Linux Lite Forums
General => Off Topic => Topic started by: m654321 on April 26, 2016, 04:01:58 PM
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Are 17-inch laptops the only size that come equipped with two drive bays, or can two drive bays be found in smaller laptops?
I'm having difficulty finding any information on the net, for either new or old laptops, concerning the number of bays they contain for fitting
either SSD or HDD.
Thanks for any info - maybe I should start a separate thread to survey the number of drive bays for named makes/models of Linux Lite
members' laptops ...
Mike
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Hi Mike,
Would you also take into consideration to replace a CD/DVD drive with a HDD caddy? That would give you the possibility for a second HDD also in smaller models. I saw such caddies for example for Dell Latitude laptops.
Hope that helps :)
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That type of caddy also exists for Lenovo Thinkpads. The Thinkpad T420 was specifically mentioned with this capability in a recent "Going Linux" podcast (Mar 20, 2016: Show #295 · Linux on ThinkPads).
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17" is the only size I've ever seen with 2 HDD bays. Beside the optical bay conversion, if your laptop has a usb 3.0 port, that should run a usb 3.0 external HDD enclosure about as fast as SATA (not sure of the exact specs). And then there's the eSATA port.
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Not sure if you just want more storage or specifically 2 separate drives, or something else.?
There are devices like this "Dual mSATA to 2.5" Adapter (http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-2-5-Inch-Adapter-Converter-25SAT22MSAT/dp/B00ITJ7WDC)"
It can be configured in different ways...
Depending on the Laptop SATA Controller it can appear like 1 big drive or 2 separate drives.
or be used in RAID Mode.
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Thanks guys for your feedback. I wasn't so much thinking of optical drive to hard drive conversion, or the external drive possibility, but simply what the laptops come with. I like to know what I'm buying. I wanted to purchase a second hand laptop with two drive bays that I could use as my "experimental PC" so if it crashes it won't affect anything important. Why do I like two drives? A couple of reasons. On the two Asus PCs in our house (see footnote signature), I like to have two separate physical drives because (1) one drive can be used to keep data files separate from the OS drive in a single data partition that spans the entire disk, and the other reason (2) if some of the OS files are distributed between two drives, the OS runs quicker as you have two drive readers working at the same time.
Mike
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(2) if some of the OS files are distributed between two drives, the OS runs quicker as you have two drive readers working at the same time.
Mike
Hi Mike,
You may already know.?, Out of the box the only "buntu" based distro that I'm aware of that offers the above is "Ubuntu Server"
To achieve this "striping" you need to use RAID, either a hardware RAID controller, or Software.
In the case of "buntu" based distros, software raid uses "mdadm", not installed by default, but is in repo.
I have been playing with RAID 10, 4 disks, but I keep failing at the last step for some reason :(
I did get 1 method going in a Virtualbox, but it had a single point of failure by having an extra /boot partition on 1 disk.
It should be possible with latest GRUB to boot from RAID array, but I seem to be missing something.
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You may already know.?, Out of the box the only "buntu" based distro that I'm aware of that offers the above is "Ubuntu Server"
To achieve this "striping" you need to use RAID, either a hardware RAID controller, or Software.
In the case of "buntu" based distros, software raid uses "mdadm", not installed by default, but is in repo.
I have been playing with RAID 10, 4 disks, but I keep failing at the last step for some reason (https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/Smileys/default/sad.gif)
I did get 1 method going in a Virtualbox, but it had a single point of failure by having an extra /boot partition on 1 disk.
It should be possible with latest GRUB to boot from RAID array, but I seem to be missing something.
Thanks Dave - I didn't know that - that's one misconception sorted for me... ;) So for example, from what you've just said, it therefore doesn't make any difference to PC speed (under a straightforward non-RAID setup) if the OS is installed either (1) entirely as /root on a single physical drive or, (2) with /root on one HDD and a separate /home on a second HDD, i.e. without RAID the two HDDs unable to work simultaneously to effect an increase in PC speed.
Mike
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Hi Mike,
Without RAID having / and /home and /data on on separate disks will improve performance, but by how much.?
It will all depend on Hardware/CPU/Memory, and how data intensive the applications you are running
Using certain types of RAID and multiple separate disks can make a significant impact.
There are many types of RAID, it can be used for "Performance" or "Redundancy" or "Combinations"
It's actually a complex subject in terms of "Tuning" & Optimisation", beyond me...
I'm interested in Linux RAID 10 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-standard_RAID_levels#LINUX-MD-RAID-10),
this gives you a degree of performance boost, and some redundancy, but ideally 4 disks for better redundancy.
Some references info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID)
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Linux Raid 10, this gives you a degree of performance boost, and some redundancy, but ideally 4 disks for better redundancy.
Four disks: I assume that's a PC Tower set-up!
Mike
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So for example, from what you've just said, it therefore doesn't make any difference to PC speed (under a straightforward non-RAID setup) if the OS is installed either (1) entirely as /root on a single physical drive or, (2) with /root on one HDD and a separate /home on a second HDD, i.e. without RAID the two HDDs unable to work simultaneously to effect an increase in PC speed.
Mike
Not wanting to butt in... Or track too far from the original question, but wanting to see if I can help clarify/add..
In a desktop set up, having "/" and "/home" or xx on separate disks won't increase PC speed significantly to notice (Disk IO)
If this desktop is sharing/streaming files from "/home" and doing various other tasks where "/" would be accessed - then you would see the faster read/write speeds at the disk IO. This is more of a "home server"...
The bottle neck would be dependent on the system and tasks, but could be RAM, CPU's (if smaller set up), network -if this system is downloading files and streaming on say a WiFi adapter with "G" speeds..
If looking for a significant performance increase at the disk, then a SSD drive (I'll be doing this to the mini in the near future).
Having "/" and "/home" separate from each other does ease pain like when upgrading or crashing "/" even if its 1 disk with 2 partitions; unless the disk fails...
RAID
- in my opinion at the desktop level the preference would be for redundancy; having "/home" written to 2+ disks should a disk fail it can be recovered/rebuilt from the other(s) depending on which raid...
- or if you have multiple disks that you want combined as 1 drive (i.e. 4x100gb as 1x400gb disk); lose 1 and its all gone, unless adding the option of redundancy... Same example now 2/2 (1x200gb redundant drive )
The additional disk (IO) speed gains from RAID, won't be noticed unless the activities are disk IO intense...
Hope it helps clarify and not confuse ;)
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Linux Raid 10, this gives you a degree of performance boost, and some redundancy, but ideally 4 disks for better redundancy.
Four disks: I assume that's a PC Tower set-up!
Mike
Not necessarily the usual "Big Tower"...
I have this InWin SFF Case (http://www.in-win.com.tw/Corporate/zh/goods.php?act=view&id=BM677) which had a single 5.25" bay, meant for a full size CD/DVD type device.
I instead fitted a 4 X 2.5" to 5.25" Icybox Hotswap Bay (https://www.scan.co.uk/products/icy-dock-25-hdd-ssd-4-in-1-sata-hot-swap-backplane-raid-cage) (You can actually get 6 Bay units (https://www.scan.co.uk/products/icy-dock-mb996sp-6sb-6-sata-hot-swap-525-bay-backplane-raid-cage))
Biggest challenge was getting a sensibly priced Motherboard with 4 X SATA (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/N3700-ITX/)3 and Low power for the small case.
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@firenice03
You hit the nail on the head, Disk IO & Disk Controllers that is where things start to bottleneck.
Unless you spend "significant $$" on specialist Mobo with 10+ SATA3 ports, or Hardware RAID controller card,
for home usage you have to work with what you have, or can afford.
Even with regular consumer SSD's you really need SATA3, you can easily saturate SATA1/2 with SSD's.
The new m2 SSD's plug straight on Mobos PCIE connectors for that reason.
Quick addition,
Where it sometimes can be confusing, SATA use Gbps(small b) and Disks use MB/s(Big B)
So SATA3 6Gbps = 600MB/s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#SATA_revision_3.0_.286_Gbit.2Fs.2C_600_MB.2Fs.29), current consumer SSD's(2.5") under the right circumstances can run @ 550MB/s, so close to even SATA 3.0 limit
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Thanks - I'm afraid you guys have lost me - I'm not up to speed (pardon the pun) with RAID etc - also we've begun to steer a bit far from the original question which was whether two drive bays are limited to 17-inch or 17-inch+ laptops...
Mike
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Sorry about the OT stuff...
It appears you can get 2 drives in smaller Laptops, but at the expense of possibly any optical drive.
Googling around references new models that have 2 X mSATA bays, but looking at them it's not obvious.
I think they maybe offered as "option" If you are looking for a new one.?, You may have to call some dealers.