general rules for partitioning

Joel rees at ddcom.co.jp
Mon Apr 25 03:19:37 UTC 2005


On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 18:39:57 -0400
Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org> wrote

> On Sun, Apr 24, 2005 at 11:16:13PM +0200, Duncan Lithgow wrote:
> > [] /home 10% of free disk space (recommended)
> 
> 10%? Really for most people, wouldn't this be 90%? Especially with new
> gigantic hard drives? I can't see needing even 8GB for everything else on a
> desktop system.....

Which explains the lack of recommendations. Everyone has their own plans.

I'm exploring Fedora Core while using it as a workstation, so I have
lots of optional stuff loaded. As a result, I find 8GB for /usr is just
barely enough. I tend to install things that are not RPM, and I leave
source lying around sometimes, so I give /usr/local 4G or more.

For the various dbs in the system, /var/www, etc., 2GB for /var is also
just barely enough. In fact, I like to have at least 1GB for /var/tmp,
separately.

A separate partition for /tmp is usefully when something tries to fill
/tmp, because it does not end up filling / . So I like to give it 1GB.

Speaking of / , I have been giving it a full 1GB. That's convenient for
updating the kernel and leaving an old kernel or two behind.

If I were running an outward facing web server, I'd give at least 1GB to
/var/www .

I haven't assigned all the rest to /home for several reasons. One is
that users (including myself) should get used to keeping things off the
system disks. Music on CDs, videos on DVDs, etc. Less to back up that
way. Another reason is that unassigned disk space is going to be easier
to allocate wherever a need comes up. 

However, if a particular system is going to be used for video editing,
100G or more to /home might be reasonable, or a separate partition for
the video cuts might be reasonable.

So we all have our different ways of cutting the partitions, according
to our planned uses, and perhaps somewhat according to whim and superstition.

And LVM is very convenient.

--
Joel Rees   <rees at ddcom.co.jp>
digitcom, inc.   株式会社デジコム
Kobe, Japan   +81-78-672-8800
** <http://www.ddcom.co.jp> **




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