June 6, 2025

Fedora 41 -- a new SSD for trona

Actually two new SSD as it plays out, see the discussion of the second one below. The first of two

While working on putting a new 8G spinning disk into this machine, I discovered that the machine has a mSATA slot.

I learn that mSATA is like an early and different version of the now almost ubiquitous M.2 drives. I learn that mSATA were often used in laptops (in some previous era most likely).

I can't resist popping one into trona and setting it up as a root device, probably replacing my current sata SSD. The only real advantage will be getting rid of a couple of cables.

I purchase a Transcend 256G device (TS256GMSA230S) for $36 and pop it in. Linux discovers it as "sdc", so my current layout is: 

sda - 1T samsung sata SSD
sdb - 4T WD drive /u1
sdc - the new Transcend
sdd - 4T WD drive /u2
I look at the messages in /var/log/messages and see the following. These are rearranged somewhat from the order in the logs. Note that the kernel numbers the ports starting with 1 and continues on to 10.

The first two (ata1 and ata2) are 6G ports on the Z77 chip. The next 4 (ata3,4,5,6) are 3G capable ports on the Z77. The last 4 (ata 7,8,9,10) are 6G ports on the Marvell chip.

Note that the mSATA drive shows up on port 6, just like the motherboard manual said it would. 

Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata1: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata1.00: Model 'Samsung SSD 870 EVO 1TB', rev 'SVT03B6Q', applying quirks: noncqtrim zeroaftertrim noncqonati nolpmonati
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata1.00: ATA-11: Samsung SSD 870 EVO 1TB, SVT03B6Q, max UDMA/133
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata1.00: 1953525168 sectors, multi 1: LBA48 NCQ (depth 32), AA

Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata2: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata2.00: ATA-8: WDC WD4000FYYZ-01UL1B1, 01.01K02, max UDMA/133
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata2.00: 7814037168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 32), AA
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133

Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata3: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata3.00: ATAPI: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224BB, SB00, max UDMA/100
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata3.00: configured for UDMA/100

Jun  5 15:02:26 trona kernel: ata4: DUMMY
Jun  5 15:02:26 trona kernel: ata5: DUMMY

Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata6: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata6.00: ATA-10: TS256GMSA230S, 22X4XAIA, max UDMA/133
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata6.00: 500118192 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 32), AA
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata6.00: configured for UDMA/133

Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata7: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata7.00: ATA-8: WDC WD4000FYYZ-01UL1B1, 01.01K02, max UDMA/133
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata7.00: 7814037168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 32), AA
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata7.00: configured for UDMA/133

Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata8: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata9: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
Jun  6 18:05:07 trona kernel: ata10: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

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Jun  6 18:05:11 trona smartd[911]: Device: /dev/sdb [SAT], 9 Offline uncorrectable sectors
Jun  6 18:05:11 trona smartd[911]: Device: /dev/sdd [SAT], 84 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
Jun  6 18:05:11 trona smartd[911]: Device: /dev/sdd [SAT], 5 Offline uncorrectable sectors
Note the messages for sdb and sdd. The sdd disk is the one I intend to replace with the 8G when it arrives, and it has more serious problems, but my "good" disk on sdb also has some problems. Maybe I should be buying two 8G drives? The second of two Now that I am well on my way to replacing the /u2 drive and suspicious of the /u1 drive, I find it hard not to keep thinking of replacing the /u1 drive.

I have now learned about Western Digital drives intended for use in datacenters. This leads me to consider a Ultrastar DC HC310, which is a 4T 7200 rpm drive with a 256M cache. It currently sells (new) for $163.

But I find it hard to resist considering a SSD alternative. An obvious choice would be a sata SSD like one of these: A better choice would have been the Crucial MX500, but it is discontinued. The MX500 was built from TLC (3 layer) flash chips, which are somewhat more expensive, but have greater endurance. The BX500 is built from QLC (4 layer) chips and is more economical, while sacrificing endurance. The Samsung 870 EVO is made from TLC (triple level cell) and is a better choice, hence the price. There are rumors that there were some problems with Samsung EVO devices, but I think those issues are now solved. If not, you have a good warranty -- just have good backups. As the review article says, most companies are no longer putting energy into Sata SSD offerings and are putting their energy into NVMe M.2 drives. Maybe I should be looking at this. In the best of worlds, a Sata drive works with a 6G/s transfer speed, but NVMe drives can move data at 20G/s

The general statement is that the NVMe interface can move data 3 to 10 times faster than SATA.
NVMe is "Non Volatile Memory Express".

Does an SSD need a heatsink? Maybe. A ask this because I see heatsinks provided on various PCIe to M.2 cards. It depends on the M.2 itself, as well as what kind of air circulation you have in your case.

What about a PCIe to Nvme card/adapter. My Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 motherboard has no m.2 slots. It is a pretty old motherboard (the manual is dated 2012), but it is running just fine. As far as slots, it has: 

2 - PCIe-16 slots running at x16 (PCIe-3.0)
2 - PCIe-16 slots running at x8  (PCIe-3.0)
2 - PCIe-1 slots (PCIe-2.0)
1 - PCI slot
The basic PCIe-3.0 clock is 8 Ghz (8G transfers per second). To learn exactly what a transfer is you would have to dig and learn more. PCIe-4.0 doubles that to 16 and 5.0 doubles again to 32.

SATA 1 (SATA I) has a theoretical bandwidth of 1.5 Gbps (150 MB/s), SATA 2 (SATA II) doubles this to 3.0 Gbps (300 MB/s), and SATA 3 (SATA III) reaches 6.0 Gbps (600 MB/s). It is not clear how to compare these to NVME/PCIe speeds.

This Gigabyte board has two high speed PCIe slots as it was targeting gamers who might want to run a pair of video cards in a SLI setup.

Here are some candidate PCIe to NVMe adapters:

Don't expect to boot from one of these because the BIOS won't have a clue about it.

Some M.2 cards

Anything PCI Gen 4 or faster will be "wasted" as they will get throttled back to Gen 3 speeds on my machine. This is too expensive for my taste. A high performance card that would be wasted for my purposes. Note that it is called 2280, the "80" indicates the card length. It also brags about HMB and SLC. SLC is "single level cell", so this should be the simplest and most reliable NAND memory along with the highest speed. This is why the card is so expensive. MLC is sort of the same thing. The best choice is TLC, balancing cost and endurance. QLC is for budget cards.

HMB is some scheme that uses DRAM from the system in lieu of cache DRAM on the card. I don't see how this can work without driver support from the host OS.

Still pretty expensive. Another 2280 card. Too much hype to try to get the gamers attention. I'll pass on this one. The P310 is a QLC card, but supposed to be one of the best.
The price on the P3 plus is nice, but it is of course QLC.
The T500 is TLC (Micron 232 layer 3D TLC), but you pay for it, It does have a DRAM cache. This is what we bought for Paul's computer in 2024.
For me, the Samsung 990 EVO plus is probably a better choice. This is a very well regarded TLC card. This is also a TLC card (specifically Samsung 236 layer V-NAND TLC flash). It does not have a DRAM cache, but looks like a very good drive at a reasonable price. Remember that I was considering spending $260 for a SATA version. This is a TLC card (chips from YMTC - Yangtze Memory Technologies Co in China). The price is right.

The end game

I bought a 4T Samsung 990 Evo plus and a IT Crucial T500.

The T500 in 1T is rated at 600 TBW (TBW is terabytes written). So you can rewrite this entire drive 600 times before it begins to fail.
The Samsung has the same 600 per terabyte, but because it is a 4T drive, the rating is 2400 TBW. Again, you have to rewrite the entire drive 600 times before you see trouble.

Packages on both claim a 5 year warranty.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Adventures in Computing / tom@mmto.org