solid state drive (ssd) optimize it for ubuntu 14

8/10/2019 Solid State Drive (SSD) Optimize It for Ubuntu 14

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Solid State Drive (SSD): optimize it for Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17 and Debian

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Below you'll find a complete how-to foroptimizing your SSD for Ubuntu 14.04,Linux Mint 17 and Debian. So that you'll beable to enjoy your SSD for many years!

Note:this how-to is only for Ubuntu, Linux

Mint and Debian the how-to for openSUSEis on another page.

Contents

1Avoid exaggerated measures

2 BIOS and UEFI: set it to AHCI

3 Check for updated firmware

4Avoid quick wear: reduce write actions

5 Reserve seven percent for overprovisioning

6 During installation: choose EXT4

7After the installation: noatime

8 Still relevant for Ubuntu 14.04 and Linux Mint 17:automatic TRIM by rc.local, by cron or by discard

8.1 Preferred method: by rc.local

8.1.1 Disable the superfluous weekly cron job for

TRIM

8.2 Only for computers that are always on: by cron

8.3 Not advised: by discard

9 How to execute TRIM manually

10 Limit swap wear

11Almost ready after reboot

12 Limit the write actions of Firefox

13 Limit the write actions of Chrome and Chromium

14 Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint 13: change the

scheduler to deadline15 Do NOT enable hibernation

16Also for an SSD: prevent fragmentation, and DO

NOT defrag

17 Dual boot? Don't let Windows kill your SSD

18 Enjoy your SSD carefree for years and years

19 Optional (advanced users): temporary files and logs

20 Want more?

Avoid exaggerated measures

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Limit swap wear

10. With the action described below, you limitthe use of the swap partition (the virtualmemory on the SSD). Without disabling itentirely, because that would go too far: incase of extremeRAM load, Ubuntu has to beable to "swap".

Ubuntu's inclination to use the swap, isdetermined by a setting. The lower thesetting number, the more system load isrequired before Ubuntu starts using the

swap. On a scale of 0-100, the default settingis 60. Which is much too high for normaldesktop use, and only fit for servers. ForSSD's, it's just crazy.

A detailed explanation can be found here(link dead? Then download this pdf filewiththe same content).

Now the how-to:

a. First make sure that you have installed theapplications gksuand leafpad.

b. Now check your current swappinesssetting. Type in the terminal (usecopy/paste):cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

Press Enter.

The result will probably be 60.

c. Now type in the terminal (use copy/paste):gksudo leafpad /etc/sysctl.conf

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1. First a word of caution: don'texaggerate!There's a lot of exaggerationto be found on the web on this issue.

On the one hand you have people whodon't take any special measures for SSD'sat all, and on the other hand you seepeople who take all kinds of extreme andcomplicated precautions. Neither side isbehaving sensibly.

This how-to will show you how to achieve avery good result by applying just a fewrather simple measures. With those, you'llbe able to enjoy your SSD carefree, foryears and years to come!

Taking into account the long warrantyperiods that the manufacturers are giving,probably for more than five years (10 yearsshould be a reasonable expectation).Considerably longer than an ordinary platterhard disk, anyway...

BIOS and UEFI: set it to AHCI

2. A Solid State Disk, or rather Drive (SSD),is sometimes only recognized properly bythe BIOS or UEFI, when in the BIOS thefeature AHCI has been activated for SATA(instead of IDE).

This feature may be hard to find in theBIOS/UEFI, because there's absolutely no

standardization at all in menu structures forthe BIOS (sigh....). That's why I've madetwo screen shots of the BIOS of mycomputer, in which you can see thisparticular feature. Hopefully it'll help you tofind it in your own BIOS/UEFI....

The motherboard of my computer is, by theway, an MSI H61MA-E35 (B3).

Note:doesn't the BIOS or UEFI of yourcomputer offer the option to switch to

AHCI? Then the BIOS will possibly detectthe SSD automatically and automaticallychoose the right BIOS settings for it.

First of all, in the BIOS of my computer I goto the tabAdvanced, and there I expand thesection Integrated Peripherals(click on theimage below to enlarge it):

Press Enter.

d. Add the following blue lines, at the veryend of the existing text in that file (usecopy/paste to avoid errors):# Sharply reduce swap inclinationvm.swappiness=1

e. Save the file and close it.

f. Now proceed to the next item.

Almost ready after reboot

11. Reboot your computer.

Your SSD is almost ready now, but not quite.So after the reboot, proceed to the next item.

Limit the write actions of Firefox

12. You can limit the write actions of Firefoxas follows.

a. Set the cache to 0:Firefox menu button (with the three dasheson it) - Preferences - AdvancedTab Networksection "Cached Web Content": tick Overrideautomatic cache managementand set thecache to 0 MB.

b. If you have installed Oracle Java, limit the

write actions of the Java plugin:launch the Java Control Panel - Tab General:Temporary Internet Files - Settings...Remove the tick for: Keep temporary files onmy computer.

Limit the write actions of Chrome andChromium

13. The write actions of Google Chrome andChromium can be limited as follows.

- Launch Chrome / Chromium.

- Now press the F12 key, in order to open thedevelopers' console. In that window you clickon the gear wheel in the bottom right, in orderto open the settings. See the screenshotbelow (click on it to enlarge it):
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/javahttps://wiki.ubuntu.com/TrustyTahr/ReleaseSchedulehttp://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/14.04.1/release/https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/xubuntuhttp://releases.ubuntu.com/14.04/https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/version


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Linux Mint 13 Xfce is theideal replacement forWindows XP! Read herewhy.

Then, under the header "SATAConfiguration", I change IDE into AHCIMode. Namely for SATA Mode.

Then, under the header "External SATA6GB/s Configuration", I also change IDEinto AHCI. Namely for External SATA 6gb/sController Mode.

See the image below (click on it to enlargeit):

Check for updated firmware

3. Check the website of the SSDmanufacturer, whether there's an updatedversion available of the firmware for yourSSD. If so, apply it.

For most SSD's it doesn't matter that you'rerunning Linux, because manymanufacturers offer such firmware updatesby means of an iso with which you cancreate a bootable CD.

In the first year after purchase, repeat thischeck every month or so.

Avoid quick wear: reduce write actions

4. A Solid State Drive is worn down

In the settings window you tick: Disablecache.

Press F12 again to close the developers'console. You're done with Chrome /Chromium.

Note:user preference, so repeat in eachuser account.

Now proceed to the next item.

Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint 13: changethe scheduler to deadline

14. By default, Ubuntu 14.04 and LinuxMint 17 use the I/O scheduler Deadline,which is good for both SSD's andconventional platter hard disks. So for thescheduler, you don't have to change anythingin Ubuntu 14.04 or Linux Mint 17.

But Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint 13bydefault still use the "old" I/O scheduler CFQ,which is only fine for conventional hard disksbut not for SSD's, which are being sloweddown. So it's wise when you have an SSD in

your machine, to change the scheduler inUbuntu 12.04 or Linux Mint 13 to Deadline.

You can realize this by changing the bootparameters of Grub. You can do that asfollows.


b. Then check your current scheduler asfollows. Use copy/paste to transfer thefollowing command line to the terminal:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd/Schermafdruk-Chrome-SSD-1.jpg?attredirects=0https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/burnhttps://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd/BIOS-SSD-3.JPG?attredirects=0https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd/SSD-BIOS-1.JPG?attredirects=0https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/mint-xfce


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During installation: choose EXT4

6. The best file system (formatting) for anSSD, is the usual default EXT4. So youdon't have to choose anything different in

this respect.

The journaling that comes with EXT4causes some write activity, but not verymuch. Plus journaling is a very importantfeature for system crash recovery, so youdon't want to disable it.

After the installation: noatime

7. With "noatime" in /etc/fstab, you disablethe write action "access time stamp", that

the operating system puts on a filewhenever it's being read by the operatingsystem. For an SSD "noatime" is muchbetter.

You can do that as follows:

a. First make sure that you have installedthe applications gksuand leafpad:

Click on the grey Ubuntu logo (Dash home).Query: terminal.

Click on Terminal.

Type (or copy/paste):sudo apt-get install gksu leafpad

Press Enter and submit your password.Please note that the password will remaininvisible, not even asterisks will show,which is normal.

b. Then type in the terminal (usecopy/paste):gksudo leafpad /etc/fstab

rotating hard disks. But it's nevertheless stilla problem, so it's useful to preventfragmentation as much as possible on anSSD, too. You can achieve that by preservinga minimum of 20 % free space on eachpartition.

Prevention is all the more important, asdefragmenting is out of the question anyway:your SSD would wear rapidly, because of the

many write actions it causes.

How does it work for an SSD?

The mechanical seek time of an SSD isalways 0, regardless of the fragmentation.That's a big difference with rotating harddisks, on which the seek time increases asfragmentation grows. This is a significantimprovement. But mechanical seek time onlymakes up a part of total access time, or I/Otime, of any single input/output request madeto the disk.

I/O time is the time a computer system takesto complete a request cycle. All the way fromapplication, OS and driver down to diskhardware, memory cells, and then backagain.

Zero mechanical seek time certainly does notmean zero I/O time. No matter how fast anSSD is, its I/O time can never be zero. Filesystem fragmentation increases I/O time inan SSD, even when the mechanical seek

time is zero.

To put it another way: the performancedegradation as a result of fragmentation isnot caused by the storage device alone(whether there's a mechanical moving part ornot), but it's also a problem concerning thesystem as a whole.

The task for the system becomes heavier,when there are more files to be chopped upand more pieces of files to be glued together.The heavier the task, the longer the

processing time.

A good and elaborate explanation of this factcan be found here. Website down? Here's apdf file.

Dual boot? Don't let Windows kill yourSSD

17. Do you have a dual boot with Windows?Then don't let Windows kill your SSD by
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/file-closet/SSD-fragmentation-explained.pdf?attredirects=0http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/101053https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/faq#TOC-How-can-I-defragment-the-hard-drive-in-Linux-https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd/Screenshot-SSD-overprovisioning-5.jpg?attredirects=0


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Press Enter.

c. Now add "noatime" to the line for yourroot partition and your other Linuxpartitions. Not to the line for the swappartition!

An adapted line may look like this:UUID=f0ae2c59-83d2-42e7-81c4-

2e870b6b255d / ext4noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1

Note:this is oneline, not two! It mightappear to be two lines (dependent on yourscreen size), because of the length of theline.

d. Save the modified text file and close it.

e. Now proceed to the next item.

Still relevant for Ubuntu 14.04 and LinuxMint 17: automatic TRIM by rc.local, bycron or by discard

8. The cleaning action TRIM is necessaryfor the good performance of your SSD inthe long run. Otherwise it'll become veryslow after some time.

All modern SSD's support TRIM, but olderSSD's from before 2010 usually not. So foran older SSD you'll want to check this on

the website of the manufacturer.

It's easiest to let the system perform anautomatic TRIM. That can be done inseveral ways.

Note: in Ubuntu 14.04 and in Linux Mint17 TRIM is enabled automatically, whenyou install Ubuntu 14.04 or Linux Mint 17on an SSD. Namely by a "cron job".

But this doesn't happen automaticallyfor all SSD's. Furthermore, in mostcases "cron" is not the optimal methodfor TRIM anyway, so I advise you to readon.

Preferred method: by rc.local

8.1. You can add the TRIM command to/etc/rc.local. Then this command will beexecuted automatically on system boot.This hardly slows the boot process down.This is the method that I prefer.

defragmenting it.

Defragmentation will kill your SSD in a veryshort time, because of the multitude of writeactions that it causes.

Within Linux you don't have this problem,because Linux filesystems hardly fragment inthe first placeand so don't need to bedefragmented anyway.

Enjoy your SSD carefree for years andyears

18. Now you'll be able to enjoy your SSDcarefree!

As already said in the start of this how-to:taking into account the long warranty periodsthat the manufacturers are giving, your SSDwill probably last for more than five years (10

years should be a reasonable expectation).

Considerably longer than an ordinary platterhard disk generally lasts, anyway...

Optional (advanced users): temporaryfiles and logs

19. This is an advanced system hack, andmuch less important than the other tweaks.So you can safely skip it, if you don't feel upto it.

You can further reduce the number of writeactions to the SSD, by moving the temporaryfiles and the log files of the system to atemporary virtualfile system in the RAMmemory. That virtual file system will bedestroyed when you reboot.

For the temporary files, there are nosignificant disadvantages to that, except thatyour RAM memory size must be largeenough (preferably at least 4 GB).

Also your system log files won't be therepermanently. There is a small risk that anapplication will fail mysteriously, because ithas no access to previously created log files.In practice this risk is very small. In two yearsof intensive use of a netbook with an SSD, itnever happened to me.


b. Then type in the terminal (use copy/paste):
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/faq#TOC-How-can-I-defragment-the-hard-drive-in-Linux-


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a. First make sure that you have installedthe applications gksuand leafpad.

b. Then type in the terminal (usecopy/paste):gksudo leafpad /etc/rc.local

Press Enter.

c. Above the line exit 0in that file, you nowadd the TRIM commandfstrim -vfor every automatically mountedEXT4 partition.

Note:not for partitions that aren't mountedby default! And also not for the swappartition, as that's already being trimmedautomatically by the system by default,during the boot process.

An example is most clarifying. When yourUbuntu is on one single partition, so youhave only the root partition/, then yourrc.local should look like this:

#!/bin/sh -e## rc.local## This script is executed at the end of eachmultiuser runlevel.# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on

success or any other# value on error.## In order to enable or disable this script

just change the execution# bits.## By default this script does nothing.fstrim -v /exit 0

If you have a separate home partition(although that's not very useful), then you

add the following line as well, above exit 0:fstrim -v /home

Note:if you have a separate partition for/boot/efi, don't add a trim command line forthat in rc.local. It's useless, as that partitionis seldom being written to. And it may evencause malfunctions.

d. Save the modified file and close it.

e. Reboot your computer.

gksudo leafpad /etc/fstab

Press Enter.

c. Add the following blue lines, at the veryend of the existing text in that file (usecopy/paste to avoid errors):

## Modification for SSD

tmpfs /var/log tmpfsdefaults,noatime 0 0tmpfs /tmp tmpfsdefaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0

d. Save the file and close it.

e. To restore the folder structure within/var/log at each reboot, you add some linesto /etc/rc.local, just above the "exit 0" line.

Type (use copy/paste):gksudo leafpad /etc/rc.local

Press Enter.

f. Add the following blue lines, just above theline "exit 0" in that file (use copy/paste toavoid errors):

## Modification for SSDfor dir in apparmor apt cups dist-upgrade fsckgdm installer samba unattended-upgrades do

if [ ! -e /var/log/$dir ] then mkdir /var/log/$dir fidone

g. Close the file and save it.

Note:your system not only has the folder/tmp, but also the folder /var/tmp. Don't putthis last folder in the RAM memory, because/var/tmpis meant for temporary files thathave to be available after reboot. I issue thiswarning because some other manuals for

SSD's, wrongly advise to include /var/tmpinthe RAM as well....

h. Reboot your computer.

Want more?

Do you want more tips and tweaks forUbuntu? There's a lot more of themon thiswebsite!
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Disable the superfluous weekly cron jobfor TRIM

8.1.1. In Ubuntu 14.04, disable the nowsuperfluous weekly cron job for TRIM:

Copy/paste the following command line intothe terminal:sudo mv -v /etc/cron.weekly/fstrim /fstrim

Press Enter.

With that command you've transferred thescript file fstrim to the root directory, thusdisabling it.

Now proceed to item 9.

Only for computers that are always on:

by cron

8.2. For computers that are always on (24hours a day, seven days a week), a TRIMaction that's being executed when booting,is of course not useful. In such a caseyou're better off with a "timer", i.e. with cron.


a. First make sure that you have installedthe applications gksuand leafpad.

b. Then type in the terminal (usecopy/paste):gksudo leafpad /etc/cron.daily/trim

Press Enter.

c. Copy/paste the following text into thatempty text file:#!/bin/sh# call fstrim-all to trim all mounted filesystems which support itset -e

## This only runs on Intel and SamsungSSDs by default, as some SSDs with# faulty firmware may encounter data losswhen running fstrim under high I/O# load (e. g.https://launchpad.net/bugs/1259829). Youcan append the# --no-model-check option here to disablethe vendor check and run fstrim on# all SSD drives Like this (remove thehash):#exec fstrim-all --no-model-check

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exec fstrim-all

Save the text file.

d. Now copy/paste the following commandinto the terminal, in order to render the fileexecutable:sudo chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/trim

Press Enter. Type your password when

prompted this remains entirely invisible, noteven dots will show, this is normal. PressEnter again.


Ubuntu will now perform the daily cron jobautomatically, at 06:25, or (when thecomputer isn't on at that time),automatically at a later time on the sameday.

f. Now proceed to item 9.

Not advised: by discard

8.3. Another widely used method forautomatic TRIM is to add the option discardto /etc/fstab, for the line for your rootpartition and for possible other Linuxpartitions that are being mentioned there.

Note:do not add it to the line for the swappartition, as that's already being trimmed

automatically by the system by default,during the boot process!

The disadvantage of this method is, that itmay cause the system to slow down.Because it forces the system to apply TRIMinstantly on every file deletion. That's whythis method is not my favourite.

If you want to do it anyway, then this ishow:

a. First make sure that you have installed

the applications gksuand leafpad.

b. Then type in the terminal (usecopy/paste):gksudo leafpad /etc/fstab

Press Enter.

c. Now add "discard" to the line for your rootpartition and your other Linux partitions thatare being mentioned in this file. Not to theline for the swap partition!


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An adapted line may look like this:UUID=f0ae2c59-83d2-42e7-81c4-2e870b6b255d / ext4discard,errors=remount-ro 0 1

Note:if you have a separate partition for/boot/efi, don't add a trim command for thatpartition in fstab. It's useless, as thatpartition is seldom being written to. And itmay even cause malfunctions.

d. Save the modified text file and close it.


f. Now proceed to titem 9.

Note:as already mentioned, old SSD'smade before 2010 usually don't supportTRIM. In that case, do not apply the optiondiscardin fstab.

How to execute TRIM manually

9. You can execute TRIM manually as well,namely as follows:

Click on the grey Ubuntu logo (Dash home).Query: terminal.Click on Terminal.

Type (use copy/paste):sudo fstrim -v /

Press Enter. Type your password whenprompted this remains entirely invisible, noteven dots will show, this is normal. PressEnter again.

This operation may last for minutes it thenlooks as if the terminal has frozen. That'snot true, however simply wait patiently....

The above terminal command is enoughwhen you have only one Ubuntu partitionand a swap partition (because for the swapit's unnecessary the system takes care ofthat automatically).

When you have more mounted EXT4partitions, you'll have to adapt thecommand line accordingly. For example, ifyou have a separate home partition(although that's not very useful), then thecommand is:fstrim -v /home

Now proceed to the next item.
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