Partitioning scheme for a 1 Tb disc

[Doc_Krall]

I'm going to use a Western Digital 1Tb disc solely for LMDE.
Feel free to suggest a good partitioning scheme. Or would this simple scheme do?

/ (root) 50Gb
SWAP 1024Mb
/home remaining diskspace

[Sleven]

This partition scheme works well for me.

SWAP 2X your ram
/ root 12G
/ home the rest of the space

I give the root 12G but I've never seen it use more than 4-5G
I think a 50G root is more than you will ever need or possibly use
but you have a TB to play with.

I have muliple OSs set up like this:

Swap
/root 12G
/root 12G
/root 12G...
/home - the rest off the space

Hope this helps

[rhodry]

I suggest anyone with these massive drives break it up into multiple partitions if you are going to run the ext4 filesystem type. In case you don't know, an ext4 format reserves 10% of the available drive for its reserved space for journaling etc. In the case of the OP, that is over 90 Gb of reserved space!!!

You may be happy throwing away that much drive space unnecessarily; I could run a couple of full systems in there

Have 2 or 3 primary partitions (max 4) and set the 4th to extended. Then divide the extended into numerous logical drives. You could have 3 or 4 data partitions, all backed up to another 3 or 4; or perhaps a media server and backup. All you then have to do is create links that sit in your /home folder. The only "real" folders I have in my /home (on any size disk) are 'Desktop' & 'download'; plus the .files & .folders created by apps etc. Everything else (like Mail & Music & Videos & Web page etc etc) is in folders under /data that are on separate partitions, mounted in fstab at boot, specific to purpose and linked to /home by soft links. Makes backups as simple & efficient as can be and is transparent to the user.

Have a think about real needs that best suit, throwing space away on a massive /home is almost criminal!

cheers,
rhodry.

[seeley]

Hi Doc_Krall!
First you should think over your swap partition - if you don't use "Suspend to disk" maybe you don't need swap; it depends on your activities on your computer, too. (Swap size could be 1.5 * RAM.)
A normal user needs a root partition with about 10 - 15 GB.
I recommend an own home partition - to have the personal data on an extra partition.
seeley

[ukbrian]

I run a dual boot system
XP 20GB NTFS
Extended
/ LMDE 20GB ext4
Data what's left NTFS
Swap 2 GB

Like rhodry I then have links to the Data partition in my home folder but can access my data from both OS's.
I've been partitioning and storing my data this way for several years and not had any problems,
The small OS partitions also mean you can image backup your OS's very quickly, I use Macrium Reflect, a free but very good MS Windows app to do this. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

For trying out distros I have a few 80 GB drives that I use in a eSata/USB hub like this http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.a ... hd-hdock06 and set the bios to boot accordingly

I expect I'm doing it all wrong but I've not had any problems
ukbrian

[Doc_Krall]

Okay. I don't really care how the disc is partitioned. As I said this disc is going to be a pure LMDE disc and nothing else. I'm not going to extend the filesystems with new data discs in this workstation. I have a dedicated fileserver for storage purpose in my network. So the question is if the suggested /data partition would do that much for me. Or am I completely wrong? And I might even run this dedicated LMDE disc i different workstations, if needed.

What is important on the other hand is this:
1. A "smart" and sustainable partitioned filesystem as possible. This disc is meant to run LMDE only for years.
2. Encrypted /home

According Debian.org it is preferred with these partitions when using "massive" drives

For multi-user systems or systems with lots of disk space, it's best to put /usr, /var, /tmp, and /home each on their own partitions separate from the / partition.

So, how about this partition scheme:
/ (root) 5Gb
SWAP 2Gb
/tmp 2Gb
/usr 25Gb
/var 10Gb
/home the rest

Sure, some partitions might be bigger then needed. But there's hopefully no risk of ever run out of space on any partition. Right? And I simply don't care about chasing every little Gb of space to use. And with today's Tb discs there will always be a waste.

[seeley]

Hi!
What about your RAM?
Do you want to use "suspend to disk"?
seeley

[Doc_Krall]

Hi!
What about your RAM?
Do you want to use "suspend to disk"?
seeley

I got 4Gb RAM in this one.

And use "suspend to disk"? Definitely not!

[Sleven]

I've been told not to use less than 12G for the /root, as far as the rest of your scheme, <shrugs>

[unexistance]

Hi,

May I add that you might want to make /tmp & SWAP bigger than your RAM

Regards,

[Doc_Krall]

I've been told not to use less than 12G for the /root, as far as the rest of your scheme, <shrugs>

That has to be with a single /root partition. 12 Gb for /root with a separate /usr partition sounds like a huge overkill.

Hi,

May I add that you might want to make /tmp & SWAP bigger than your RAM

Regards,

Well, I could bump up /tmp to 4 Gb. But bigger then that i hardly have any use of. And today there is really no use of that huge SWAP. 2 Gb is more then enough. I could probably even manage excellent with only 1 Gb SWAP.

[seeley]

Hi Doc_Krall!
Then I would choose 4 GiB as swap, in GParted: ~ 4295 MB.
seeley

[Sleven]

Hey Doc, thought I would post a snap shot of how I have sda and sdb set up, sdc has two BSD systems on it and a Gparted shot would be useless.

Two 160G HDD with 6 OSs,
sda 4 primary, sda1-Windows XP, sda2-LMDE64 tracking testing, sda3 LMDE64 tracking Sid, sda4 Ubuntu 10.04LT64
sdb1 shared swap, sdb2 extended, ((sdb7 /root, sdb8 /home for LMDE64 tracking Squeeze),(sbd5 /root, sdb6 /home for Debian 6.0 (Squeeze)))

Perfect Partitioning Scheme.png

You really should consider having at least two different OSs up, running and updated in case one bites the digit dust.

[x0fx3]

Hi, I saw this thread in a search I did to find out what format my partitions need to be in. I have a 1tb hdd that i want to install Mint 10, Win 7 on then encrypt 7 and use the Truecrypt bootloader to load Win7 and hit esc to load Mint. But I didn't know that I needed to have more partitions for Mint like one for /home, /root and the others listed above. So I was wondering if its still possible to do that while having the extra partitions and wondering why all those directories need to be in separate partitions? If some one can point me to a guide to walk me through setting all these up, I would appreciate it. Thanks

P.s. I have currently 8gb of ram and was planning to upgrade to 16gb later this year sometime. So I'm guessing the /swap needs to be big enough for the 16gb of ram when I make its partition.

[vrkalak]

So I was wondering if its still possible to do that while having the extra partitions and wondering why all those directories need to be in separate partitions?

I have currently 8gb of ram and was planning to upgrade to 16gb later this year sometime. So I'm guessing the /swap needs to be big enough for the 16gb of ram when I make its partition.

I have a system with 6Gb or RAM and 2.2Tb of internal hard-drive.

No, you don't need to have any of those extra partitions.
I only have 4 partitions on my entire system.

/swap 5Gb
/root (LMDE) 50Gb
/root (Debian 6) 50Gb
/home (all remaining space)

The only partitions you actually NEED for Linux are /root (your distro) and a small SWAP partition.
You don't need to have any other partitions.

As for the size of your SWAP -- it is recommended to have, twice the size of your RAM, if you have less than 4Gb.
RAM of 6Gb or higher -- you don't need more than 4 or 5Gb of SWAP

[denvermint]

I am surprised that there has been no, however brief, mention of GPT and LVM. I am pretty sure LMDE can be installed to GPT, but LMDE is not yet installable to LVM. (I have installed Debian to LVM and then Mint-ified it, with some success)

GPT is the successor to the MSDOS MBR, allowing 128 partitions with redundant metadata, and drives > 2TB.

The discussion of how much disk space to use for the swap partition is a long tradition on Linux forums. The allotment of swap space should be based on review of the requirements of running programs. Any other way is just a guess. With large drives, make a 10GB swap, who cares. My experience is that a usual lightly loaded home system, with 1GB or more RAM, will rarely, if ever, use swap, anyway...

I am not sure if the remainder of this discussion is really appropriate in this thread, but in any case, here is an account of my foray into GPT and LVM:

Briefly, here is some background: With LVM, you virtualize your storage into resizable Logical Volumes. LV are kind of like the partitions we used to work with. Kinda...

Going into last night, this was my configuration:
I had LMDE, aptosid, and Squeeze installed to a 1TB drive under MSDOS MBR scheme. This worked fine, except that I wanted to try out GPT and LVM to get the most flexible arrangement I could, and to gain that experience.

My rudimentary understanding of LVM is this:
PV (Physical Volumes) - these are added to initialize your GPT or MBR partitions to LVM. Use pvcreate.
VG (Volume Group) - these essentially group together your PV's, and you refer to it by name. Use vgcreate
LV (Logical Volume) - these essentially are your new "partitions", where a filesystem is installed, and you refer to them by a name you assign. Use lvcreate.

You end up with devices like this:
/dev/volgrp_main/logvol_debian6_root ##of course, these are the names I made up.
/dev/volgrp_main/logvol_debian6_boot
/dev/volgrp_main/logvol_debian6_swap

So, last night, I backed up my existing sytem drive with Clonezilla, and did this:

On the 1TB drive, overwrote the MBR with GPT with Gparted with the Parted Magic disk.
Configured the disk this way:
1. sda1 100MB (not sure if really required) not LVM managed.
2. sda2 900GB in a LVM PV and VG.
3. Added these Logical Volumes for Debian:
--- boot 200MB
--- swap 4GB
--- root 45GB or so.
I could have a made separate VG for /home, and the Debian installer would have used it. However, I want to add the /home partition later.

Booted the Squeeze netinst 64bit disk, and installed, with care, to the LV's I setup above. Installed grub and rebooted to a working system.

I was concerned that my key tools in Parted Magic worked with LVM, like Clonezilla. So, I backed up the 1TB drive with Clonezilla without a hitch or complication. I did not test the restore, yet. Of course, Gparted works with GPT. There is a Redhat GUI tool for LVM but I have been a little disappointed with it.

So far, so good.

For the Debian install described above, I can easily define another VG for /home, using the pooled space in the VG.

When I install LMDE tonight, I will just create more LV's and there you have it. Edit: Oops, I forgot. Can't install LMDE to a LVM.

I can't imagine I will run out of space on a 1TB drive, but LVM allows another drive to be added to the VG pool of storage and used transparently for more Logical Volumes.

I am a beginner at this, so i welcome comments. I really encourage everyone to get familiar with LVM. Of course, you can play with LVM even if your install was not to LVM. You just need the tool, which is installed by default.

Here is a good discussion approachable howto for LVM:http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_lvm

Have a good day.
Steve.



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[zacharysonicfast]

Here is what I did. Only have a 64GB ssd drive. inetl i5 3rd gen (3210), and typically only use laptop for internet surfing, email, and one or 2 flash games.
Rarely do I play a movie.

56GB for everything

NO SWAP

8gb ntfs fo small shared storage as a precaution. Not dual booting Windows but might need access one day.

I have 8GB ram.

I set /tmp and similar to a ram drive.

No problems - yet - lol

Downside, I can't use data=writeback or nobh

Personal note: I HATE uuid's.

/sda and similar are much easier than a kazillion alphanumeric string to try to put in somewhere. But not sure I can switch it and still boot

I still cannot see the need for such gigantic swap file partitions. And breaking up everything into tiny small partitions doesn't seem like it will do much to enhance system operability.

I wouldn't mind trying the UEFI setup, but unless it is a point and click auto setup, I can't do it. Too complicated compared to a simple partitioning scheme and 'one click install'

I don't even know if uefi will do much good. Linux is already pretty fast on boot up. Only a 3 hour wait compared to windows 3 day wait.