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How does everyone else set up their dev systems? I just rebuilt my dev machine and I'm using one SSD drive for the OS, one SDD for data (database, Cassandra stu

How does everyone else set up their dev systems? I just rebuilt my dev machine and I'm using one SSD drive for the OS, one SDD for data (database, Cassandra stuff), and then a regular drive to hold code and builds since that gets rewritten several hundred times a day sometimes.

lnanek2 13y ago
One SSD of Vertex 4 speed or higher, usually in a laptop, max RAM. Haven't seen the need for a workstation in over five years. Have gone through 4 laptops for processor increases/lightness/battery in that time, so SSD is always replaced long before anything could go bad anyway. Develop Android/iOS mainly, although there's often a Jetty/Rails/MongoDB/NodeJS/Postgres server or two and a VM running.
lutusp 13y ago
> I just rebuilt my dev machine and I'm using one SSD drive for the OS, one SDD for data (database, Cassandra stuff), and then a regular drive to hold code and builds ... So instead of one large storage pool, you have three. This means your chance to have your system grind to a halt with a disk-full condition is three times greater than it would otherwise be. I've never understood this logic, but I certainly see it implemented a lot. It's a new version of disk hard-partitioning in *nix systems -- a scheme that stopped making sense once drives because large enough to contain all the resources on one unit. With one drive containing all stored resources and no hard partitions, there's exactly one disk-full failure mode -- when the disk is full. When Charles Lindbergh was asked why he wanted only one engine on his historic Atlantic-crossing plane, he replied that, since the multi-engine planes of his day couldn't stay airborne on one engine, his design was actually safer.
- MAGZine 13y ago
  If he combined them, it would be likely he would have to move to an HDD to fit everything. The part that's really unfortuante about that is that HDDs do not have the best reading/writing since the heads actually need to seek the data. These creates performance bottlenecks, especially if he's trying to transfer a build while the database is active. Fewer disks, less chance of failure. it's extra important to back up though, since one disk failure can result in entire catastrophe! Losing an OS but still having DB and Code isn't that catastrophic.
- __david__ 13y ago
  I used to have the same opinion you did until I started doing some really filesystem intense stuff (not even big, just lots of creating and deleting of files) and suddenly my entire system ground to a halt. Huge delays (top showed state "D"—waiting for device). I moved that stuff to its own disk and my system became smooth as butter again. I'm still not down with the traditional unix '"/usr" must be its own partition!' thing, but it does help to separate your tasks onto separate disks.
to3m 13y ago
I use Intel Smart Response SSD caching on my work PC - 1 x 500GB HD and 1 x 60GB SSD as cache. (I think you can set this up to cache multiple drives but you might need one SSD partition per HD.) It was a little fiddly to set up but since then that it's been trouble-free. It was not expensive to buy the parts and it does a good job of balancing the competing requirements of disk space, performance, cost and general hassle. Flat-out performance is a little ropey by SSD standards, but random accesses are fast, so it mostly feels SSD-like. (I have the system set to write-back mode, so write speed is decent too.) Of course, as with any cache, it is possible for it to become filled with inappropriate data, or for a data set to exceed the size of the cache, but for my purposes (mainly building C++ and running the result) I've found it to do a good job. With a 60GB cache I've found these situations pretty rare day to day anyway. (Smart Response is Windows-only; I don't know how it compares to the Mac OS X or Linux equivalents.)

lnanek2 13y ago

One SSD of Vertex 4 speed or higher, usually in a laptop, max RAM. Haven't seen the need for a workstation in over five years. Have gone through 4 laptops for processor increases/lightness/battery in that time, so SSD is always replaced long before anything could go bad anyway. Develop Android/iOS mainly, although there's often a Jetty/Rails/MongoDB/NodeJS/Postgres server or two and a VM running.

lutusp 13y ago

> I just rebuilt my dev machine and I'm using one SSD drive for the OS, one SDD for data (database, Cassandra stuff), and then a regular drive to hold code and builds ... So instead of one large storage pool, you have three. This means your chance to have your system grind to a halt with a disk-full condition is three times greater than it would otherwise be. I've never understood this logic, but I certainly see it implemented a lot. It's a new version of disk hard-partitioning in *nix systems -- a scheme that stopped making sense once drives because large enough to contain all the resources on one unit. With one drive containing all stored resources and no hard partitions, there's exactly one disk-full failure mode -- when the disk is full. When Charles Lindbergh was asked why he wanted only one engine on his historic Atlantic-crossing plane, he replied that, since the multi-engine planes of his day couldn't stay airborne on one engine, his design was actually safer.

MAGZine 13y ago
If he combined them, it would be likely he would have to move to an HDD to fit everything. The part that's really unfortuante about that is that HDDs do not have the best reading/writing since the heads actually need to seek the data. These creates performance bottlenecks, especially if he's trying to transfer a build while the database is active. Fewer disks, less chance of failure. it's extra important to back up though, since one disk failure can result in entire catastrophe! Losing an OS but still having DB and Code isn't that catastrophic.
__david__ 13y ago
I used to have the same opinion you did until I started doing some really filesystem intense stuff (not even big, just lots of creating and deleting of files) and suddenly my entire system ground to a halt. Huge delays (top showed state "D"—waiting for device). I moved that stuff to its own disk and my system became smooth as butter again. I'm still not down with the traditional unix '"/usr" must be its own partition!' thing, but it does help to separate your tasks onto separate disks.

to3m 13y ago

I use Intel Smart Response SSD caching on my work PC - 1 x 500GB HD and 1 x 60GB SSD as cache. (I think you can set this up to cache multiple drives but you might need one SSD partition per HD.) It was a little fiddly to set up but since then that it's been trouble-free. It was not expensive to buy the parts and it does a good job of balancing the competing requirements of disk space, performance, cost and general hassle. Flat-out performance is a little ropey by SSD standards, but random accesses are fast, so it mostly feels SSD-like. (I have the system set to write-back mode, so write speed is decent too.) Of course, as with any cache, it is possible for it to become filled with inappropriate data, or for a data set to exceed the size of the cache, but for my purposes (mainly building C++ and running the result) I've found it to do a good job. With a 60GB cache I've found these situations pretty rare day to day anyway. (Smart Response is Windows-only; I don't know how it compares to the Mac OS X or Linux equivalents.)