a bigger swap partition.  I
> don't actually have much RAM in the machine, so I thought that a big-ish
> swap might pay off.
>
> The first thing I noticed was how fast the installation went - I haven't
> installed on the same hardware in a couple of years, so I don't have
> metrics, but it happened too fast to leave unattended.  I found staring
> at a root prompt on the rebooted machine in something like 10 minutes.
>
> I install Debian, and once I get the stable distribution up and running
> I install a few key things (sudo, vim-full) and then I change
> /etc/apt/sources.list to use Debian testing and do an apt-get
> dist-upgrade.  I like the compromise between stability and recency in
> the testing distribution - most upgrades work perfectly, with perhaps
> one every 3 years that requires post-upgrade intervention.
>
> I figured this upgrade, which typically involves hundreds of packages,
> would be a good test of the new hardware.  It was, in that it happened
> extremely quickly - downloads seemed to happen at the same speed
> (unsurprising) but the unpacking and installation of packages happened
> at blazing speed.  In an hour I had my machine set up with all the same
> software I previously used, from playing with screwdrivers and mounting
> rails to looking at the web in Iceweasel (Firefox).
>
> Launching Firefox is particularly telling - it used to take about a
> three-count, but now it happens before I can exhale.
>
> Installing an SSD in my desktop machine makes a *huge* difference - it
> is the best upgrade I've made to a desktop since I hooked up an LCD
> monitor.
>
> One thing of note - I did not realize that Mushkin shipped their
> 2.5-inch drives with mounting rails, so I bought mounting rails with the
> drive, which was a waste.  Live and learn.
> --
>
> yours,
>
> William
>
>
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