Use NAND flash on a SSD Solid State Drive like USB stick

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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rrolsbe
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Joined: Wed 15 Nov 2006, 21:53

Use NAND flash on a SSD Solid State Drive like USB stick

#1 Post by rrolsbe »

I save my pupsave on an SSD drive and I assume many others do also. It would be nice if Puppy recognized it is not a spinning drive and would at least give me the option of treating it as if it were USB flash. This would save a little where a tear on the NAND flash of the SSD and give me the option of not saving my Pupsave file during a login session.

Regards, Ron

More INFO:
I boot from the Puppy CD but all the Puppy files are stored on my SSD (because it is much faster). I also boot from a USB stick but tell it, in the boot options, I am booting from a CD so it uses the Puppy files on my FAST SSD instead of one one on the SLOW USB stick.
Last edited by rrolsbe on Thu 22 Jul 2010, 19:14, edited 1 time in total.

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rcrsn51
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#2 Post by rcrsn51 »

Read here. This is the opposite situation to what you want, but you can switch it around by using "PUPMODE=13". Start at PART B.

I did a quick test and it seems to work.

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jemimah
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#3 Post by jemimah »

You don't need to edit the init script. Just add pmedia=ataflash to the bootloader. If you install with the Puppy Universal Installer, and tell it you have an SSD, you'll get this automatically.

Another trick you can do with recent kernels:

Code: Select all

echo 0 > /sys/block/sda/queue/rotational
This will let the kernel know that the drive is an SSD so it can optimize I/O correctly. Often SSDs emulate rotational drives, so the kernel can't tell by itself.

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rcrsn51
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#4 Post by rcrsn51 »

Nice call.

It's too bad that "pmedia=usbhd" doesn't work the other way. If I have installed Puppy on an external hard drive, I don't really need to be working in PUPMODE=13.

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jemimah
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#5 Post by jemimah »

That's something that would probably be easy to fix. I guess usb hard drives advertise themselves as "removable", which makes Puppy want to be in pupmode 13.

nooby
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#6 Post by nooby »

I am testing your suggestion now Jemimah.

pmedia=ataflash in the kernel line of menu.lst using quirky on an Acer D250.

How do I check what is going on?

Edit one thing did change that give evidence it has worked so far.
It added a Save icon to the Desktop. Promising indeed.Now I need to
add some changes. Youtube file would do. Then save it on the home first
and then another one in my docs to see if it save that one or discards it?
A third that I save at shutdown? Hm maybe at different tests though.


I mean using Menu > System ???? something that shows that it works like you told us. I do trust you but would be cool to look at it doing its thing?

I guess if me shut down it maybe ask if I want to save changes?

Is that the only way to find out?

The HDD is a NTFS formatted internal 250GB spinning mechanical drive.

My reason is that I hate that it start up each 60 seconds and do a write despite me do nothing to ask it to.

Well, it does save without asking when I shut down.

But I guess that is how Mode 12 is set up. So maybe me need to do what rcrsn51 described how to change the initrd script?
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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