How to install FreeBSD 10.1 in a SSD?

fernandobsd · Oct 12, 2015

Hello, I recently buy a SSD but do not know how to install in it.
Is it the same as a regular HardDrive?

vermaden · Oct 12, 2015

atomicbeef · Oct 12, 2015

Hey fernandobsd,

As vermaden said, installing FreeBSD to an SSD is the same as installing to an HDD. However, it is worth noting that if your SSD supports TRIM, you should run tunefs -t enable /dev/adaXpY to enable TRIM after you install the system.

jrm@ · Oct 12, 2015

You might be interested in wblock@'s page Using a Solid State Drive with FreeBSD, although the installer will take care of most of these details.

EDITED: URL fixed (added missing 'l' on the end)

3EX Hosting · Oct 12, 2015

jrm, that link to "Using a Solid State Drive with FreeBSD" is broken. Do you know if FreeBSD takes full advantage of SSD?

drhowarddrfine · Oct 12, 2015

3EX Hosting, Here it is and, yes, FreeBSD has supported SSD drives for years and I'm running on one right now.

mb2015 · Oct 15, 2015

I wasn't able to find info on whether my SSD supports TRIM. I went ahead and enabled it, as shown below (wblock's guide doesn't quite cover how to enable it on the root file system).

shutdown
mount -u -r -f /
tunefs -t enable /
mount -u -w /
reboot

Nothing seems to have happened. Does this mean TRIM is supported, or is there any way to know? I don't see any way to query to find out if it's working.

wblock@ · Oct 15, 2015

The -t option with newfs(8) does it. To see if a device supports TRIM:
camcontrol identify ada0 | grep DSM/TRIM

mb2015 · Oct 15, 2015

I'm booting into FreeBSD on a file system that was already created without -t (it's a BeagleBone ARMv6 snapshot), so newfs(8) is of no use. Instead, I need to do the procedure I mentioned, temporarily downgrading the file system to read-only before running tunefs(8).

Thanks for the camcontrol(8) tip. It doesn't work for me on my BeagleBone Black, though. Even after I compiled pass(4) support into the kernel I get the same error message:

Code:

# camcontrol identify mmcsd0
camcontrol: cam_lookup_pass: CAMGETPASSTHRU ioctl failed
cam_lookup_pass: No such file or directory
cam_lookup_pass: either the pass driver isn't in your kernel
cam_lookup_pass: or mmcsd0 doesn't exist

# camcontrol devlist -v
scbus-1 on xpt0 bus 0:
<>                                 at scbus-1 target -1 lun ffffffff (xpt0)