So I installed the... thing. I have already done enough reading about it to have learned that, if someone ever compiles a list of the worst trash to get shoveled onto a cargo ship in China and exported to stupid consumers, that this one will rank so high that it will undoubtedly be included by name in the article's title. It's a PNY CS900 240-gig SSD. But, yeah, stuck with it. Trusty magnetic hard drive took one storm-fueled power surge & failure event too many and a large chunk of it got hosed. And the POS-Edition USB flash drive isn't cutting it. Plus, while I don't yet know if I truly won the PRC Junk Item lottery... I have obviously been luckier than several. After all, it didn't arrive already broken - and it survived the first FOUR DAYS of occasional use. So, yes, luckier than some people who've chosen to buy (or been chosen to receive it as a gift) one.
Therefore, I am trying to figure out how to use the blasted thing. I found three articles about the care & feeding of SSDs. Well, I probably found several dozen, but these three looked like someone actually put some effort into writing them. Unfortunately, that doesn't guarantee that the authors knew what they were writing about. Maybe they don't even 100% agree with each other, maybe I simply got too confused to make any sense out of them at different points and thought they weren't, or... IDK. One was on a Debian website, one was on a Fedora, Arch, I don't remember, one of those brainiac distro websites. And one was on some website or other that had a name which left me (stupidly) expecting the thing to be written so that normal people could actually understand it and follow its directions. Easy Linux... something or other, but it had Easy Linux in it for sure. Wow, that website was misnamed for sure, lol, it's just as full of gobbledeegook as the others - but leaves you feeling 100 times more frustrated than the others because, hey, you expected them to be about 22,000 miles over your head, but this one had
Easy" right there in the website's name
. They could at least have named the website "Linux Advice That Will Have You Feeling Like Going Out and Murdering a Bunch of Kittens" or something; that way, those of us with IQs somewhat lower than 242 wouldn't have ended up feeling like we'd been figuratively hit in the head with a dozen or so assorted hammers when it turned out that we couldn't even make heads or tails out of that "easy" stuff.So, anyway, I tried to figure this thing out on my own. I successfully got as far as... Well, I managed to (eventually) physically install the thing in my laptop. Then, after a couple of days of stressing and struggling to understand that whole "alignment" thing, I read that I don't even have to worry about it any more, because "linux takes care of that now." Yeah, right. Happy to have read that I don't have to manually align the disk format(?) and partitions, file systems, et cetera - and blissfully unaware that what I had read was WRONG!!! - I set about setting up the SSD and installing Mints to it. I like to do two installations, different version numbers, so that if there's some kind of show-stopper issue, it'll only take out one installation. However, that failed to work last time; I lost partition one altogether, the ability to boot into the other "distro" partition, random bits of data on that one, and maybe the MBR, too. And this SSD is pretty small at only 240 gigs. Maybe I should only do one distro version this time? Mint 19.3 Xfce really sucks, even the mousepad isn't working right on it, so I suppose I could get by with only installing 19.2. Or 18.something?
So I did the installation thing. Got Mint 19.2 on the first partition. No, that's not right. I made a little one first, so the laptop would have somewhere to put all the stuff that makes it able to read linux file systems (it's not a linux laptop, just a regular PC one), hold the grub menu I guess, and whatever other boot stuff the laptop needs to work with linux. And that master boot recorder thing, I suppose. Whatever stuff the computer needs to read Ext4 linux, IDK.
Had moved on to TRIM, figured out that my SSD apparently supports it. And was trying to understand that stride/stripe/block size/erase block size/IDK what all, when I was feeling like ten pounds of spoiled meat stuffed into a five pound sack. So, I felt like a little virtual pat on the pack might cheer me up, and used some tool or other to check to make sure that all my partitions were at least aligned. I know, I know, "the installers take care of all that alignment stuff now." But I was feeling worse than usual and wanted the boost, regardless of how microscopic it would be.
SURPRISE!!! - #2 partition is not aligned.
So here is what I need (not necessarily in the correct order, because I'm not a five-brained alien):
1. Someone who reads/writes English, is willing to help, and can communicate well with normal people.
2. I need to know the block size, erase block size, stride, stripe, any other fancy technical numbers I don't know about yet... and how/where to stick them.
3. I need to know EXACTLY how I need to partition this thing so that it will be aligned, both as a whole and each partition.
4. Need help with setting up the swap. I can still read part of my hard drive. Can I stick one on it? Its current swap partition appears to be mangled, but I'm not too sure that it'll take a partition creation/format in its place (or in that 272-gig hole at the beginning of the drive that used to be partition #1). IF IT WILL WORK, can I put one on the hard drive and another one on the SSD to be used as a fallback swap if it fails? Maybe with a reasonable timeout, like less than two minutes, before it gives up on trying the one on the hard drive and marks it permanently accessable? I know I need swap, because I only have six gigs of RAM and have occasionally seen most of that used, plus a bunch of swap (less than 12 gigs, though, I think). Generally when I have both web browsers open, or multiple windows of one of them, along with a bunch of tabs open. Stuff like that, I like to keep a lot of tabs up, because I have memory (etc.) issues, and probably tens of thousands of bookmarks. Kind of hard to find any specific one. With only a couple hundred web pages loaded in web browser tabs, though, it's easier (doable, at least).
5. TRIM. I know that I need it. I know that this model of SSD supposedly supports it. I know that "constant on" is a bad thing, both for speed - which I would have a great deal of difficulty caring less about - and longevity - which I care much about. So it needs to be scheduled. Some folks are stating that weekly is too long between events. IDK? Before I got to that part of that article, I was thinking it was about to explain how to set it up on a monthly basis, and wondering whether I would be better off scheduling it for every second or third Sunday or something. So how do I figure out how often it needs to be done? How EXACTLY do I set it up? I read something about some SSDs getting erased/blanked when TRIM gets set up, so I do understand that I need to do it pretty close to step #1. But does that mean even before (re)formatting the SSD and partitioning the thing? If so, where do I put the commands? How do I protect them from the formatting process. Er... Et cetera?
6. Initial SSD format, alignment of that format, creation of partitions, format of same, and alignment of same. As mentioned, it's only a 240-gig "class" device. I've probably got twice as much data just on the parts of my hard drive that are still readable. I'll have to pick and choose exactly what to copy over. And, now that I think about it, that's going to be EXTRA difficult, because it's apparently a coin-flip as to which will last longer, this SSD or my already pooched real hard drive. Which leads directly to #7...
7. How much "unused" space should I leave? HOW should I leave it? I mean... Do I need to leave a big chunk of space completely unformatted? If so, I already screwed that one up once. If not... Do I need to leave an empty area in each partition? Or just in one partition? If the latter, should unused space be the entire partition? In other words, should I create, for example, a 120-gig (That'd be half the drive. More? Less?) partition and just never write to it? And, if the answer to that is, "Yes," do I need to create it at the beginning of the drive, the middle, or the end of it?
Okay, I'm going to be more optimistic than I have been since I got out of diapers, and assume that someone - or multiple someones - has/have gotten me successfully through all of the above.
8. Minimize writes to the SDD!!!
8a. Set swappyness low - but not "off" - so that it will only use it if it actually needs it. And set that other swap thing (I can't remember what it's called, but it has "swap" in it, and maybe a period?) low, also.
8b. Logs, logs, logs... begone, lol. But, seriously, I don't need gigabytes' worth of "did this, it worked, everything is fine, nothing to see here" logs. And I don't need files full of the same error, either. I just need a sane set, not really logging anything unless/until there's a problem, then logging that issue - ONCE. If the system makes 50 attempts to boot, finally chokes out to that weird quasi-terminal environment (Mint 17.3 does this for me) or does a warm reset (Mint 18.something did this, but that might just be because thepartition it was on vanished in its entirety, IDK)... then there is ZERO reason for there to be 50 separate sets of the same multiple error reports! Just one, "Attempted boot, failed because your stuff is pooched" (or specifics, if available), along with a "tried multiple times" suffix, if that's an option. So how EXACTLY do I set this kind of sensible logging up? No one should ever have to delete a bunch of logs in order to recover space, unless that computer is being used across multiple "generations of time." And I am speaking of human generations, here, not computer ones. A megabyte is over a million bytes - and a computer should run for ten years of active duty before ALL logs exceed that combined length. So I'm really just trying to set my logging routines up to be the way that everyone's computer should be by default, right?
8c. I have Firefox and Chrome. They both write gigabytes' worth of temporary(???) files. I read something two or three times about setting all that up to be in RAM instead of on a drive. But I just ended up getting - you guessed it! - really confused. So how EXACTLY do I do this? I guess I need to set it up so that it keeps everything in RAM until I exit the program, then it writes it to the drive, right? (Otherwise, it would get lost...?)
8d. RAMdisk. There was some stuff about setting one of these up but, to be honest with you, I was so hopelessly lost by that point in my reading that I was literally having trouble with managing to keep my place whilst reading instead of ending up reading the same line over again, or the one beofre, or three down from it instead of the very next one. I kind of gave up and decided to ask for help about then. I'm still not real clear on how I can ever set one up in the first place. My laptop isn't that old - 2013 - but it only has six gigs of RAM. Still, I guess I need to do it, somehow. I want to be one of the lucky few whose PNY CS900 240-gig steaming heap of... thing lasts ten whole months. And that will undoubtedly take some doing. After all, the thing only cost something like $38 - and that $38 includes shipping cost, the cost of manufacturing and shipping anywhere from some to many replacements over the course of its three-year warranty, and at least some profit. In other words, PNY must have spent all of $1.15 to make it. Or maybe just the 15 cents, IDK. But... where was I? I have six gigs of RAM right now, a four and a two. According to Samsung, it will accept eight. But people have stated they've successfully installed two eight-gig chip cards into it, for a total of 16 gigs. I am hoping that, either this year or next, I will be able to purchase at least one eight-gig upgrade. That would put me at 12 gigs, and maybe/eventually/hopefully 16 gigs. With only six now, though, is there any use in setting up a RAM disk? If so, EXACTLY how do I do it? Will I have to redo it if/when I can obtain more RAMs?
8d(2?). Right now, my hard drive is technically still functioning, sort of. Can I set up, like some kind of temporary "pretend RAM disk" that uses part of that hard drive instead of actual RAM? Partition... I think it's SDA5, or maybe SDB5 or SDC5 is still mostly there. I can read at least some files, and have successfully written some to it and read them back. Could I somehow stick one onto that partition as some kind of big file? If so, how EXACTLY do I do that? Also, how EXACTLY do I do that in such a way that, when it stops being usable, the computer takes it in stride instead of pooching?
9. All the additional things that I have either forgotten or never knew in the first place, pertaining to SSD use, longevity, et cetera.
Thanks (very much!) in advance. I cannot offer payment of any kind. However, it should gladden you to know that there are a lot more normal-IQ level in this world than there are super-genius level twelve-year olds who, presumably, all the SSD FAQs are written for - and that, therefore, your help in this matter will eventually be likely to help a great many folks.
After making an effort to beg assistance from a bunch of people that I don't even know, I hate to make things worse by adding the words "as soon as you can get to it would be great," lol - but I think my USB flash drive Mint distro installation might already be failing :rolleyes: . It normally takes less than five minutes from pressing the power button to having a usable desktop environment/etc., but earlier today I turned the laptop on and... well, I don't know how long it took, because I eventually went down to eat something before I got the password thing. But that has me pretty worried, as does the fact that I just touched the flash drive (running it now) and it's hot enough that, if there was a four-foot tall pile of snow outside, I could probably unplug the flash drive, drop it on the snow, and five minutes later it would have melted its way clear to the ground (assuming that it wasn't ghastly hot and muggy out, of course). So, yes, the sooner I can get this SSD set up and usable as an "every day drive," the better. The USB flash drive thumb stick thing works today. Tomorrow? Probably (hopefully). The day after that? <SHRUGS>. . . .
Thanks again!
Also, they seem to give a 3 year warranty for the drive. So, just use the drive, and enjoy it!