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Running Cumulus on an SSD

Discussion and questions about Cumulus weather station software version 1. This section is the main place to get help with Cumulus 1 software developed by Steve Loft that ceased development in November 2014.
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DaveNZ
Posts: 373
Joined: Mon 07 Dec 2009 10:27 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Location: Howick, Auckland, New Zealand
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Running Cumulus on an SSD

Post by DaveNZ »

Hi, is anyone else running Cumulus on an SSD (solid state drive)? I installed on an SSD.I am aware of the limited number of writes. Cumulus (and Weather display as well, via VirtualVP) constantly saves files every 1 minute so it's not ideal I guess, especially with the log files around the 5MB size over 1 month. But based on my data-write rate it still looks like my drive should last a fair while (see image)

I do have an HDD with heaps of spare space, but I don't like the little noises it makes when being used a lot... especially when the computer is in my bedroom and runs day and night.
SSDLife.png
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mcrossley
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Weather Station: Davis VP2/WLL
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Re: Running Cumulus on an SSD

Post by mcrossley »

I don't have one myself but I know quite a few people are using net books which are normally ssd based. I did try a cheap Chinese sourced ssd - bad move it failed after 2 weeks.
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steve
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Re: Running Cumulus on an SSD

Post by steve »

My main PC now has an SSD; I don't run Cumulus on this for extended periods, but my PC does get heavy use every day. When considering an SDD I read a number of articles on the web, including this one, from a reliable source - http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/sams ... f-tlc-nand - and came to the conclusion that it wasn't anything to worry about with a modern SSD compared to a mechanical drive. It does depend on the drive (and its capacity) to a certain extent; my drive is a 1TB 840 EVO, and it has an estimated lifespan of about 31 years if I write 100GB per day.

It's a good idea to use the following settings with an SSD:
  • Drive indexing disabled. (useless for SSD anyway, because access times are so low).
  • Prefetch disabled.
  • Superfetch disabled
  • Defrag disabled.
I've also seen it recommended that you should disable Hibernation and (if you have lots of RAM - I have 16GB) the page file.
Steve
DaveNZ
Posts: 373
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Re: Running Cumulus on an SSD

Post by DaveNZ »

1TB SSD must have set you back a few $$ Steve! I've been thinking about adding a second smaller SSD to my system, maybe a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro.
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Super-T
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Re: Running Cumulus on an SSD

Post by Super-T »

Dave. Better to go at least 256GB. I've put a few in customers, and my computers, and the performance increase is huge.
david3
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Joined: Sat 28 Jan 2012 4:03 pm
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Operating System: Debian 12 64bit for rpi

Re: Running Cumulus on an SSD

Post by david3 »

I run Cumulus on my main pc with an Intel SSD. No problems so far for the few years I've had it, and I don't worry about the write cycles.
BigOkie
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Re: Running Cumulus on an SSD

Post by BigOkie »

This is all good to hear, as I'm about two days from building my new weather PC and it will have a SSD. I do have some extra SATAIII HDs laying around should I need them, but I've been spoiled by boot times with the solid states. :D
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