Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Finally got a SSD drive to put my OS on

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 18/04/2023 18:05, Dale wrote:
>> I compile on a spinning rust
>> drive and use -k to install the built packages on the live system.  That
>> should help minimize the writes.  
>
> I just use tmpfs for /var/tmp/portage (16GB, I'm on 32GB RAM.) When I
> keep binary packages around, those I have on my HDD, as well as the
> distfiles:
>
> DISTDIR="/mnt/Data/gentoo/distfiles"
> PKGDIR="/mnt/Data/gentoo/binpkgs"
>
>

Most of mine is in tmpfs to except for the larger packages, such as
Firefox, LOo and a couple others.  Thing is, those few large ones would
rack up a lot of writes themselves since they are so large.  That said,
it would be faster.  ;-) 


>> Since I still need a spinning rust
>> drive for swap and such, I thought about putting /var on spinning rust.
>
> Nah. The data written there is absolutely minuscule. Firefox writes
> like 10 times more just while running it without even any web page
> loaded... And for actual browsing, it becomes more like 1000 times
> more (mostly the Firefox cache.)
>
> I wouldn't worry too much about it. I've been using my current SSD
> since 2020, and I'm at 7TBW right now (out of 200 the drive is rated
> for) and I dual boot Windows and install/uninstall large games on it
> quite often. So with an average of 3TBW per year, I'd need over 80
> years to reach 200TBW :-P But I mentioned it in case your use case is
> different (like large video files or recording and whatnot.)
>
>
> .
>


That's kinda my thinking on one side of the coin.  Having it on a
spinning rust drive just wouldn't make much difference.  Most things
there like log files and such are just files being added to not
completely rewritten.  I don't think it would make much difference to
the life span of the drive. 

Someone mentioned 16K block size.  I've yet to find out how to do that. 
The man page talks about the option, -b I think, but google searches
seem to say it isn't supported.  Anyone actually set that option? 
Recall the options that were used? 

I did so much the past few days, I'm worthless today.  Parts of me are
pretty angry, joints and such.  Still, I'm glad I got done what I did. 
It's that busy time of year. 

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)