[wplug] How to Partition a 120 GB Hard Drive

[Carl Benedict]

On Mon, 2005-05-02 at 21:49 -0400, Kevin Squire wrote:
> Dear WPLUG,
> 
> I have recently ordered a 120 GB hard drive, it will be the first time I
> have ever had a drive bigger then 10GB. (I can't wait :-) ) I am not
> used to having this much space to work with, so I thought I would ask
> you all -- "How would you partition it up?"  
> 
> It is going into a desktop system, with 3 active users, and 2
> additional, very occasionally used accounts.  This is my current
> thoughts on it:
> 
> 1) The current (5gb) drive will become /home
> 2) A large portion of the new drive will be for the family music
>    collection. (which will be readable by all, but writable by me)

I personally use ext3 for all of my file systems.  I tend to use the 'm
0' parameter to specify 'reserve 0% of said partition for the super
user'.  Of course, I only use this for non-system partitions.  If you
are storing OGGs/MP3s, you might want to use the -T option.  I would say
'-T largefile' or '-T largefile4' would suffice.  This parameter
configures how big each inode is on that file system.  This will help to
keep you from running out of inodes when storing only large(er) files in
a partition. See 'man mkefs2' for better explanations :)  

> 3) A 5+ gb partition on the new drive to do a mirror backup of /home and
>    a few other important files.
> 
> So my questions I guess would be --
> 1) How much would you dedicate for / ? 
>    (I am currently just getting by with the 5GB mentioned above)

On my last system I had a 6GB / partition.  I installed quite a few
kernels (custom and otherwise) and a LOT of software.  I ended up nearly
filling /.  I would say 5 or 6GB would suffice if you aren't going to
install more than one kernel and you don't have a hefty amount of
software to install.  This is assuming you are going to have GNOME or
KDE installed. 

> 2) How much would you use for the OGGs ? 
>    (or rephrase - 10CDs will take up approx ___ amount of space)

I'll assume you mean OGG-Vorbis when you say OGG.  Depending what
compression settings you use, OGG-Vorbis files are around the same size
at mp3.  I'd say 4MB - 7MB each.  I normally use VBR and quality 8.
YMMY.  

> 3) Is there a point where a partition is just "too big" and is just a
>    waste?

I wouldn't say this is a true statement as-is.  I would say it depends
on how you are going to use it.  

> 4) How would you break it up ?
> 
> I know a lot of this is individual, based on each persons setup, but I
> am just looking for some insight, so that I can make some kind of
> educated guess on what to do with it.
> 

HTH.

-- 
Carl Benedict
Pittsburgh Techs
Main:  724-741-0233
http://www.pittsburghtechs.com
cbenedic at pittsburghtechs.com