[SOLVED] Support for M.2 drives?

[rene]

Very nice. And, does indeed Linux see the H10 as two separate NVMe drives? I.e., does sudo lsblk show both nvme0n1 and nvme1n1? I earlier noticed your post about maybe going for caching via LVM but didn't have time to reply; note that if you currently don't in fact see two NVMe drives that's likely due to needing to disable RST mode in the BIOS. I.e., looking at page 41 of

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/ ... e_1003.pdf

it seems you will need to make sure that in the BIOS under "Settings\IO Ports\SATA And RST Configuration" the setting "PCIe Storage Device On Port 21" is not set to "RST Controlled" (RST is Intel's Windows driver/software).

As to then in fact using it: it seems the NAND-flash part of your H10 is comparable to an Intel 600p hence does for the 256G version about 1500K/550K sequential and 70K/110K IOPS random. Sequential is likely not going to be a massive difference but IOPS is for the 16G Optane drive going to be significantly higher, at the order of better than the H10's own spec of 230K/150K:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14249/th ... sds-in-one

If/once you have both drives visible under Linux, sudo hdparm -t /dev/nvme0n1 and same for nvme1n1 is a quick sequential read-speed test; IOPS is a bit harder to quantify especially since Linux effectively caches in DRAM anyway but it would definitely make for a more spiffy feeling system especially at/just after boot. As such I'd personally in fact likely not use the Optane part as cache via LVM but use it for my root outright; 16G is just enough for that even though you as said earlier would have to be a bit aware and pre-active as to splitting things up. In your/your grandson's case that's maybe not really advisable as long as you're both getting familiar with things but then I'd still definitely set it up as a cache as per that LVM link. As the saying goes, IOPS are a terrible thing to waste --- although it would of course mean starting new again. Note; if you want to instead as suggested earlier place /var on it that can be done without issue now.

Also remember you said something about upping fan speeds. Your 10100 is a 65W TDP chip so frankly I expect you'll have trouble getting it significantly hot even with the stock Intel cooler and with fan speeds set to auto. For a test of that and of general stability of CPU and RAM prime95 is good to run:

https://www.mersenne.org/download/

Grab the "Linux: 64-bit" one and be sure to in its text-mode menu select "stresstest only" (or some such; precise wording may differ) and let it rip for anything from one to two hours. You can in a second terminal monitor temperature with sensors or by installing e.g a Cinnamon applet for the purpose.

Other though; congrats: nice system

[chowse]

Thanks rene! We've also got Warpinator and NoMachine working. I've done a little tweaking on his machine from mine, and he's impressed. He's got a lot going on right now, he's the starting Quarterback of his 8th grade team, therefore he comes in tired from practice, AND he has ADHD REALLY bad, and we've allowed him to go without his meds for the summer as recommended by his doc. That's not fun for us.
I'll check all the things you mentioned first chance I get. Thanks for hanging in there with us!

[chowse]

Hello, get comfortable, this may be a long post.

Yes, the installer saw both sections of the M.2. I actually installed on the Optane part! No problems and plenty of storage left.
I couldn't find the place in the BIOS you were wanting me to check. Do you remember what page in the Manual that is?

Now...I made a big mistake in getting a new computer for Bryan. The other kids had their feelings hurt and felt left out, sooooo...
I decided to make the new pc a Family pc. I installed a 1TB spinner HDD for storage, and loaded Ubunto 20.04 LTS on it as well as my pc.
Why Ubuntu? It's rated as one of the 2 best distros for gaming. I installed the Steam launcher on it so they can game as well as surf the web, and homework.

I have NoMachine working, so I don't have to get up to enable something that requires Admin privileges.

Now let's see how they like it.
That wasn't so long, good.

[rene]

I couldn't find the place in the BIOS you were wanting me to check. Do you remember what page in the Manual that is?

Yes, I actually mentioned: pg. 41 of the version of the manual I linked just above. But no need to still check if both NVMe drives show up as separate.

You say you installed onto the Optane drive, supposedly /dev/nvme1n1. That's 16G so I do hope you have split off certainly /home, possibly /var and have (if/when still a Mint system) either not enabled Timeshift or configured it to keep its snapshots not on the root but the the home filesystem? I.e., you're going to have to guard against your root filesystem filling up.

Just to satisfy my curiosity: what is sequential read speed of the drives? That is, sudo hdparm -t /dev/nvme0n1 vs. sudo hdparm -t /dev/nvm1n1.

If so desired also re-note the stability-test / temperature thing I said as to prime95.

And hey, it's your grandson, but sometimes being unfair is much fairer...

[chowse]

here's the hdparm readings. How about a primer on splitting off home and var from the Optane?

[rene]

The "image" displays just as the word "Image". No need for an image anyway: if you select terminal output with your mouse and rclick->copy you can rclick->paste it into this forum edit box; please between the [code]...[/code] tags you get by clicking </> so as to retain fixed-width formatting.

And, sure; both can be done post-install fine. You'd need to post the output of sudo fdisk -l and of df also in the above manner.

[chowse]

OK, I got /home moved onto the 1TB drive. hmmph...now that I think about it, maybe I should have created a partition for /var on the !TB. It's the only other drive except the NAND part of the Optane. What do you think? How large would you make the /var partition?

[chowse]

The word Image is a link. Did you click it?
The (small) problem with clicking and selecting and pasting. I'm working from my computer using Nomachine. Copy across the network doesn't work.

[rene]

I would most certainly not put /home on the HDD but on the 256G NAND-flash NVMe drive.

1. /dev/nvme1n1 (16G Optane) for /
2. /dev/nvme0n1 (256G NAND) for /home
3. Especially if you aim to use snaps/flatpaks /var is going to want more room than is avail on /; would myself combine with 2 on the NAND NVMe
4. /dev/sda (1T HDD) for, say, /data or some such

If you do NOT aim to use snaps/flatpaks splitting off /var isn't normally essential and I'd in any case not give it it's own partition. However, without information as to e.g. the requested df output I can't realistically advise further.

And, no, I hadn't noticed it was a link. When I click it now it wants me to log in to something though; tend to not do that...

[chowse]

Code: Select all

dev/nvme0n1 1952 MB in 3.00 seconds = 650.62 MB/sec
/dev/nvme1n1 2688 MB in 3.00 seconds = 895.43 MB/sec

Code: Select all

dev/nvme0n1p1 511M 7.9M used 504M Avail Use% 2% /boot/efi
/dev/nvme1n1p2 13G 11G used 1.3G Avail Use% 90% /

Code: Select all

df -h /boot/efi
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/nvme0n1p1  511M  7.9M  504M   2% /boot/efi
papaw@FAMILY:~$ df -h /
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/nvme1n1p2   13G   11G  1.3G  90% /

papaw@FAMILY:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for papaw: 
Disk /dev/loop0: 55.48 MiB, 58159104 bytes, 113592 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop1: 55.45 MiB, 58134528 bytes, 113544 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop2: 219 MiB, 229638144 bytes, 448512 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop3: 218.102 MiB, 229629952 bytes, 448496 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop4: 51.4 MiB, 53522432 bytes, 104536 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop5: 31.9 MiB, 32595968 bytes, 63664 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop6: 32.29 MiB, 33853440 bytes, 66120 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop7: 64.79 MiB, 67915776 bytes, 132648 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.49 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: INTEL HBRPEKNX0101AH                    
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 9E657FCC-1E7A-4F19-A0E9-010AABE9B5F6

Device           Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1    2048   1050623   1048576  512M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 1050624 500117503 499066880  238G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 13.42 GiB, 14403239936 bytes, 28131328 sectors
Disk model: INTEL HBRPEKNX0101AHO                   
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 9DFC3228-E2E0-4C30-B29A-0CE1A4766DE4

Device           Start      End  Sectors  Size Type
/dev/nvme1n1p1    2048  1050623  1048576  512M EFI System
/dev/nvme1n1p2 1050624 28129279 27078656 12.9G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sda: 931.53 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD10EZEX-08W
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00051590

Device     Boot Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1        2048 1953523711 1953521664 931.5G 83 Linux


Disk /dev/loop8: 65.1 MiB, 68259840 bytes, 133320 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop9: 50.98 MiB, 53432320 bytes, 104360 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
papaw@FAMILY:~$ 

[rene]

Ouch. The Optane part isn't 16GiB but 13.42GiB (supposedly due to the remainder being used by the firmware). Mmm; that's certainly pushing it, and you're up to 90% already on this fresh install.

Sequential speeds are lower than I expected (if higher than a SATA SSD) but the Optane part is about 1.4 times as fast sequential and will as said earlier be faster than that random. That's to say that, yes, it's a good place for your rootfs technically but, no, it's just too damn small; you'd have to split off /boot, /home, /opt, /var and /tmp for sure. So sorry, but I have to pivot my suggestion back to placing /var there instead. That is, I would suggest

1. /dev/nvme0n1 (238 GiB NAND): 512M /boot/efi as now (automatically created by the installer, and already present now as well) and rest for one large partition for / and /home together (ext4)
2. /dev/nvme1n1 (13 GiB Optane): /var (ext4)
3. /dev/sda (1 TB HDD): /data (ext4)

From within the home directory/ies you can as far as such makes sense e.g. symlink ~/Music to /data/Music and.or ~/Videos to /data/Videos and/or ... or in the case of actual different user accounts say ~bryan/Music to /data/bryan/Music and ~papaw/Music to /data/papaw/Music with a ~bryan/Shared and ~papaw/Shared both linked to /data/Shared --- well, so on, as you please. Also a good destination for backups.

This means installing new yet again. If you choose the "something else" option you can set up that partitioning right from the installer and wouldn't have to do anything post-install. If you'd insist you could transfer things instead --- but please don't insist.

Sorry 'bout this but the 13+ GiB is really pushing it and simply a bit too far for a non-geek setup, I must say; go for the NAND-SSD: it's quite fast as well

[chowse]

Yes, I said something sort of remotely similar to "Ouch" when I saw that 90% in use.
I don't mind installing again, I'm learning more about the installer.
This next install would be the "Something else" choice, yes? pick each partition and mount point one at a time. Been there, done that, no problem.
Having just said that, I think I need some clarification on Step #1. Are you saying more than 1 partition on the NAND?

[rene]

Yes; as you may notice from the fdisk output that you posted the /boot/efi partition was already created automatically by the installer. You'd pick /dev/nvmen0p1 again as /boot/efi, /dev/nvme0n1p2 now as /, /dev/nvme1n1p1 as /var, and /dev/sda1 as /data. If /data is already populated to some extent no need to format that one; would format the others.

[EDIT] Looking up there's actually also an EFI partition on the optane; there shouldn't be; I believe this is a Ubuntu/Mint installer bug. You'd in any case repartition /dev/nvme1n1 to have just the one partition for /var.

There is also still the option of setting the Optane up as a cache; you'd in that case need to install the system using LVM. Not sure you'd really notice it hough; /var on there might in fact be better, again certainly for use with snap/flatpak.

Unrelated tip: if you on the installed system install SSH with sudo apt-get install openssh-server you can from any other Linux system login "on a terminal" simply with ssh <IP-address-or-resolvable-name-for-the-system>. Mentioned due to to that thing you said about copy & paste apparently not working via Nomachine (which I've no experience with).

[chowse]

Advice much appreciated. I'll print most of it for tomorrow.
On an unrelated subject, if you were setting up a family computer for 6 people to use, and 1 to Administer, would you make a user for each, or let everyone log in to 1 generic account?

[Moonstone Man]

... if you were setting up a family computer for 6 people to use, and 1 to Administer, would you make a user for each, or let everyone log in to 1 generic account?

That's really going to depend on if your users need privacy and how much of it. Only you and your users can decide that between yourselves.

[rene]

On an unrelated subject, if you were setting up a family computer for 6 people to use, and 1 to Administer, would you make a user for each, or let everyone log in to 1 generic account?

The thing to be foremost aware of in any such situation is that security-measures overwhelmingly lead to more measures rather than to more security. In the sense of locking one thing down meaning needing to lock another thing down lest former can be bypassed, and in the sense that anything you lock down you need to open up again in those cases where it's needed after all.

General advise I'd give would be to start with 1 general account and just not share the password (possibly unless with grandson if he needs it for experimenting; installing software for example needs full admin). If it turns out not a good setup a separate account is easily added. It's otherwise mostly a convenience issue. I.e., browser-stored passwords or an unprotected email-client: basically can't have that if not everyone can have access to accounts of any other user if you use 1 general account; can if you use separate ones, for example for you, mom+dad, children.

[chowse]

I guess I'm just not geeky enough to do this.
/dev/nvmen0p1 was nowhere on the list of partitions.
/dev/nvme1n1p1 was too small to use as /var
After over an hour trying 3 times, I gave up and did the "Erase Disc and install"
It's working perfectly, and if /var gets out of hand, I'll deal with that at that time.

rerne, you have worked with me for quite a while and I want to sincerely thank you!
Maybe next time something advanced comes my way, one of us could visit the other or I'll ship it to you! <kidding>

Again, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

[rene]

Fair enough; have fun both/all