Re: RootDisk One giant slice with / or many slices for / /usr /var ...

["Malcolm Herbert" <mjch%mjch.net@localhost>]

On Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:39 +0000, nonesuch%bad-apples.org@localhost wrote:
> Hello List
>   I want to know what the list thinks about an old topic now that netbsd
>   has wabpl . With a new setup on say i386 2g ram and a 500g disk what
>   would be the downside of one big / slice and a appropriate sized swap
>   slice . I have been using a 2g /, 8g /var , 2g SWAP, Rest /opt , I like
>   it; it works well for me. I have been talking about this with a
>   co_worker we are at a stalemate on the pros and cons of this . 

Personally I would advocate maintaining a filesystem for your OS and
another for data - it gives you more flexibility when it comes to
upgrading the OS plus it's also useful to prevent accidentally hosing
your system due to a full filesystem.

For my day job adminning Solaris boxen, we tend to create two sets of a
10GB / (which contains /usr and /opt) and a 16 GB /var on a mirror of
two disks.  All other non-OS data is on another filesystem, (which
includes /home).  We then use Live Upgrade to flip between each copy of
the OS as we do our maintenance cycles ... 

If you have the space, I'd suggest:

slice  size  fs
a      10G   /
b      ?     swap
c      -     reserved
d      -     reserved
e      16G   /var
f      10G   alternate /
g      16G   alternate /var
h      *     /data

Even if you don't actually use slices f and g immediately, it gives you
the option of testing an OS upgrade and a fallback if necessary - losing
26G out of 500G for future planning doesn't seem a particularly big
problem, I'd imagine.

Regards,
Malcolm

-- 
Malcolm Herbert                                This brain intentionally
mjch%mjch.net@localhost                                                left 
blank