[mythtv-users] Recommendation for SSD boot drive

[Fred Watt]

On 23/01/13 13:32, dlknight2 wrote:
>> I use a USB3 stick on a frontend... 8GB is big enough for a mythbuntu
>> install. I have not measured it, but it's fast enough for my
>> requirements, and it was the cheapest solid state solution I could find.
>>
>> I was worried about booting from USB3, so instead of trying, I also put
>> a USB2 stick for /boot on that frontend, no harddisk.
>
> I recently obtained an OCZ Onyx 32GB SATA-2 SSD for £20 (second user). 
> My existing solution
> was 2 x 2.5" 500GB 5400rpm SATA-2 drives with md-raid RAID-1 
> configured for root, boot and swap partitions.
> I use an LVM stripe volume for my recordings which is split across 
> both drives.
>
> I have added the SSD to the existing md-raid setup, although I did 
> stumble across a few issues. My existing partitions
> were created quite some time ago so didn't have the luxury of 
> beginning on the correct/default 1MB boundary. As I am
> using GPT and currently Grub I also did not have a BIOS Boot 
> partition. I had recently upgraded to Fedora 16 and this
> shipped with Grub2. So I setup a BIOS Boot partition on the SSD on the 
> 1MB boundary, added the existing RAID partitions
> and installed Grub2. I have left Grub installed on the existing 
> rotating disks for now.
>
> My start-up time is around 25 seconds (systemd --analyze) was 
> originally approximately 50 seconds, some of this is down
> to moving things from rc.local into systemd services however.
>
> I followed several guides for improving SSD performance in Fedora (can 
> provide links if necessary).
>
> Further improvements I have planned are converting my ext3 partitions 
> to ext4 to enable TRIM support.
>
> I've also used a USB 2.0 SD reader and high speed 16GB SD card when I 
> ran out of space compiling the kernel (that is
> another story). It was remarkably fast and I did consider it for my 
> boot / root partition. Also Linux (Fedora)
> automatically mounted it for me without any intervention :)
>
> Mythtv Frontend seems a fair bit more responsive on the SSD although I 
> haven't really noticed any other improvements....
>
>
> Yet!
>
> Cheers
>
> Dave K. (Long term Mythtv user - since 0.19)
>
>
>
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Excellent feedback Dave.  It is looking like a good investment - 50 to 
25 seconds.   I know most computers are quick these days, but boot time 
is still like watching a boiling kettle - especially if you're sat in 
the living room.