Hello,
Some time ago, I bough a CF-IDE adapter, and a 2GB SLC CF card.
Do you think it can significantly speed up boot process to install XBMCbuntu on such device?
As my CF is not large enough to install the entire system, I will have to move /usr on the hard drive. I hope this dir is not too much involved in the boot process, or at least, won't slow it down...
In order to preserve the CF life-time, what else should I move on the hard drive?
Any advice welcome.
Thanks,
PS: in fact, I will first have to install the system on the hard driven then move usefull parts on the CF...
That depends
... I'm running the system from a 16 GB CF 300x speed, the home directory resides on 1 TB hdd ..
My CF has a reading speed around 60 MB/s which is okay but not comparable to SSDs (but much cheaper ;-) .. there are 600x cards too .. writing speed is very low compared to hdds but it's most of the time unimportant, only when installing and updating the system ..
Greetz
LastCoder
PS: I think it doesn't make any sense to use CF ;-) either buy a small SSD or just use your hard disc ..
You're right, my CF has only RD/WR speed of 45MB/s...
What could be done, so, to improve boot speed? Why XBMCbuntu is slower than geexbox, for example?
.. I'm using a plain Ubuntu 12.04 server installation and added a small LXDE environment (I prefer a full desktop environment for some tasks ..) .. the system boots up in less 20 sec to XBMC on a cheap G530 .. maybe a SSD will improve boot up times but I'm happy - it's faster or at least not slower than my modern standalone bluray player or satellite receiver ... and since it's booted only 2 - 3 x times a day I don't care about it too much
Yes, you're right: modern BD players are *really* slow!!!
20" is OK for me too.
Most stuff on your computer (except your home directory, /home) resides in /usr so if you believe your CF card is faster than your HDD you shouldn't put /usr on the HDD.
Well, I only try to increase the boot sequence. Are there a lot of things loaded from /usr, at this time?
In fact, I first need to measure how long each step takes. If loading kernel is only 10% of the entire process, then, I agree, it does not make sens using a (even fast) CF.
And even having a precise timing may not help much, as I won't be able to see if it is a CPU or disk problem!
All binaries except the most essential ones (ls, cat, grep etc.) are in /usr/bin so when those programs are started they will be loaded from /usr. I would suggesting putting everything except /home on your CF card.
SATA hdds have around 50 - 120 MB/s read speed, SSD up to 500 MB (
http://www.storagereview.com/ssd_vs_hdd ) .. so using a CF - like me - as "simple do it yourself" ssd only makes sense if you buy CF with 300x or better 600x speed - you'll discover some speed improvements if it comes to access time, too. Btw. I'm using a 16 GB CF in my old dell notebook, I swapped the hdd - and have a lot more battery time ..
I can recommend 8GB or 16 GB CnMemory CF 300x by price/value ratio .. but instead of buying 600x CF from Kingston or SanDisk you better by a real SSD - you get a new 60 GB SSD from kingston for around 50 bucks, which comes with 450 MB/s ..
Ok, I'll have a look at SSD drives... But I don't need such capacity; is 8GB enough?
That depends
.. if the system is mainly used as HTPC running Linux and XBMC 8GB are enough for the system files, but I would go for best price/value ratio and buy a 32 or 60 GB SSD ...
Yes, I only need to put the system, plus config files. I have a 2TB HD for movies/music/photos...