I have a quick question regarding the speed of M.2 SSD attached to the UDOO advanced/ultra vs. internal EMMC for running for example Ubuntu: Will the performance differ if I use the M.2 SSD to boot / work with the OS compared to EMMC? Thanks!
Generally SSD should be faster than eMMC. Maybe someone with UDOO X86 can run some benchmarks to confirm this and also to see how big difference is with UDOO X86.
I don't yet have my M.2 SSD, but I am typing this message while using UDOO X86 Ultra using Windows 10 Pro installed on the EMMC. The biggest problem is not so much speed- I'm quite sure the SSD will be faster, but space. 32gb EMMC is just enough to install most systems, a decent set of basic software, and have minimal free space. Basically, it works and works well, but it's also kind of like being the bare minimum. I could absolutely use one of my SATA 2.5 inch SSDs or I even have a 1.8inch or an Apple SSD with adapter from a 2011 MacBook air. The reason I'm not going that route is the compactness of the board. Think about it, we all could have bought one of dozens of mini-itx or micro-ITX mainboards out there. Probably in some cases, cheaper than UDOO X86. In fact, either using a PICOPSU or some boards are integrated power supplies like UDOO. But, we backed or preordered UDOO X86 because it is a single board and includes the RAM, EMMC, Power supply, Intel Curie Arduino, and other aspects as a nice compact all in one board. Again, what I'm saying is, I love the flexibility of this board and all the options, but use the board for the right reasons to gain maximum benefit. If you need more space or faster speed- then absolutely, get the M.2 SSD. The 64, 128, 256, and 512gb options. If you have both the space and already an existing SATA drive- by all means use that if it makes sense in your setup. For me, I would like to avoid more wiring and yet another device to mount in my project. If you want the smallest, lightest, and lowest cost option that is absolutely viable, use the onboard EMMC. If you want to keep that ultra compact form factor, then by all means, blow the cash and buy the specific 60mm long M.2 SSD the board was designed around. Here is a test benchmark again using Windows 10 Pro 64Bit on the Udoo X86 Ultra on the 32gb EMMC. I'll do more tests with an external SATA SSD here in a second. I'm waiting on my 128gb M.2 SSD from Tiger Direct and should be here next week.
Here is a Samsung Pro 850 benchmark on the SATA UDOO X86 Ultra Also, here is the Apple 128gb SSD using an adapter for SATA
Under Debian 8 with 4.9 Kernel the 128GB Transcend SSD writes about 147MB/s and reads around 333-336MB/s. That is still a big Portion away from the values you get in Windows, however it might not be noticeable at all. However, my 32GB of eMMC only reaches a write Speed of 20-24MB/s, read is fine with around 141MB/s. Greetings David
Is it ok to run the os (debien) on the 32g eMMC ? I thought I read somewhere that it isn't recommend to have a swap file partition on it. p.s. I am a beginner.
You can run OS from eMMC. However having swap there can wear out the eMMC faster as there will be more writes to eMMC (especially if swap is used a lot), so that is why it's not recommended. I don't know how much writing eMMC can take but since you can't replace it, it's good to minimize the amount of writes. Personally I wouldn't install an OS which I use daily there (since temporary files, logfiles etc. will also wear eMMC).
All tablets and smartphones are running on eMMC so it is very well possible. But as these are throw away devices they don't have to work for a long time. You could move the swap location to a high speed SD card.
That's what I was going to ask, can the swap be on another drive. I could prob google this but, what's a better size for the swap file (for Linux) it says min 1g?
Basically you first need to create a partition for swap and then tell system to use that partition. For example to create swap-partition with GParted: select correct device from dropdown at top-right corner right click unallocated area, select New select whatever size you want and Filesystem: linux-swap click 'Add' and then green checkmark to apply changes remember partition name for next step (something like /dev/sdx1) Then you need to edit file /etc/fstab to remove old swap partition and add new partition. Don't make any other changes or your OS can become unbootable, this is one of the most important files in OS. Line for swap looks like this, where third column has 'swap': Code: /dev/sx1 none swap defaults 0 0 or can also be like: Code: UUID=11a793fe-c97c-44c4-9c1f-82a16fe812b7 none swap defaults 0 0 You need to change the first column to correct new partition (or it's UUID which is better option, command "sudo blkid" lists UUID:s). Now everything should be ok, but before rebooting run "sudo swapon --all --verbose" to see that your swap gets activated (this should list the partition you selected for swap). Then reboot computer and run "sudo swapon -s" (lists active swap partitions) to see that swap was started properly.
I want to add only a thing. When you install a new OS in a multiboot system and you have a common and linux formatted swap partition, be careful to don't reformat the swap itself because every time you format it the UUID of swap change so that you have to update the swap UUID in all the OS installed.
Here also a short video guide -- and also me testing screen capture with UDOO (no audio, my English is terrible
I followed the guide, but when i was gonna change swap partition, i noticed they have changed that to a swapfile in mate 17.04 Just FYI //FuzzyRoll
Did you manage to change it? Swapfile should have nearly same line in /etc/fstab as swap partition. Actually I'm using one on my Debian Stretch webserver with line: Code: /swapfile none swap sw 0 0 so only difference to swap partition is "sw" at 4th field instead of "defaults". (But after googling around it seems that it doesn't really matter which you use there, both with swap file and partition).
Didn't know that, i will try it after the kids are sleeping Update: it worked like a charm. Excellent guide!
