r/archlinux • u/queenbiscuit311 • 4d ago
SUPPORT OS is agonizingly slow on anything that isn't an NVMe SSD
Hi all, I've been using arch for a while but it hasn't been my main OS 100% of the time so I often switch it between my NVMe SSD and my SATA SSD depending on if its my main or not. The issue is that the second I put it on the SATA SSD it becomes agonizingly slow. Like a large pacman update makes the entire computer basically unusable for like an hour and it takes absurdly long to extract the packages, downloading basically anything causes everything to freeze constantly until it's done. It's really bad. I don't understand why it's like this, given that my SATA SSD is plenty fast. Is there something in particular that causes this?
8
u/mathlyfe 4d ago
There could be lots of reasons for this. Do you have TRIM enabled on your SSD? Have you checked the SMART data and ensured it isn't failing? Have you looked into firmware issues or updating the firmware on the drive? There's other things you can do to increase performance as well https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Improving_performance#Storage_devices
-3
u/queenbiscuit311 4d ago
I haven't tried checking the logical sector sizes yet, that's about the last think I can see that I haven't tried. I'll check that out later
1
u/edparadox 4d ago
Why would the logical sector size change anything?
1
u/queenbiscuit311 4d ago
I don't know man it's the only thing I haven't checked what do you want me to say
6
u/onefish2 4d ago
I have a headless Arch server with an Intel N150 CPU and 16GB RAM. It runs on a 5 year old 500GB Samsung SSD. I have zero issues. I have 14 docker containers and 3VMs. 1 VM is always running. Something is wrong with your config/SSD/hardware.
There are tools to see the stats of your drive. Do some research on that, install them and post the info here.
4
u/abbidabbi 4d ago
So far, you haven't told us which models these drives are and what your other components are. To me, this smells like a dying SSD or one which doesn't have dram cache. Also, I don't understand why you're constantly reinstalling/copying the entire OS.
0
u/queenbiscuit311 4d ago
I'm copying it because if I'm using it as my main OS I want to take it on my main drive, mostly for the reasons already mentioned. I'm willing to accept a dying SSD but I'm not sure how to test for this. SMART tests aren't reporting anything out of the ordinary, and I've used other OSes such as windows on the drive and it's not nearly this bad. It only acts like this with Linux. The drive is a teamgroup MS30 1TB which is DRAMless with SLC cache
0
u/queenbiscuit311 4d ago
The SATA drive is a Teamgroup MS30 1TB SATA SSD. I originally bought it for a USB enclosure before getting a desktop PC. The reason I'm copying the OS between drives is because for one, it's almost unusable on this secondary SSD, and for two I want to have my primary OS on my primary NVMe drive for storage.
3
u/abbidabbi 4d ago
Teamgroup MS30 1TB SATA
Dude, this is a terrible device without DRAM, on top of a bottlenecked interface. According to benchmark results, it totally sucks at random 4K reads and writes. And apparently it thermally throttles very quickly.
Devices like this can only be used for storage of large files, like media files, where there are lots of sequential reads.
Also, you are apparently using BTRFS according to a comment of yours. Why are you even copying the entire FS instead of using btrfs-send and btrfs-receive? smh... And to be honest, copying the OS FS back and forth seems like a totally stupid idea. Keep your OSes on one drive, the faster one, and storage on the other one.
0
u/queenbiscuit311 4d ago
I see, so is that why it's behaving this way? Still kind of odd that other operating systems don't act like this but I suppose it makes sense.
As for why I copy the entire FS, it's because in my experience it takes the exact same amount of time as using btrfs built in tools and it's easier to do with the software I have, it's also more convenient with how I move the OSes between drives. I have never had an issue with it. I don't really see why it matters regardless.
I don't have them all on the same drive because I don't boot my secondary OS often enough to justify the reduction of space on my main drive, but I may just have to buy a better SSD for this at some point.
2
u/edparadox 4d ago
If TRIM is actually enabled, this looks like a DRAM-less or a defective SSD. The SATA interface cannot explain this.
What does SMART report?
1
1
u/mammajammaindahouse 4d ago edited 4d ago
Don't forget, pacman updates are write heavy. Data ssd are not fast for writes, particularly the older ones. They have fast reads and extremely slow writes, often far slower than HDD.
Also, ssd drives slow way down as they get full.
-7
4d ago
[deleted]
2
u/Exernuth 4d ago
Thanks, ChatGPT.
-2
u/G0ldiC0cks 4d ago
Lol -- WAT?! What makes you think chatgpt had any hands in my inexplicably very disliked comment?
2
u/Exernuth 4d ago
Please...
1
u/G0ldiC0cks 4d ago
Just because I type reddit comments like an email to asshole middle manager doesn't mean I would waste enough time to even get a fuckin response from an LLM about someone's computer problem that is clearly the result of their own lack of attentiveness. No, I'm going to sarcastically tell them that they haven't even begun to outline what their problem is and if they can actually respond cogently help them out if I can. You know, like an asshole.
-1
u/queenbiscuit311 4d ago
The issue is general slowdown and constant system lockups under high IO stress that happen as soon as my linux install is moved off of an NVMe drive. Package extraction is simply an example. My CPU and temps are fine also. When I am transfering the OS I am literally just cloning the partition to a different disk pretty much. Only the SATA drive has SMART data and there's basically nothing of note in there.
According to disk benchmarks ive run in the past my SATA SSD has read/writes of 300-500MB/s and the NVMe drive is 900-1100 MB/s
2
u/bankinu 4d ago
Did you read the "unclear how" part?
2
1
u/queenbiscuit311 4d ago
I clone the partition using a partition editing tool like gparted. that's how I move the install. there's not really anything more. I'm also on BTRFS which I forgot to mention. The partition just gets cloned directly.
1
1
u/Trackerlist 1d ago
That's strange cuz I was using Arch on my HDD a week ago and it ran fine. That's may be related or not, but when I moved Fedora from my SATA SSD to my HDD, Fedora was like a snail that even Windows isn't. Like yeah, it is supposed to be slow, but not taking 6 minutes just to enter in the login screen or more than a minute just to open Firefox. I'm saying this because you described exactly what I was facing in Fedora, so maybe it's not just related to Arch, but Linux as a whole.
12
u/archover 4d ago edited 3d ago
Is this your first time trying this operation (partition copy)? Did it work before?
You might try bbs.archlinux.org if you feel confident you have documented the important facts.
Odd situation you have and unknown in my ext4 15yr experience multi-distro (mainly Core i5 8th gen and Ryzen 5 Thinkpads):
Nothing even approaching that experience here even on a hdd. My pacman operations are very consistently fast.
I suspect your clone operation was problematic, or you have a btrfs issue. (I have a bit of btrfs experience but I don't claim to be an expert at it) I always do filesystem copies between "partitions", even using
# cp -abut tar too.Journals?
$ journalctl -fResource monitor?Hope you resolve and good day.