Dead.
Not even recognized by BIOS.
I had S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring enabled, but I had no signs of the impending doom.
At least mechanical disk usually begin to rattle a little before dying.
Showing posts with label ssd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ssd. Show all posts
2013-09-28
2012-10-25
Apple's Fusion Drive
It looks like someone has long sight:
This:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6406/understanding-apples-fusion-drive
is precisely this:
http://pleasedonttouchthescreen.blogspot.it/2012/05/defrag-tools-are-on-verge-of-extinction.html
This:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6406/understanding-apples-fusion-drive
is precisely this:
http://pleasedonttouchthescreen.blogspot.it/2012/05/defrag-tools-are-on-verge-of-extinction.html
2012-09-30
Moving Windows 7 user homedir
A brand new Windows 7 install puts the Users folder on the C drive.
My C drive is an SSD, so space is at premium.
I moved my homedir to the secondary HD this way:
mkdir D:\Users
robocopy C:\Users\myaccount D:\Users\myaccount /mir /copyall /xj
rmdir /s C:\Users\myaccount
mklink /j C:\Users\myaccount D:\Users\myaccount
Just stop service WMPNetworkSvc and repeat.
My C drive is an SSD, so space is at premium.
I moved my homedir to the secondary HD this way:
- Create a new administrative account called "admin".
- Reboot (just to close file locks) and login as "admin"
- Open a command prompt with administrative privileges
mkdir D:\Users
robocopy C:\Users\myaccount D:\Users\myaccount /mir /copyall /xj
rmdir /s C:\Users\myaccount
mklink /j C:\Users\myaccount D:\Users\myaccount
- Logoff an login back as the migrated account.
- Remove the now useless "admin" user.
Just stop service WMPNetworkSvc and repeat.
2012-05-22
Goodbye defrag, hello (again) HSM.
Defrag tools are on the verge of extinction.
SSD drives are making them superfluous when not plain disruptive.
But SSD sizes are not catching up anytime soon with conventional HDs. Multimedia files are filling up gigabytes of space and their placement on solid state drives is too expensive, while benefits are minimal for occasional access.
What is really needed is a hierarchical file system that can handle multiple drives at once.
A big mechanical HD would be paired with an SSD drive.
Frequently accessed sectors would be replicated on the SSD for faster access. All writes should be directed on the SSD for faster I/O completion. Files would then be written back to the HD in the background while optimizing placement and seeks of the magnetic head.
Hybrid disks like the Seagate Momentus seems to be moving that way, but a really small cache limits its benefit.
A software solution at the file system level can be more flexible by allowing mixing different sizes of SSD and HD, and a higher level of abstraction may allow better optimization than a simple cache.
After virtualization, is this another Mainframe technology going from datacenters to homes?
SSD drives are making them superfluous when not plain disruptive.
But SSD sizes are not catching up anytime soon with conventional HDs. Multimedia files are filling up gigabytes of space and their placement on solid state drives is too expensive, while benefits are minimal for occasional access.
What is really needed is a hierarchical file system that can handle multiple drives at once.
A big mechanical HD would be paired with an SSD drive.
Frequently accessed sectors would be replicated on the SSD for faster access. All writes should be directed on the SSD for faster I/O completion. Files would then be written back to the HD in the background while optimizing placement and seeks of the magnetic head.
Hybrid disks like the Seagate Momentus seems to be moving that way, but a really small cache limits its benefit.
A software solution at the file system level can be more flexible by allowing mixing different sizes of SSD and HD, and a higher level of abstraction may allow better optimization than a simple cache.
After virtualization, is this another Mainframe technology going from datacenters to homes?
2012-05-18
Replacing a mechanical HD with an SSD
My home PC is aging... It's 6 years old now, and while this confirms the goodness of the choices I've made when I built it, this also means that the XP installation has gathered so many stuff that it's now slow as hell.
A full boot takes now as much as 4'20":
30" from startup to the login screen of Windows XP
3'40" to quiesce all disk activities.
At that point, 40 more seconds are necessary from login to complete disk stop. Trying to launch any program before the disk settles out, just results in more thrashing and an even slower startup.
So I've bought a Crucial m4 SSD to see if this upgrade can make a difference.
This was the starting configuration:
I have 2 HDs in my PC, one for the OS and one for the data.
The OS is multiboot, so I have one partition for XP and one for Ubuntu.
The remaining disk space is for Windows program files partition.
On the second unit there are the swap partitions for Windows and Linux, the Documents and Settings partition, the /home filesystem and some spare space for Windows.
The purpose of this layout is to allow concurrent access to OS and swap, OS and user files, applications and user data.
The first step was copying the content of the first disk onto the new ssd.
I connected the new disk to an empty SATA connector and booted into Parted Magic.
Using GParted I initialized the new disk with Device -> Create Partition Table, then it was just a copy/paste work between the old partition on /dev/sda and the new disk seen as /dev/sdc
The Crucial M4 is just 119GiB while my old disk was 153, so I needed to shrink the sda3 partition to make it fit.
After copying the /dev/sda1 partition I needed to set the "boot" flag on it on the new disk to make it bootable.
GParted copied all partitions but left a standard Windows MBR, so grub was gone and linux didn't boot.
To restore the grub MBR I've followed this excellent guide, and linux was back in action.
Windows booted but wasn't in good shape either:
I logged in and the whole desktop froze with only the wallpaper displayed, but no start button, taskbar or icons.
It just hung there forever.
I rebooted in safe mode by pressing F8 and choosing "Safe mode with command prompt".
A popup went up, saying that windows had found new hardware and the drivers had been installed.
One more reboot and Windows was fine with the new disk.
Now a complete boot takes as low as 19 seconds, and no more disk thrashing after loggin on: the Start menu is immediately available and responsive.
The last step was setting noatime in /etc/fstab to reduce writing on the SSD.
So, here it is, by comparison with a traditional 3.5" HD, the little Crucial M4
A full boot takes now as much as 4'20":
30" from startup to the login screen of Windows XP
3'40" to quiesce all disk activities.
At that point, 40 more seconds are necessary from login to complete disk stop. Trying to launch any program before the disk settles out, just results in more thrashing and an even slower startup.
So I've bought a Crucial m4 SSD to see if this upgrade can make a difference.
This was the starting configuration:
I have 2 HDs in my PC, one for the OS and one for the data.
The OS is multiboot, so I have one partition for XP and one for Ubuntu.
The remaining disk space is for Windows program files partition.
On the second unit there are the swap partitions for Windows and Linux, the Documents and Settings partition, the /home filesystem and some spare space for Windows.
The purpose of this layout is to allow concurrent access to OS and swap, OS and user files, applications and user data.
The first step was copying the content of the first disk onto the new ssd.
I connected the new disk to an empty SATA connector and booted into Parted Magic.
Using GParted I initialized the new disk with Device -> Create Partition Table, then it was just a copy/paste work between the old partition on /dev/sda and the new disk seen as /dev/sdc
The Crucial M4 is just 119GiB while my old disk was 153, so I needed to shrink the sda3 partition to make it fit.
After copying the /dev/sda1 partition I needed to set the "boot" flag on it on the new disk to make it bootable.
GParted copied all partitions but left a standard Windows MBR, so grub was gone and linux didn't boot.
To restore the grub MBR I've followed this excellent guide, and linux was back in action.
Windows booted but wasn't in good shape either:
I logged in and the whole desktop froze with only the wallpaper displayed, but no start button, taskbar or icons.
It just hung there forever.
I rebooted in safe mode by pressing F8 and choosing "Safe mode with command prompt".
A popup went up, saying that windows had found new hardware and the drivers had been installed.
One more reboot and Windows was fine with the new disk.
Now a complete boot takes as low as 19 seconds, and no more disk thrashing after loggin on: the Start menu is immediately available and responsive.
The last step was setting noatime in /etc/fstab to reduce writing on the SSD.
So, here it is, by comparison with a traditional 3.5" HD, the little Crucial M4
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