Arm install noatime mount defaults?

Curious as to why x86_64 installs like to add noatime to mounts but arm doesn’t? I added noatime on my RPI 4 install and so far I’ve had no ill effects and I think it’s probably a great default for sd card installs especially.

Wayne

We only mount /boot in our fstabs, since the root partition is defined with a kernel parameter in the bootloader launch line.

Right. I noticed this. I added a line in /etc/fstab for / with noatime and it remounts with that option. Just advocating for this or a similar solution to reduce write amplification.

Wayne

But the system root partition gets mounted with the kernel parameter in your boot script. The fstab will just remount it then?

It appears that systemd-remount-fs.service is a useful post boot ninja. The man page claims it does just this. I did not know what did it until you inquired, honestly, but yes, I just added entries in /etc/fstab and this service does the rest.

Wayne

Interesting. Have you noticed any performance benefits? What other mount options would be beneficial for flash storage?

It’s not a performance boost, it’s a longevity option since flash storage, like SSD, has a limited number of writes. The best thing you can do for SD performance is picking a high quality card by reviewing benchmarks published. In general, I’m a huge fan of samsung evo select.

For write “intensive” applications I prefer the Samsung PRO Endurance but it’s slower.

There are other enhancements that can contribute to flash storage longevity, especially on eMMC and SD cards and low end (QLC DRAMLESS) SSDs, like storing logs and browser cache in RAM and writing to disk on shutdown/session close. Reducing swappiness also helps.

I just let it rip :slight_smile:
I’d love to actually know how long these will last. I do a nightly rsync to backup all my systems so I’m just gonna flame on until it pops I guess.