[kwlug-disc] Using mSata drives

Tue Jan 14 16:03:44 EST 2014

Thanks, Khalid, I will consider what you said.  I guess I wanted the mSata
as swap since I really have no other use for a 16gig drive when everything
else is on the 1TB.

The laptop has 8 gig RAM, which I hope to expand to 16gig soon, so with any
luck I won't use the swap much.

Giles Malet replied to me personally as for some reason he couldn't reply
to the group, and he had some good points as well, which I will copy to the
group...

First off given the warnings about GPT we should trust what fdisk reports.
 Instead use:

parted -l

In my case, I got:

> Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name  Flags
>   1      1049kB  16.0GB  16.0GB  linux-swap(v1)  HFS

which says that I did manage to configure the mSata as a swap partition.
 Giles also said to confirm this with

swapon -s

which showed:

> Filename Type Size Used Priority
> /dev/sda1                               partition 15637500 2036 -1

So I do indeed have swap setup on the mSata, despite what fdisk was telling
me.

Long story short, Giles said don't use fdisk on a GPT disk! GPT is a newer
format than the old DOS partition table that fdisk supports.

So thanks Giles and Khalid for your help!

On 14 January 2014 15:54, Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:

> First, why do you want swap to be used at all? If it is used, it means RAM
> is not enough, and you get really bad performance on spindle disks, less so
> on SSDs.
>
> Second, if you are using swap a lot, then it would shorten the lifespan of
> your SSD.
>
> Third, yes, please try parted as the message says. To do this, just type:
>
> sudo parted
>
> Then enter:
> print devices
> You will see all the drives that parted knows about.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 2:53 PM, CrankyOldBugger <
> crankyoldbugger at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Here's a question for the pros here...
>>
>> My Lenovo laptop came with a 1TB HDD, and a 16gig sSata drive.  It
>> originally shipped with Windows 8 but I eventually wiped the whole 1TB and
>> installed Ubuntu 13.10 on it.  Runs great.
>>
>> One thing I noticed is that the 16gig mSata is not being used.  I would
>> like to use it a my /swap partition.  As it happens, there is no swap
>> partition on the system.
>>
>> jeff at Quorra-Ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l
>> [sudo] password for jeff:
>>
>> WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util
>> fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.
>>
>>
>> Disk /dev/sda: 16.0 GB, 16013942784 bytes
>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1946 cylinders, total 31277232 sectors
>> Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>> Disk identifier: 0x8bb65f34
>>
>>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>> /dev/sda1               1    31277231    15638615+  ee  GPT
>>
>> WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util
>> fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.
>>
>>
>> Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
>> Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
>> Disk identifier: 0x8bb65f33
>>
>>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>> /dev/sdb1               1  1953525167   976762583+  ee  GPT
>> Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
>>
>>
>>
>> Here's the df:
>>
>> jeff at Quorra-Ubuntu:~$ df -h
>> Filesystem                     Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>> /dev/sdb2                      275G  5.2G  256G   2% /
>> none                           4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
>> udev                           3.9G  4.0K  3.9G   1% /dev
>> tmpfs                          794M  1.5M  792M   1% /run
>> none                           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
>> none                           3.9G  472K  3.9G   1% /run/shm
>> none                           100M  108K  100M   1% /run/user
>> /dev/sdb1                       93M  3.3M   90M   4% /boot/efi
>> /dev/sdb3                      642G  101G  509G  17% /home
>> 10.42.1.95:/volume1/video      8.1T  5.4T  2.7T  68%
>> /home/jeff/Videos/Athenavids
>> 10.42.1.95:/volume1/music      8.1T  5.4T  2.7T  68%
>> /home/jeff/Music/Athenamusic
>> 10.42.1.95:/volume1/NetBackup  8.1T  5.4T  2.7T  68% /mnt/Athenabackups
>>
>> As you can see, there is no swap partition.  I _thought_ I set up the
>> mSata as the swap, during the install, but apparently not.
>>
>> Please note that this machine has UEFI, but SecureBoot is turned off.
>>  Damn Windows 8....
>>
>> Does anyone have any ideas on how to set up the mSata as the swap
>> partition?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Khalid M. Baheyeldin
> 2bits.com, Inc.
> Fast Reliable Drupal
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> For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and
> wrong." -- H.L. Mencken
>
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