Thoughts on partitioning

[craigbert]

Hello All,

I have a desktop with a quantity of 2, 1TB drives and I am getting to put Kubuntu on it.
What is the best partitioning scheme/sizing?

I like to try out all the cool free software so I am always installing and uninstalling stuff.
The desktop has 4GB of RAM.

Thoughts?

[Snowhog]

Depends on what you want to do, but as a 'general' rule you want three partitions:

root
/home
swap

If this were my HDD, I'd partition it as follows:

First partition: Type Swap Size 6GB Flagged as boot [this will be used for swap]
Second partition: Type Extended Size remaining amount of HDD space
Third partition: Type Logical Size 15GB [this will be used for root]
Fourth partition: Type Logical Size 50GB [this will be used for /home]

Of course, this leaves a butt-load of HDD space 'unused', and in your case, you might want to increase the size of the /home partition. I use the above 'scheme' for my HDD (500GB), repeating the third and fourth partitions for each additional OS I use (I have three Kubuntus installed).

[rms]

First partition: Type Swap Size 6GB Flagged as boot [this will be used for swap]

Eh, do you ever get your 4GB machine to start swapping and what it's like? I don't have swap partition(2GB) and don't regret it. Being a bit cautions is all it takes.

[Snowhog]

I never see swap being used. But having a swap partition is necessary if you intend to suspend the running OS. You need a swap file that is (recommended) 1.5 times the size of your installed RAM.

[rms]

I never see swap being used. But having a swap partition is necessary if you intend to suspend the running OS. You need a swap file that is (recommended) 1.5 times the size of your installed RAM.

Oh, well, that's surely the reason to have one, I forgot about it because I don't use it. Apart from that, it's ol' school knowledge that doesn't apply nowadays since memory is dirt cheap(even with Elpida going down). Buying more RAM is better.

[oshunluvr]

Since you have two drives, you can get "fancy" and use RAID or btrfs to improve your performance - and yes two drives in RAID0 is twice as fast as a single drive. At the very least, split your swap space across both drives and mount them with equal priority (add pri=1 to the mount options). The system will treat them as a RAID automatically. With this much drive space, I'd leave room for backup and/or additional linux installs (for testing) and make a backup of my data (documents, pictures and such).

If it were my computer, here's what I would do (both drives the same structure);

part. #1 2GB (swap)
part. #2 10GB (RAID0 for main install)
part. #3 10GB (RAID0 for additional install)
part. #4 EXTENDED (all remaining space)
part. #5 20GB (additional install space)
part. #6 958GB (data storage)

This assumes you're not using GPT drive formatting. If you are, you don't need the extended partition.

Then:
sda1 and sdb1 are swap mounted equal priority.
sda2 and sdb2 are RAID0 as your main linux install.
sda3 and sdb3 are RAID0 as either a backup of your main install or a testing install space.
sda5 and sdb5 are non-RAID install space for backup or testing.
sda6 and sdb6 are RAID1 (full duplicated copies) for data: folders for pictures, docs, music, videos, etc.

As you do each install - leave /home in the install partition. Then instead of leaving docs and such in /home, link to the data partition folders. In this way, all your installs has access to your data but each keep their own settings in your home.

This setup allows maximum performance for your linux install, room to test and backup your install, and 100% redundancy for your important data.

[rms]

Indeed, a good idea. +1

[oshunluvr]

Indeed, a good idea. +1

If you decide to try this, post back if you need help and I can step you through it. Alternately to using RAID, you can use btrfs. However, it is still being developed. Myself and one other forum member having been using it daily for a year or more without issue - but there's always a chance of a problem with anything that new.

[rms]

If you decide to try this, post back if you need help and I can step you through it. Alternately to using RAID, you can use btrfs. However, it is still being developed. Myself and one other forum member having been using it daily for a year or more without issue - but there's always a chance of a problem with anything that new.

Thank you kindly, I don't have a second HD to try RAID but if I were in OP's position I would give it a go since it definitely has its appeal. As for btrfs I did try it previously and it wasn't a smooth ride for me so I'll wait for the time being. But it is good to know, as per your post, that things are improving.

[Teunis]

A nice scheme for two disks oshunlvr!
Though I'm a bit sceptical about having a backup on the same physical disk.
Most problems are usually due to a failed upgrade or a disk failure and this solution might not survive either.
I do run a second install, version 11.10, in it's own /root and with links to the shared /home.

btw, I've for nearly 8 weeks run 12.04 as my main install on btrfs and saw no problems.

[oshunluvr]

A nice scheme for two disks oshunlvr!
Though I'm a bit sceptical about having a backup on the same physical disk.|

I agree to a point, except when you're talking about an install vs. data. An install is always replaceable (just re-install) vs. data which may not be. The backup of an install would protect you against a failed update/upgrade or self-induced shenanigans - i.e. update your install backup prior to testing out a new video config or other potentially dangerous change. True that drive failures are possible and with RAID0 this trashes the install. If you really want to be securely backed up and still use RAID0, you need to back up remotely or to multiple drives.

Frankly, since 10.04 I've not been able to break a Kubuntu install hard enough to justify a backup at all. I use parallel install space to do a new install of Kubuntu when I desire one rather than attempting the dist-upgrade path. This allows me to tweak the new install at my leisure while still having my old install untouched and usable. Like now I'm using 12.04 beta but my 11.04 install is at the ready if needed. BTW: Ditto on 12.04 being pretty great. I've had a few minor crashes but I'm using it daily with very little complaint.

I also don't recommend sharing /home between installs because not all distros are on the same versions of all programs (or could even be using incompatible packages) thus there exists a possibility some settings or the like would be continually trashed between reboots. My preferred method is to leave /home within each install, put all data on the data partition, and then make a backup of each /home on the data partition.

On the install backup: I once devised a scheme using my (at the time) 4x500GB hard drives. I created 12 partitions (3 per drive) and then 4 RAID0 arrays using 3 each of the 12 partitions. These were distributed with no two sharing the same drive set: ABC,ABD,ACD,BCD. Any one drive dies and you're still in business and you get a three-fold drive speed increase. Of course, this was an exercise in silliness as reserving this much space and cross-backing up all the time was ridiculous. Currently, I have 3x500 drives and two btrfs arrays for installs with 1 non-RAID/btrfs partition available on each drive for other installs or testing.

The only real danger of using RAID is the exponential increase in likelihood of a drive failure causing data loss: 2 drives = twice as likely, 3 drives 3x as likely and so on...

The obvious bottom line is if you don't want to lose it - back it up!

I wonder if with a solid USB3 interface and a fast thumb drive if we won't be booting to a liveUSB stick and then keeping data on a portable hard drive. Imagine booting any computer and having your own OS an setup available with all your data intact. Who need's the cloud?