Hey Steve Ballmer, Microsoft has become the cancer

[SteveRiley]

Edit: Researched UEFI, if I can't shut it off, no buy mobo, that simple.

UEFI is actually pretty cool, don't dismiss a product just because it has that. BTW, almost all new products now have UEFI -- BIOS is being phased out.

What you should look for is the ability to disable secure boot in the UEFI settings. A mechanism to do that is supposed to be there. If you disable secure boot, you eliminate all the issues you've recently been reading about. I am not as convinced as Matthew Garrett that an ordinary user needs secure boot, so don't worry about potentially opening your computer to attack. Secure boot protects against a very specific kind of threat, one that remains uncommon.

[tek_heretik]

We would get along great - I'm just the same!

I also am planning a 4-SSD RAID0 (with appropriate backups of course Steve ).

I have been using RAID daily for 6 years or so and playing with BTRFS (in RAID configuration) for the last two. I currently have BTRFS on my 6TB server, but I think I'm going to reconfigure it to LVM and keep the edgy stuff for my desktop. Too many family members use the server for me to have to tangle with it often.

We'll have to start a new thread to discuss options and findings for the new projects!

EDIT: New Thread Started

Although it is time for me to build another machine, I have to move soon (to another city close by) and that costs money so unfortunately, it won't be for a while, until after I am settled in, possibly this winter. What pisses me off is I was looking at a possible new mobo last night and it has UEFI, is Kubuntu going to load on that?

Edit: Researched UEFI, if I can't shut it off, no buy mobo, that simple.

[GreyGeek]

I glanced through that book a couple years ago. Most of it is now hopelessly out of date, just like Rute.pdf is becoming.

[oshunluvr]

...Now I want to build a new machine with a 4 SSD Raid 0, now that should be an interesting install! Yep, I am a hardware nut, love the stuff.

We would get along great - I'm just the same!

I also am planning a 4-SSD RAID0 (with appropriate backups of course Steve ).

I have been using RAID daily for 6 years or so and playing with BTRFS (in RAID configuration) for the last two. I currently have BTRFS on my 6TB server, but I think I'm going to reconfigure it to LVM and keep the edgy stuff for my desktop. Too many family members use the server for me to have to tangle with it often.

We'll have to start a new thread to discuss options and findings for the new projects!

EDIT: New Thread Started

[HalationEffect]

Re: SSDs in a RAID configuration

As I understand it (from reading an in-depth article at Ars Technica), each individual SSD is sorta-kinda a RAID setup all by itself.

The SSD's controller—a processor that provides the interface between the SSD and the computer and that handles all of the decisions about what gets written to which NAND chips and how—has multiple channels it can use to address its attached NAND chips. In a method similar to traditional multi-hard disk RAID, the SSD controller writes and reads data in stripes across the different NAND chips in the drive. In effect, the single solid-state drive is treated like a RAID array of NAND.

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...s-really-work/ (4th page)

[tek_heretik]

Well, with just two drives, the overall performance increase by using RAID 0 with SSDs is double. I have to say I wouldn't have expected that!

As they say in the article, using RAID requires forgoing TRIM. This can be good or bad, depending on the drive and its controller. The Intel drives appear to fare pretty well, according to that article. It would take some research to determine how well other brands perform. That said, I've been using SSDs for two years now and haven't yet had a single problem with any of them: Intel, Corsair, G.Skill, and Toshiba.

I am eye-balling Kingston SSDs (was very impressed with my memory modules), the new board would be a Gigabyte board, I find Asus to be buggy and not as well made. Right now, from a 'standing start' (not already resident in the memory), Libre office opens in 3 seconds, Firefox in about 1, it only takes about 60 seconds to get to the desktop (starting at pushing the power button), and that is with Thunderbird, Transmission, Knotes and Pidgin all 'auto-starting' (restore previous session).

[SteveRiley]

Well, with just two drives, the overall performance increase by using RAID 0 with SSDs is double. I have to say I wouldn't have expected that!

As they say in the article, using RAID requires forgoing TRIM. This can be good or bad, depending on the drive and its controller. The Intel drives appear to fare pretty well, according to that article. It would take some research to determine how well other brands perform. That said, I've been using SSDs for two years now and haven't yet had a single problem with any of them: Intel, Corsair, G.Skill, and Toshiba.

[tek_heretik]

Oh, I don't mean to discourage you from splurging on SSDs... Personally, I could never go back to spinning drives now. I'm totally spoiled.

There is a certain amount of computation involved in calculating stripe sets and the positions of files. I'd imagine that a simple spanned volume would be computationally easier for the computer to manage. Of course, we're dealing with units of time so small that it probably won't be perceptible at this point

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...-review-3.html

Check out the benchmarks (the top one in the graphs is the Raid 0 and according to these guys, "we used the onboard Raid controller to emulate everyday end user experiences", not an exact quote, I just used better English, lol). It does work, but it would appear, and I agree Steve, the CPU cycle gobbling would increase with the amount of drives used in the Raid (possibly outweighing the benefits of any perceived performance increase through drive IO speeds), not to mention a whole new level/generation of bottleneck at the drive IO controller, lol.

As with most things in life, moderation is key, 2 SSDs yielding 1GB/s sounds like fun to me, lol.

[whatthefunk]

My SSD was a great investment! 10 sec boot time, absolutely no lag, games are faster.... I agree with Steve, I can never go back!

[SteveRiley]

Oh, I don't mean to discourage you from splurging on SSDs... Personally, I could never go back to spinning drives now. I'm totally spoiled.

There is a certain amount of computation involved in calculating stripe sets and the positions of files. I'd imagine that a simple spanned volume would be computationally easier for the computer to manage. Of course, we're dealing with units of time so small that it probably won't be perceptible at this point

[tek_heretik]

I would imagine that the speed of SSDs pretty much eliminates the performance gains that RAID 0 offers for spinning drives. Since RAID 0 stripes data across multiple drives, which is actually a bit risky, you might consider using LVM to create a single volume that spans multiple drives. In this configuration, a single drive failure would affect fewer files.

Nah, any new photo, office file, etc, immediately gets backed up to a non-Raid drive AND a USB stick, some people like to 'pimp' cars, computers are my thing, lol. The drives I am eye-balling have a read/write in the neighbourhood of 500MB/s EACH, so would be interesting to run a drive speed test after getting it all set up. I would mostly likely have 8 times the drive performance I have now (about 250MB/s). I am guessing an OS is supposed to 'see' an SSD drive similar to the way a mechanical drive is 'seen', I will have to research that a little now that you mentioned it, no point in wasting a lot of money for nothing.

[SteveRiley]

a 4 SSD Raid 0

I would imagine that the speed of SSDs pretty much eliminates the performance gains that RAID 0 offers for spinning drives. Since RAID 0 stripes data across multiple drives, which is actually a bit risky, you might consider using LVM to create a single volume that spans multiple drives. In this configuration, a single drive failure would affect fewer files.

[tek_heretik]

My first 'flirtation' with Linux was with Fedora (in the early to middle '00s), text install, had no clue what an X windowing system was, took about ten installs and countless hours Googling command line solutions (and printing), when I finally did get to the desktop, man, was it ugly and foreign, then the dependency thing reared its ugly head, lol, needless to say, I dumped that quick. Then I tried and actually used Mepis, then PClinuxOS for a while, take note they are both newbie distros, lol, but they were pretty and they worked, then I built a new killer machine in late '06 and that started the Raid thing (was determined to not go backwards from Raid 0 once I got a taste of the outrageous speeds, finally conquering the last 'bottleneck'), hence the XP until Mint came along, then Kubuntu. Now I want to build a new machine with a 4 SSD Raid 0, now that should be an interesting install! Yep, I am a hardware nut, love the stuff.

[SteveRiley]

I think I bought that same book, roughly around the same time -- I thought, then, that it would be good to "learn the competition." Alas, I never got around to it, as I was informed that no self-respecting Microsoft consultant could flash his business card without the requisite MCSE certification logo. So I had to go take a bunch of exams and, well, kind of forgot about Linux for 11 years

[GreyGeek]

Well, I for one, am thankful for Win95.

It was pre-installed on my brand new Sony VAIO desktop, purchased on Dec 29, 1997. Between that date and May 1st, 1998 it crashed regularly about every 20 minutes and became so corrupted that I had to re-install it FIVE times. Disgusted, I decided to return to OS/2 and went to Barnes & Nobel to see what the latest version was. OS/2, IIRC, was selling for $200, +- 50. There I saw a paperback book titled "Learn Linux in 24 Hours", by Bill Brush, for $25, which I still have. The book had a free RH 5.0 CD in the back of the book. I thought, "What's $25?" and bought it. With RH5.0 that Sony was rock sold stable.

Linux was my OS of choice from that moment on.