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<TITLE>RE: [NTLUG:Discuss] Adding new hard drive</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Yikes, Brian. Didn't mean to upset you so.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Without inflaming this issue any further, let me elaborate on a couple of things.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Clearly there are numerous ways one can crash a filesystem. Your excellent example of a process running amuck is one of them.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">If I read the original posting correctly, he was going to partition a single drive up. Indeed as I stated or alluded to further down in my original posting, hot swapping drives is another good reason for partitioning</FONT><I> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">across multiple drives</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">, not on a single drive. Hence my recommendation that he creates his /usr on a separate partition on a</FONT><I> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">different drive than the "os drive"</FONT></I><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">. Again, if the original poster partitions his single drive up, he runs the risk of prematurely running out of space in his /usr partition, while having way too much space taken up on other partitions. (Been there, done that, learned from it. (I think. :>))</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">You may indeed suggest that I study up on the subject instead of guessing. I thought speculation was allowed in this forum. Perhaps not. At least I didn't present myself as an authoritative source on this subject, but did state what other system administrators have passed on to me, some of them guessing as well. I guess (oops) they don't read their sysadmin books thoroughly enough either. I was giving my honest opinion on the subject, based on my experience and the experience of others, stated as speculation. I was unaware everything had to be referenced with footnotes and bibliography attached.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Famous last words indeed. Every sysadmin has his/her own way of handling the systems in their care. Everybody's environment is different. And yes, the systems that I administer have been relatively trouble free for many years. I have certainly had no issues come up that would have been avoided by partitioning my hard drives.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I questioned whether to reply to your email. I trust I have clarified any confusion I might have caused. I also ask the list administrator to forgive any impropriety demonstrated here. I have had my rebuttal, and this subject will not be discussed by me any further.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Rest assured I will be much more contemplative before I post to this group again. I will continue to enjoy gleaning knowledge from all of you out there.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">This is NOT the way to start a Friday morning.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Thank you for your time,</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Monty</FONT>
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<P><A NAME="_MailData"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">-----Original Message-----</FONT></A>
<BR><B><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">From: Brian [SMTP:brian-sender-67b5e0@pongonova.net]</FONT></B>
<BR><B><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Sent: </FONT></B> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Thursday, August 08, 2002 5:14 PM</FONT>
<BR><B><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">To: </FONT></B> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">discuss@ntlug.org</FONT>
<BR><B><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Subject: </FONT></B> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] Adding new hard drive</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">On Thu, Aug 08, 2002 at 03:52:41PM -0500, MontyS@videopost.com wrote:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> Regarding partitioning:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> I have spoken with a number of people in the past, and have yet to find any</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> compelling reason for having multiple partitions on a system. </FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Here's a test: Start a process that writes to a file in /tmp. Go ahead, let it</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">fill up. Then tell me how well your system is running after "df" shows 0 bytes of</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">diskspace available.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Partitioning keeps users from monopolizing a system, whether accidentally (like a</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">process gone wild in the example above) or intentionally. Partitions allow for</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">hot-swapping faulty drives without having to bring the system down.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Properly-designed partitions help developing convenient backup schedules.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Partitions can improve performance through parallelized reads and writes. </FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> I am</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> basically guessing, but I think the whole partitioning thing was valid when</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> drive sizes were measured in megs, not gigs.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Might I suggest studying up on the subject, instead of guessing? Any good sysadmin</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">book will give you multiple reasons why partitions might be a good idea. </FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> I just run one / partition on</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> all our SGI and linux boxes (except the ftp server), and have never had any</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> problems.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Famous last words. </FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> You can easily run into a brick wall if you set up partitions</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> without a look into the future.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Absolutely. But that's not a good reason to avoid them.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> I find it comforting to put the /usr (or /home) on a different drive than</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> the rest of the os. The same would apply if you have any /pub like</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> partitions for ftp or web serving. I like to keep the os install as</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> pristine as possible, and let the users thrash on another drives.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Now I'm confused...I thought you just said you know of no compelling reasons to have</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">partitions?</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> So, you might want to keep the drive you have in the system where it is, and</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> install your new hard drive for use as the /usr partition.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">If you're a brave soul, go for it. The only way you could test that this works is</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">to change /etc/fstab, add the new /usr partition, and reboot the machine. Keep your</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">fingers crossed, though...if it doesn't come back up, you'll have to remount the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">old /usr partition and try, try again. (You can't test the new partition while the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">machine is running because you won't be able to umount the /usr partition.) A</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">better plan would be to add a new /usr/local partition, as this is the part of /usr</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">that will be growing.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> If this is just a hobby/utility Linux box, and your main os is still Windows</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> (please, no attacks...), then I would just keep one drive for Windows and</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> the second drive for Linux.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Always a good idea!</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> During installs, I have never let Disk Druid do it's own thing. IMHO, it is</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> best to define your own parameters, and make sure Disk Druid isn't doing</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> something stupid. Actually, if you want to, back everything up and play</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">> around with fdisk some. The command line is still your friend. :></FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I've seen DiskDruid "do its own thing" and it's not a pretty sight. Use fdisk.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Partitioning your disk is much too important to leave to a pretty GUI wrapper.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> --Brian</FONT>
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