Hey folks. I recently got an old X220 with an mSATA SSD. I plan to to install Linux on there. It doesnt matter which OS: Debian, Ubuntu or Arch. The machine is so old that all distros play nice with it.
Anyway, the speed on the mSATA is slower than the 2.5 SSD. So I want to know if is it possible to have your /boot, /efi, swap on the mSATA. Then, the /home on the 2.5 SSD? Any problems with this setup and if anyone tried it before?
Now, for the reasons why I use mSATA instead of just putting Linux on 2.5 SSD:
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the mSATA is Samsung, pretty rare nowadays. The health is still very excellent. I checked with CrystalDiskInfo. So might as well use it.
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My X220 has a problem finding out grub if installed on the 2.5 SSD. It’s literally a 50/50 chance it can find grub properly. So:
a) you installed Linux on 2.5 SSD, reboot.
b) grub error screen
c) restart
d) boot into Linux well
Note at d) if I do anything to restart/shutdown the computer, you are back at step b) and require another reboot to reach Linux.
Any advice is welcome.
There is no problem with having home on a different disk. But why do you want swap on the slower disk? These would benefit from being on the faster disks. Same with all the system binaries.
Personally I would put as much as possible on the faster disk and mount the slower somewhere that the speed matters less. Like for photos/videos in your home dir.
/boot can be anywhere though if you are getting a grub error that suggests the UEFI firmware is finding grubs first stage but grub is having issues after that. Personally I don’t use grub anymore, systemd-boot is far simpler as it does not need to deal with legacy MBR booting.