[haiku-development] Re: Slow Alpha Installation
- From: scott mc <scottmc2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 16:14:11 -0700
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Izomiac<haikulist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I recently installed the Alpha on real hardware using a CD. It took a very
> long time (I didn't keep track but probably well over half an hour).
> Fortunately, the reason is fairly obvious: I'm using a first generation SSD
> with extremely slow random write speeds. For this specific case, it's a
> niche scenario that I honestly don't think any developer should waste their
> time with. I was well aware of the flaw when I bought the drive, but
> maintain that the benefits far outweigh the defect.
> That said, no drive is terribly fast at random writes; it's far slower than
> sequential writting. So, forgive me if the filesystem doesn't allow this,
> but during my wait a method for dramatically decreasing installation time
> occurred to me. First, do a sector-by-sector copy of the installation media
> to the front of the partition. Next, expand the BFS volume to fill the
> partition. Finally, do makebootable and whatever else that's needed to make
> it a valid and bootable partition.
>
> Of course, the old method should be available, since one might want to use
> an existing BFS volume or tweak the filesystem options. No GUI option is
> necessary, just use the old method for existing volumes and the proposed
> method for unformatted partitions.
>
> The speed benefit for an SSD like mine would be (maximum) 72 minutes down to
> (minimum) ~5 seconds. For a normal harddisk with 4KB random write speeds of
> 3 MB/sec and sequential write speeds of 60 MB/sec, the difference is ~3
> minutes VS 8 seconds. I'm working based off of worst (4KB random writes) VS
> best (sequential) case scenarios. Obviously my Haiku installation took less
> than half the maximum theoretical time, but I think the real world
> performance benefit on all drives would still be unignorable.
>
> The installation media would become the limiting factor, which is probably
> already the case for CDs to magnetic disks, but other types of installations
> would greatly benefit. Unless, of course, the CD filesystem is copied onto
> a ~500 MB ramdisk prior to booting (for systems with >=1GB of RAM)... It
> should even be faster overall since there's less CD seeking for random files
> during the boot/install process.
>
>
>
>
I installed to a 4GB Compact flash card yesterday over USB1.1 so I
know how painfully slow this can be. It took about an hour or so
before the LED stopped blinking letting me know the writing was done.
I have used "dd" to write to this same card before and it took about
that long doing a straight image copy. It'd probably go a lot faster
if I'd just get a newer USB2.0 compact flash adapter.
-scottmc
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