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So I'm thinking of dual booting my windows 10 with the latest ubuntu. I'll need my windows because gaming is a big hobby of mine. Linux will be used for simulations since I'm a physicist going in the astrophysics direction. Obviously I want to choose my partitions right but I'm missing some information and can use some advice.

I have an SSD of 225 GB, of which 101 GB is currently in use. This is were windows is installed and this is were my more CPU intensive games are installed since an SSD would make them go faster right?

Now I also have a HDD of 931 GB of which only 227 GB is used. This is were I store files, less CPU intensive programs etc.

First question: If I would install linux on my SSD, will I be able to access my HDD?

Second question: Were do you recommend that I install linux? Simulations can run for a long time on full CPU (on one or more cores) and therefore, should I install linux on my SSD? Or can I install linux on my HDD, and let the programs run on my SSD (by installing C++ on my SSD or something)? I think the main problem is not storage but that both my games (windows) and simulations (linux) are CPU intensive.

wouterdobbels
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  • Says Windows7 but partitions would be similar. Is your Windows UEFI or BIOS boot? You need to install Ubuntu in same boot mode. http://askubuntu.com/questions/204821/partitions-for-ubuntu-and-windows-7-dual-boot-on-ssd-hdd-setup and: http://askubuntu.com/questions/461394/how-to-partition-ssdhdd You have space for / & /home on SSD, but leave lots of space for Windows as NTFS wants 30% free to work well. And best to use LInks back to /home from HDD partitions. http://askubuntu.com/questions/223655/windows-ubuntu-dual-boot-share-files-between-os/223670#223670 – oldfred Nov 06 '15 at 14:45
  • Also see http://askubuntu.com/questions/379205/installing-programs-in-root-vs-home-partitions for where to install programs. – user68186 Nov 06 '15 at 17:05

2 Answers2

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If I would install linux on my SSD, will I be able to access my HDD?

Yes, it would. It would be mounted and you may interact normally with the harddrive like you would with an USB drive :). You may need to install the filesystem (like NTFS) that the harddrive uses. (but I think it comes with ubuntu)

Normal hard drives, If I am correct, are quite good at writing large blocks of data. Starting up applications & OS'ses can be quite intensive also in having to read large amounts of different files. That is an area where a SSD shines. booting linux fast is awesome.

By the way, programs do not run on a hard drive, they may load from the harddrive onto the RAM, from where the data is utilized to perform a task. The bottle neck of the harddrive is only the loading. Afterwards, when data is generated in theory you could have a bottleneck at the writing to the HD.

On the installtion onto a different drive, read this:

How to install applications to a separate hdd?

Community
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Ramon Bril
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  • So having linux and all my programs on the HDD won't slow don't the simulations? That's awesome! I think I'll install linux on my HDD just to be safe (to not run out of disk space). Boot time is not a priority for me. – wouterdobbels Nov 06 '15 at 18:42
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You can access all partitions from Ubuntu, no matter where you install it.

Note that you should place /boot and /usr (included in / if not specified separately) on the SSD because that speeds up boot time and program loading time.

You usually want to place your personal data onto the HDD, because it's written more often (writing cycles wear SSDs out) and that space is cheaper. Make sure swap is on the HDD (many write cycles - bad for SSDs) and you have optimized the mount parameters of the SSD partitions to reduce disk writing (e.g. set noatime and some others).

Other than that, if your program runs on 100% CPU, that has nothing to do with slow disks - the opposite is true: 100% CPU means that the machine is busy with calculating anything and therefore not waiting for any IO like disk read. Get e.g. indicator-multiload and set it up to show you at least CPU and disk access graphs in the Unity panel. That way you can see when any disk is the bottleneck.

Byte Commander
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  • I'm sorry but I'm totally new to this kind of stuff. Is it possible to make both a partition of my SSD and a partition of my HDD for linux?

    What I'm thinking about now is just putting my linux on the HDD. It seems the safer option (I won't run out of space). Boot time is not a priority and as long as my simulations don't run significantly slower everything is fine. Seems good?

     – wouterdobbels Nov 06 '15 at 18:39
  • Sounds totally ok. I guess your simulations are CPU/memory heavy, but don't need much disk bandwidth, so they won't speed up significantly if running from an SSD. – Byte Commander Nov 08 '15 at 16:53