Ubuntu – Which one: moving /home or making symlinks in regard to SSD efficiency

ecryptfshard drivepartitioningssdsymbolic-link

My whole Ubuntu installation including /home is located in an ext4 partition on an SSD drive. I'm going to move archives and document files (which are almost all inside the home folder) to an external HDD drive with ext4 partition format.

doing that will solve both the space issue and wearing level of the SSD problem. There's already a guide on how to move the whole /home directory to a new partition, but the thing is I have some application related files inside home, like android SDK, Gradle build system files, Android Studio data folder (which includes plugins, configs, etc). These kind of data are mostly as hidden folders inside home directory. The whole concept of migrating to an SSD is the higher speed of accessing and running programs; by moving those files which are required by applications back to HDD, the advantage would be lost I think.

So I thought it's rational to just symlink that kind of folders wich comprise absolute document files (like Music, Videos, Pictures, Documents, DropBox) to the external HDD partition and leave all other config folders inside the /home folder on the SSD. This way I'd have still the concern about the .ecryptfs folder which occupies a huge space on the SSD since I have encrypted my home on Ubuntu. Would this Symlink method also move the size of the .ecryptfs folder to the HDD?

Do you confirm this workaround or suggest an entirely different scenario?

Thanks

Best Answer

This approach are fine. I suggest you also consider these issues:

SSD technology and IO wearing

Depending on technology of your SSD, you have also to pay attention on IO rate of some applications. High IO could decrease the life of some devices. If was the case, these files would be better linked to HDD. I believe this approach is not only for the /home but also /var and swap area

OS or Application Restrictions

On my last PC, I installed the OS on SSD and configured parts with more IO (swap area, /var and /home) to HDD. It seemed to be the ideal setting until some important applications began to fail. Ubuntu AppArmor resource was blocking output data of some applications to /var mounted on another partition. So this could be more a problem than an advantage if the user do not know how to set this restrictions.

Related Question