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I am getting a new SSD.

is there a linux utility that aids me by recommending/choosing/checking the correct partition (and potentially ext4) parameters to avoid the performance penalty?

my "default" is to simply create two partitions with fdisk according to its knowledge of the SSD, the first one starting whatever fdisk prompts me with, the second one starting about +32G beyond it and going to the end.

(in 2013, linux mint olivia, having to worry about partitions seems anachronistic. the linux fdisk and mkfs.ext4 utilities should really determine this for themselves and discard any early sectors that should not be used automatically, and set the correct erase block width. or do they do this already?)

/iaw

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  • Which distribution are you using?
    – Vikram
    Jun 17, 2013 at 0:28

1 Answer 1

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There isn't an SSD optimizing tool that I know of in Linux. Like many other things in Linux, you really have do the setup yourself. If you're dual booting with Windows 7, and if you install Windows first, it will handle the alignment for you by creating a partition called System Reserved. If you're not using Windows, here are some guides you may follow when you're partioning to make sure they're aligned:

Besides alignment, here are some other settings you should pay attention to (the Arch Wiki has a great guide on most of these):

  • Ensure TRIM is working
  • Use proper mount flags
  • Change the default scheduler
  • Minimize writes (to a lesser extent nowadays)

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