The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Partition sizes on an mSata SSD?

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by bassamie, Dec 31, 2012.

  1. bassamie

    bassamie Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I have a lenovo T530 on the way; i plan on installing Linux Mint on a 128gb mSata SSD.

    I would like to create an 'OS partition' that i will use for mint or any other distro that i may like to try. How much space should i allocate?

    Thanks!

    PS yes im a linux n00b
     
    bassamie, Dec 31, 2012
    #1
  2. JOSEA

    JOSEA NONE

    Reputations:
    4,013
    Messages:
    3,521
    Likes Received:
    170
    Trophy Points:
    131
    Do you plan to dual boot windows with Mint from the SSD?
     
    JOSEA, Dec 31, 2012
    #2
  3. bassamie

    bassamie Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I will have windows 7 on a seperate hard drive.

    I was thinking 30gb should be enough and also if it isnt, there is a way to change partition sizes afterwards. Is this true?
     
    bassamie, Dec 31, 2012
    #3
  4. Sxooter

    Sxooter Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    747
    Messages:
    3,784
    Likes Received:
    8
    Trophy Points:
    106
    30G is plenty, but if all you're putting on it is linux then you may as well just allocate the whole thing. If the rest of the mSATA is used for caching etc then yeah 30G is fine.

    You can resize partitions using GParted.
     
    Sxooter, Dec 31, 2012
    #4
  5. MegaTherion

    MegaTherion Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    9
    Messages:
    100
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    30G is a lot of space. Apps and OS won't take a whole lot, maybe 15GB for full blown desktop install. If you're dual booting you can mount your windows partitions for your data like documents, movies, music, etc.
     
    MegaTherion, Jan 1, 2013
    #5
  6. HopelesslyFaithful

    HopelesslyFaithful Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,552
    Messages:
    3,271
    Likes Received:
    164
    Trophy Points:
    0
    not sure about linux but win7 is like 40GB or whatever. I would do 60GB to be safe and you can always redo it like they said but if data is in the way you must move it off the drive or move it further down s you can move the partition.
     
    HopelesslyFaithful, Jan 2, 2013
    #6
  7. bassamie

    bassamie Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Thanks for all the input! I have my question answered.

    Here's another, after I install the mSata SSD, how to best format/prepare it? Should I partition it in Win7? Apparently 'alignment' is important; will formatting it in win7 deal with this issue correctly?

    Also, the 30GB that I plan to have for Linux, what format should it be for best performance?

    Is there anythings that I need to tweak in Linux for compatibility with a SSD drive? Disabled SWAP(whatever that is) perhaps?

    Any info would be greatly appreciated!

    Thanks!
     
    bassamie, Jan 4, 2013
    #7
  8. itoffshore

    itoffshore Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    26
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    6
    Trophy Points:
    16
    See Partition Alignment - do NOT setup a Swap Partition, think about using ZRAM (running compressed swap in ram).

    You can further reduce disk writes by making /tmp a symbolic link pointing to /var/tmp & add the following to /etc/fstab so that temporary files also exist only in ram:
    Code: 
    tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,noexec,nodev,nosuid,mode=1777  0  0
     
    itoffshore, Jan 20, 2013
    #8
  9. RMXO

    RMXO Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    234
    Messages:
    722
    Likes Received:
    242
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Since you have Windows on another HDD, I would just use the whole drive & modify when necessary.
     
    RMXO, Jan 21, 2013
    #9