Re: I need further HDD advice before submitting order.

freebsd.org_at_donnacha.com
Date: 05/11/05

  • Next message: Dan Nelson: "Re: user owned groups" 
    Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 18:25:53 +0100
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org

    Hi Chuck, thanks for responding.

    > ... For what it's worth, I'd rather have two 80GB
    > drives in a RAID-1 mirror than have my stuff on two seperate drives, but
    > using software RAID like vinum/gvinum, you can still mirror 80GB onto
    > the 200GB drive, and have an additional 120 GB of space left over.

    That does sound like a good idea, especially if it's something I can
    introduce at a later stage.

    > [ You don't have to do anything about that now, if you do leave an 80 GB
    > chunk of space uncommitted on the big disk. ]

    By uncommitted do you mean space that I keep completed unallocated or
    can it be space in which, following Jeremy's suggestion, I create a
    temporary file system that I keep empty until I learn how to use
    vinum/gvinum?

    Thanks,

    Donnacha

    >
    >> ----------
    >>
    >> Server purpose: Initially just forums, later sundry other Web apps
    >> i.e. ecommerce, ticket bookings etc. Will possibly become a
    >> heavy-duty email server at some stage.
    >>
    >> 2GB RAM
    >>
    >> 80GB HDD IDE:
    >> / = 1GB
    >> /usr = 15GB
    >> /local = 15GB
    >> Swap = 4GB
    >> Unallocated = 40GB
    >>
    >> 200GB HDD IDE:
    >>
    >> /tmp = 2GB (is that enough?)
    >> /home = 28GB
    >> /var = 100GB (will inclube the forum databases etc)
    >> Unallocated = 70GB
    >>
    >> I'll be asking them to put the both disks in dangerously dedicated
    >> mode, with each on a different IDE bus.
    >
    >
    > Don't use "dangerously dedicated mode" for your boot drive. Reserving
    > the 63 sectors at the beginning for a MBR-style layout is a trivial
    > waste of space compared with the hassle of not being able to boot from
    > the drive
    >
    >> Is it a good idea leaving so much unallocated space? My research
    >> suggests that this may be useful for moving directories around or
    >> giving specific subdirectories their own partition at a later date
    >> when I have a better idea of usage, does that sound right?
    >
    >
    > Yes, it's a good idea. There is nothing wrong with configuring all of
    > the space to be used if you want to do so and you know what the usage
    > and growth are going to be. However, if you are not certain about how
    > various filesystems grow, there is a real advantage to having some
    > unallocated space handy.
    >
    >> The only problem about creating partitions at a later date is that I
    >> will have command line access only, I'm not even sure if I can create
    >> partitions at a later date, I think that for sysinstall I might
    >> actually have to be there. Can anyone advise me on this?
    >
    >
    > You can run /stand/sysinstall remotely via the command line, if you like.
    >
    > Either way, you can adjust the partition table and create new
    > filesystems later on without a problem.
    >
    >> Swap: As the second disk will have the presumably quite busy /tmp and
    >> /var, placing all the swap on this the first disk, rather than shared
    >> between both, could help to balance the load a bit (thanks to Henry
    >> Miller for that suggestion). With 2GB of RAM, I'm hoping the Swap
    >> won't be needed very often anyway; if it is, I may simply add more
    >> memory.
    >
    >
    > You want to have your swap partition be a little larger than the amount
    > of RAM you have; use 2.5 or 3 GB for swap.
    >
    > The biggest problem I see with your layout about is that you don't have
    > a complete bootable system on just the 80 GB drive. If you start moving
    > disks around between machines, for some reason (whether it's to add
    > another box to split the workload, or because one of the drives is
    > showing failure signs and needs to be replaced), you may really regret
    > doing so.
    >
    > I'd be happier with:
    >
    > 80GB HD:
    > / 1 GB
    > swap 3 GB
    > /tmp 6 GB
    > /var 20 GB
    > /usr 20 GB
    > /home? 30 GB maybe, or might leave unused
    >
    > Do this as two FDISK partitions, the first with a bootable system via
    > BSd partition slices, the second as /home or unused.
    >
    > 200GB HD:
    > unused 80 GB reserved at beginning of disk, either for possible
    > mirror or as needed for another filesystem based on growth
    > swap 3 GB (optional, could be put in the 80 GB slice above)
    > /local 40 GB I'd call this /opt, myself :-)
    > /home? 40 GB maybe I'd put /home here, and not on the 80 GB
    > unused 40 GB for a while until you see which filesystems grow and/or
    > to balance disk utilization...
    >
    > Do this as 4 FDISK partitions.
    >
    > The thing is, 20 GB will still fit a ton of stuff in /var. When it
    > starts getting full, take your biggest database or the forums or
    > whatever, and move it to it's own partition using the 30 or 40 GB of
    > space left uncommitted, and use a symlink so the old path still works...
    >

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