[mythtv-users] Opinions on Solid State Drives for Myth ???

Tyler T tylernt at gmail.com
Tue Jul 27 18:05:24 UTC 2010


> I have wondered if the SSDs are actually better in any way than USB sticks (maybe better wear leveling or caching

USB sticks are generally intended for occasional casual use. SSDs are
expected to run intensive OSes and DBs etc so I'd be willing to bet
they have better wear leveling and higher-quality flash technology
(SLC vs MLC). That said, USB sticks are generally "good enough" for
our purposes.

> Just about anything made these days will boot from a USB device, so the question would be if using a SATA device is better

My BE runs off a USB HDD. There is definitely a performance hit as I
can see the USB storage process show up in 'top' from time to time and
take a few % CPU; also, I occasionally see ~3% CPU going to 'wait'
(usually when Myth does a reschedule and MySQL goes nuts). Still, I
can record one HD ATSC stream from my HDHR while watching another on
my remote diskless FE without problems. And while 3-5% CPU might seem
like a lot, remember I have an 1.2GHz ARM CPU the equivalent of a
800MHz Pentium 3, so while SATA is definitely better the hit for USB
probably won't be significant on modern systems.

> For the OP, I don't see any reason to fuss with SSDs for Myth.

Actually, I see them as viable alternatives to diskless-NFSRoot for a
FE. PXE/NFSRoot is a real pain to set up unless you have done it
before, whereas you can install just about any distro to a USB/SSD
without a lot of drama. So I guess the difference is mainly in the
human factor.


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