SSD Drive Caching in Linux

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mc962

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Jul 18, 2013
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My laptop (lenovo y410p), came with an SSHD (1 TB + 24 gb ssd) and is dual booted with Windows and Mint 17 MATE. I have an idea of how drive caching with a small ssd works in windows, but am curious as to how it works in Linux.

Does it automatically start working when the OS is installed, or do I have to set it up? How would I go about doing so and how high of a difficulty level is it?
 
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photonboy


Sounds like a plan.
Don't forget a good OS will also tend to buffer things into the System RAM as well. In part, this is why Windows 8 on my dad's old laptop was way more responsive than Vista was and that's with a sluggish 5400RPM 2.5" hard drive and 2GB of System RAM.

Linux is not my area of expertise but I tried a few distros on multiple low-end PC's and found booting and general usage quite snappy. Not too long ago I put Ubuntu 32-bit on my dad's old PC and it worked great for basic tasks (single-core Sempron CPU, 512MB System RAM, 32MB VRAM, 80GB...
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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As said, caching is done:

1) By the drive itself for some things.
2) By recommendations from the OS (Linux) for other things.

Thus, for maximum benefit the OS must have instructions built in such as telling it which files (boot files in particular) to make sure stay on the SSD portion of the drive.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive

As mentioned above there's more info on the Linux software under "see also" at the bottom though I suspect a moder Linux OS would have this built in now.
 
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mc962

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From what I can tell, it was originally designed to use Intel's Smart Response Technology, which is a feature of Intel Rapid Storage Technology, which Intel says is supported according to:
Beginning with Linux* kernel version 2.6.18*, the dmraid* utility 1.0.0-rc15 supports RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10.
Beginning with Linux kernel version 2.6.27*, the mdadm* utility 3.0 supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and RAID 5.
..which I believe means it works on Linux?

There is also something it uses called ExpressCache, although Im a bit less certain about what it does other than that it's something that I think Lenovo put on there at the start

Also, I recently reinstalled Windows and I believe at some point I may have turned SSD bit into free space, do I need to format it as something and if so what would I do it as (I would assume the same as the OS I want to cache for, but am not sure).
 
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mc962

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Forgot to write that last time..

The ssd is LITEONIT LSS-24L6G (DSR2204)
The hdd is ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB (2AR20002) (seagate according to google)

That command outputs:

Model: ATA LITEONIT LSS-24L (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 24.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags


Model: ATA ST1000LM024 HN-M (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 316MB 315MB ntfs Basic data partition hidden, diag
2 316MB 420MB 105MB fat32 EFI system partition boot
3 420MB 555MB 134MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres
4 555MB 685GB 685GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata
6 685GB 705GB 20.0GB ext4
7 705GB 717GB 12.0GB linux-swap(v1)
8 717GB 735GB 18.0GB ext4
5 1000GB 1000GB 472MB ntfs hidden, diag
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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Sounds like a plan.
Don't forget a good OS will also tend to buffer things into the System RAM as well. In part, this is why Windows 8 on my dad's old laptop was way more responsive than Vista was and that's with a sluggish 5400RPM 2.5" hard drive and 2GB of System RAM.

Linux is not my area of expertise but I tried a few distros on multiple low-end PC's and found booting and general usage quite snappy. Not too long ago I put Ubuntu 32-bit on my dad's old PC and it worked great for basic tasks (single-core Sempron CPU, 512MB System RAM, 32MB VRAM, 80GB HDD).

I keep trying Linux for fun every couple years hoping it might catch on. I generally gave up, though Valve's push with the Steam Machine is good news for desktop Linux. Who knows what that could mean five years from now?
 
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