I'm running the latest XBMC Live installation on an Acer Aspire Revo 1600. I recently put a Corsair Nova 32GB SSD in it to speed up the thumbnail loads in wall and even showcase when it's scrolling fast. I have not noticed any improvement.
I've tried Confluence, Night, and Neon all with the same result.
The SSD seems fast when testing it with `dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/null bs=4k count=51200`. I haven't tested random reads on it yet.
tl;dr: scrolling quickly through showcase or wall, the thumbs take a long time to load. Installing on a SSD didn't really change this. Help!
There are a lot of things one can do to tune an ssd. Does your bios support ahci mode in sata? Have you set your cache to write through as opposed to write back from within the bios? Also setting noatime as a partition mount parameter in /etc/fstab is good to do. This is usually done during install.
try a:
hdparm -i /dev/sda
for kicks
That will show us what the os thinks the drive is capable of
hdparm -t /dev/sda
and
hdparm -T /dev/sda
will perform read speed tests and cache tests much the same as the dd /dev/null. In the -i test the asterik will be on the current set speed for the drive.
May I ask what file system you went with and what mount options you elected?
I'll post them up when I can return home and get the numbers.
I was doing some research and I might've found part of the problem. XBMCLive is 2.6.32.* and not until 2.6.33.+ is TRIM supported (as the 'discard' filesystem option anyway).
I went with the default (ext4) and I'm sure I set noatime on the root partition. Turned down the 'swappiness'. changed the io scheduled to noop (also tried deadline).
I'm going to attempt to run it under a ubuntu minimal install and an arch install (with up-to-date kernels and modules), and see if my results are different.
I'll update later this week for sure.
I think the most important factor is to make sure you have ahci set in Bios or at least not ide mode.
Trim will not help you in this case although is definitly something you want for other reasons.
noatime could make a difference.
The suppliers do not recommend any "hacks" for modern SSD. I think it has changed a lot since early days.
If you want to do more I would start by removing swap completly if you have 2G in the Revo.
You could also mount /tmp in ramdisk (tmpfs) and possibly /var/log
Some people would recommend ext2 instead since it is not journaled, but that may be to over do it.
You should also check the firmware on the disk.
With that said...I moved userdata to RAM and I still have a delay when I enter the library. I my specific case I would probably benifit more from another disk and more CPU.
It was most definitely an issue with the kernel version.
a distro w/ 2.6.33, 2.6.25, and 2.6.38 all perform as expected with no other modifications.
Quote:It was most definitely an issue with the kernel version.
Ok, would be interesting to know why. As far as I can gather it can not be TRIM. TRIM is related to delete / overwrite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM
I mean, of course you want TRIM but I did not predict that it would make xbmc faster.
vikjon0 Wrote:Ok, would be interesting to know why. As far as I can gather it can not be TRIM. TRIM is related to delete / overwrite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM
I mean, of course you want TRIM but I did not predict that it would make xbmc faster.
True. It's not visually faster, but the hdparm and the dd results are more in line with what the drive is capable of.
I'm looking in to (when I get it set back up again) using .dds for fanart and whatever else I can do for posters/covers. If I discover anything ground breaking I'll surely update here. From what I've read so far, I think it's limited by the atom processor decompressing the jpg/pngs.
Quote:True. It's not visually faster, but the hdparm and the dd results are more in line with what the drive is capable of.
ok, I am with you.
Quote:limited by the atom processor decompressing the jpg/pngs.
Ok, that is probably what I see then.
TRIM these days is embedded in the actual SSD firmware on NEW SSD's with sandforce chipset, so the drives will self TRIM. I cant tell if your drive natively supports TRIM.
The Older SSD drives required OS support for trim and in Linux the kernel support, but according to OCZ claimed that this is not necessary anylonger since the TRIM support was embedded on the SSD's firmware.
However I doubt that you will notice any performance degradation in such a short time, in ANY SSD.
Like Vikjon says AHCI is necessary to be enabled in your bios, always keep your system Bios and SSD bios updated to the latest available versions.
As for expecting XBMC to perform faster, heck no, this is a driver OPENGL tha xbmc requires and system ability to accelerate and display the UI in a fluid manner. This is more to do with GPU and CPU then HDD type. I have a boot time of around 15~18 seconds on a crap 5400rpm drive and xbmc performs wonderfully on my Asrock ION HT.
Try
Code:
<useddsfanart>true</useddsfanart>
in advancedsettings.xml
Fanarts showing instantly here on an Acer Revo 3600 and 3610.
Mitch