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Linux / Centos 6.5 SSD Best Practice

Hi Guys,

I'm in the process of configuring a new laptop with Centos 6.5. The laptop has a SSD and I want to make sure that I have it configured correctly so as not to either damage, shorten lifespan, or degrade performance.

Based on what I read at:

https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/Storage_Administration_Guide/index.html#ch-ssd

and

http://www.bit-integrity.com/2011/11/ssd-performance-tips-for-rhel6-and.html

I added the discard option to my fstab but that caused it not to boot with the error invalid partition table. As per the RedHat documentation I checked the /sys/block/sda/queue/discard_granularity file which has a value of 512.

After a reinstall, I moved /tmp to ram and so far my /etc/fstab looks like this:

#
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Mon Apr 7 14:52:42 2014
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more info
#
/dev/mapper/vg_micron-lv_root / ext4 defaults 1 1
UUID=**** /boot ext4 defaults 1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_micron-lv_home /home ext4 defaults 1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_micron-swap swap swap defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0

----

1) How should I configure fstab to use trim (if possible)
2) Are there are other performance measures that I should take with the ssd? (and any links to how + I decided to keep the swap)

My hardware is a Dell E7240 w/ 8Gb Ram

SOLUTION

Seth Simmons

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bimrock

ASKER

Hi Seth,

Thanks for the response but I don't have a RH subscription... so I could not view the info in the 1st link.

Cheers.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

ThomasMcA2

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bimrock

ASKER

Thanks ThomasMcA2,

I tried running similarly and it does not boot. I have the /, /boot, /home... all on that SSD. The only option that I was not using was errors=remount-ro. I'm not quite sure if there was something in particular that I missed. I actually had to reinstall and try twice both times I could not boot after adding the discard option.

ThomasMcA2

Is the disk using ext4? I'm not sure how to find out from the console, but gparted will show you the file system type.

bimrock

ASKER

Yes the file system is ext4

ThomasMcA2

Have you tried a fresh install to the SSD using a LiveCD or LiveUSB stick? Maybe the fresh install will setup the SSD correctly.

My SSD is a 2nd drive that I don't boot from, so I'm not much help with boot-specific issues. Sorry.

bimrock

ASKER

No worries... I can boot using a live stick... I am able to boot and use the disk just fine with Ext4 and Centos recognises that its a SSD... it just that based on my reading I thought that using the DISCARD option was a good thing to do to reduce wear on the SSD. However, when I try using the options suggested and even those as per the RH documentation I cannot boot. I'm going to close out the question none the less and move on to other things.