[NTLUG:Discuss] Adding new hard drive

[Brian]

On Thu, Aug 08, 2002 at 03:52:41PM -0500, MontyS at videopost.com wrote:
> Regarding partitioning:
> 
> I have spoken with a number of people in the past, and have yet to find any
> compelling reason for having multiple partitions on a system. 

Here's a test:  Start a process that writes to a file in /tmp.  Go ahead, let it
fill up.  Then tell me how well your system is running after "df" shows 0 bytes of
diskspace available.

Partitioning keeps users from monopolizing a system, whether accidentally (like a
process gone wild in the example above) or intentionally.  Partitions allow for
hot-swapping faulty drives without having to bring the system down.
Properly-designed partitions help developing convenient backup schedules.
Partitions can improve performance through parallelized reads and writes.   

> I am
> basically guessing, but I think the whole partitioning thing was valid when
> drive sizes were measured in megs, not gigs.

Might I suggest studying up on the subject, instead of guessing?  Any good sysadmin
book will give you multiple reasons why partitions might be a good idea.  

> I just run one / partition on
> all our SGI and linux boxes (except the ftp server), and have never had any
> problems.

Famous last words. 

> You can easily run into a brick wall if you set up partitions
> without a look into the future.

Absolutely.  But that's not a good reason to avoid them.

> I find it comforting to put the /usr (or /home) on a different drive than
> the rest of the os.  The same would apply if you have any /pub like
> partitions for ftp or web serving.  I like to keep the os install as
> pristine as possible, and let the users thrash on another drives.

Now I'm confused...I thought you just said you know of no compelling reasons to have
partitions?

> So, you might want to keep the drive you have in the system where it is, and
> install your new hard drive for use as the /usr partition.

If you're a brave soul, go for it.  The only way you could test that this works is
to change /etc/fstab, add the new /usr partition, and reboot the machine.  Keep your
fingers crossed, though...if it doesn't come back up, you'll have to remount the
old /usr partition and try, try again.  (You can't test the new partition while the
machine is running because you won't be able to umount the /usr partition.)  A
better plan would be to add a new /usr/local partition, as this is the part of /usr
that will be growing.

> If this is just a hobby/utility Linux box, and your main os is still Windows
> (please, no attacks...), then I would just keep one drive for Windows and
> the second drive for Linux.

Always a good idea!

> During installs, I have never let Disk Druid do it's own thing.  IMHO, it is
> best to define your own parameters, and make sure Disk Druid isn't doing
> something stupid.  Actually, if you want to, back everything up and play
> around with fdisk some.  The command line is still your friend. :>

I've seen DiskDruid "do its own thing" and it's not a pretty sight.  Use fdisk.
Partitioning your disk is much too important to leave to a pretty GUI wrapper.

  --Brian
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