[wplug] How to Partition a 120 GB Hard Drive

[Kevin Squire]

First, thanks for the input.

This LVM idea sounds great, but I am wondering

1) Would it be hard to set up in an already running Debian Sarge system?
(i.e I really do not want to go through with a fresh install)

I know in the past, when I changed HDs, I would: 
	Boot with LiveCD
	partion up the new HD
	copy thing from Old HD Partions to New HD Partions
	fix fstab
	edit lilo if necessary
	chroot and reinstall lilo to MBR

Would this kind of process work with the LVM stuff??

I need to find a Debian specific how-to, that might be helpful :-)

Again, thanks for the input, and any more insight from this list will be
greatly appreciated.

Kevin

On Tue, 03 May 2005 09:24:03 -0400
"Christopher DeMarco" <cmd at alephant.net> wrote:

> 
> On Mon, 2 May 2005 21:49:23 -0400, "Kevin Squire"
> 
> > 1) The current (5gb) drive will become /home
> 
> If you have other users on the box, they're going to fill up /home -
> they can't write anywhere else, presumably.  /home should be your
> biggest - or *potentially* biggest! - device.  Hold that thought...
> 
> 
> > 1) How much would you dedicate for / ? 
> 
> 1GB, since you've got the space to burn.  If you've got everything
else
> sliced up, you don't need more than ~400MB, but on a drive so huge it
> can't hurt.
> 
> 
> > 4) How would you break it up ?
> 
> Here's what I'd do: make two partitions, 1GB and 119GB.  Make the
first
> one /.  Put the second in LVM
> (http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/benefitsoflvmsmall.html) and
carve
> it up as follows:
> 
> /home: 10G
> /var: 5G
> /opt: 2G
> /usr: 10G
> /tmp: 2G
> /boot: 100M
> <swap>: (RAM * 2)
> 
> Run reiserfs on all of these filesystems.
> 
> LVM2 (which you have if you've got a relatively recent Linux
> distribution) can GROW PARTITIONS ON THE FLY.  Reiserfs (ibid.) can,
> too.
> 
> Now you've got ~90 GB sitting idle.  Whenever you find that you need
> extra space, just do
> 
> "lvextend /dev/rootvg/home +10G; resize_reiserfs /dev/rootvg/home"
> (for example)
> 
> Now your /home is 10 GB larger.  It takes about ten seconds to
complete.
>  Magic.
> 
> What about that old 5G drive?  
> 
>   - put <swap> on a RAID1 mirror across your two drives.  If you ever
>   have to swap (and most people do) you'll have much better
performance.
> 
>   - put it in the same volume group as the new drive, now you've got
+5G
>   to allocate.  
> 
>   - take backups of /etc, /boot and certain directories in /home
> 
>   - dual-boot to other distros, *BSD, OpenSolaris, etc.
> 
>   - just don't make it part of your filesystem (i.g. NOT /home)!  If
you
>   run LVM+reiserfs you can shrink and grow on-demand; if you've got a
>   physical device in there you've got very few options when you
>   want/need to expand.
> 
> 
> Now, if you're doing all this, and you can afford to double your
> spending, buy a second, identical drive.  Modern RAID1 in the Linux
> kernel is very fast (benchmarked faster than hardware RAID controllers
> in some cases) and easy to set up.  A RAID1 mirror will give you a
> get-out-of-screwed-free card when (not "if") one of your hard drives
> dies.
> --
> Christopher DeMarco <cmd at alephant.net>     
> Alephant Systems     
> +1 412 708 9660 (cell)
> PGP public key at http://pgp.alephant.net
> 
> _______________________________________________
> wplug mailing list
> wplug at wplug.org
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