reinstalling on SSD, adding /home (and swap???) later, was: Safest way to resize windows partition before installing

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 22:38:17 +0100, M. Fioretti wrote:
>On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 12:36:22 PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On Thu, 9 Jan 2020 at 21:20, M. Fioretti <mfioretti at nexaima.net>
>> wrote:  
>> >
>> > if this makes sense (please tell if it doesn't),  
>> 
>> IMHO, no.  
>
>Points taken, thanks for the detailed explanation. Here is my
>answer/comments/further questions after all replies from both you and
>Ralf so far.
>
>1) I too have no interest in hibernate, suspend is good enough for me
>too
>
>2) copying to the SSD the install already made on the drive does not
>   look the most productive option in my specific case, regardless of
>   metadata and similar:
>   
>   a) working with the UBUNTU DVD from Linux Magazine gave me no
>      problems, and was a quick/painless process, no problem in
>      repeating it AFAICT
>
>   b) I configured/configured almost nothing on the HD post-install,
>   so I wouldn't have to recover anything on that front
>
>   c) but I want to customize /modify the install wrt the first time
>   anyway, AND I have to create a swap this time, and remap the whole
>   / of the first HD install as /home
>
>For all these reasons, reinstalling from scratch from the DVD to the
>HD, with different options, and then doing
>
>    mv /home/home/marco /home/marco
>    rm -rf /home/usr /home/bin /home/sbin etc etc...
>
>seems much more efficient overall. Or not?
>
>The real issue at this point is this:
>
>>  The T430 has a slot for an mSATA SSD; you don't need to waste your
>> time fooling around with mounting the HD into the optical drive bay.
>> http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:T430  
>
>>  Have *both* SSD & HD disks fitted when you install. Don't fool
>> around trying to add swap later.  
>
>Initially I had completely missed the fact that the T430 has this
>option. Don't know why. That's why I bought the 2.5" SSD, and the
>caddy. I need to have the SSD for the OS, and the HD for /home. I
>could send back the caddy and get an mSATA (which kind??? That's a
>separate topic though) for the OS, start looking around for RAM... and
>reuse the SSD in my desktop, something I was planning to do anyway
>after getting the laptop done.
>
>BUT: I am going for an SSD (and yes, more RAM as NEXT step) to make
>the laptop as fast as possible, but I read e.g here: 
>
>https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/6k4zzl/t430_upgrades_msata_or_full_size_ssd/
>
>https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T400-T500-and-newer-T/Why-ever-go-with-SSD-over-mSATA-for-primary-drive-T430-T430s/td-p/854581/page/2
>
>a) that the mSATA interface in the T430 is SATA 2, not 3, but b) the
>performance hit is not so noticeable in real world conditions, so just
>get an MSATA and be done with it
>
>At this point, my questions have become:
>
>1) what is your experience/feelings/advice wrt the mSATA being only
>SATA 2? How slower will it actually be wrt an SSD installed in the
>main bay, or in the caddy?
>
>2) if going with mSATA in SATA2 slot, where to put swap? Still in the
>HD, I guess. No?
>
>Thanks
>Marco

Hi Marco,

I can't comment on you special case. However, I'm using SSDs only in my
tower PC. Four connected via SATA 3 and one connected via SATA 2.

When I migrated from my old PC that only provided SATA 2, with my first
SSD, to my new PC with SATA 3, I noticed an extreme speedup. If the SSD
is used for everything, then there is an imense difference between SATA
2 and SATA 3.

_But_ even on the old PC all the fast HDDs were extremely slower, than
the "slow" SSD.

On my new PC the one SSD connected via SATA 2 contains a virtualbox
Windows 7 VM and a shared folder. For this purpose I don't notice a
difference. The same SSD once was connected to a SATA 3 port.

Resume: SSD is always way faster than HDD. A SSD connected by SATA 3 is
way faster than when connected by SATA 2, especially when loading
bloatware. However, even for real-time audio production read and write
to a "slow" SATA 2 connected SSD is that fast, that it never ever will
become a bottleneck.

IMO the difference between SATA 2 abd SATA 3 is only noticable when
loading bloatware. IOW it makes a noticeable difference when starting
e.g. a web browser such as Firefox, let a lone a bloated DE, but it
unlikely makes a noticeable difference when reading or writing most
kinds of data or starting lightweight programs.

It unlikely makes a difference, if your swap is on the SSD or the HDD.

Regards,
Ralf