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Hello, Walter. |
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On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 17:05:07 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote: |
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> It was nice to have a newer "hot backup" (XPS8940) to switch over to |
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> quickly when an older machine started locking up occasionally. Now I |
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> need a "hot backup" for the newer machine that I ordered last October. |
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> Dell Inspirons seem to top out at 12 gigs ram, so I'm looking for an XPS |
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> model in order to get more ram as the bloating of linux continues. All |
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> current XPS models seem to have 256G or 512G M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State |
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> drives in the base configuration. Questions... |
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> * do NVMe drives function well under Gentoo (driver issues, etc)? |
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Yes. Without reservation. You need to enable NVMe in the kernel, and |
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there is a user-level program for doing things to them (like checking |
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number of reads/writes). There is no great problem setting up a boot |
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loader, any more than for any other sort of drive. |
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> * how long do they hold up (wear and tear)? |
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I've had a pair of Samsung 500Gb nvmes in RAID-1 in my 4 year old |
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machine since it was new. As yet I've had no problems with them. In |
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fact, the machine has never known spinning rust. |
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> * can I simply disable them if I run into problems? |
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If you've got something to fall back onto, yes. |
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> If someone can suggest an alternate supplier to Dell, that ships to |
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> greater Toronto, at similar prices, I'd be willing to take a look at |
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> them. |
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I can't comment at all on that. I built my machine from components. |
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The only slightly tricky bit was finding a PCIe card to hold the second |
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NVMe drive. |
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> -- |
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> Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org> |
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> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications |
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-- |
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Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). |
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