How To: Partition your Hard Drive.

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scorp123
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Re: How To: Partition your Hard Drive.

Post by scorp123 »

9812713 wrote: I deleted my 1 BIG partition, and broke it into 3 separate partitions. I have used the following sizes to reflect my system settings.

HDA1 - Size = 1.4 GB -- Mount Point = LINUX-SWAP (2.5 x Ram Size)
HDA2 - Size = 4 GB -- Mount Point = / (top level) Type: RieserFS
HDA3 - Size = 30+ GB -- Mount Point = /Home Type: RieserFS
Bonus: Add a hda4 - size = 8GB == Basically this can be used to install windows ...
So you installed your entire OS into one single " / " root partition ??? :shock:
Why oh why would one do such a thing!?
9812713 wrote:Now the beauty of this setup is
Beauty?! Ahemmmm ... no. Putting the entire OS into one single partition is bad bad bad bad bad!

It's a somewhat forgiveable mistake recent converts and ex-Windows users make, but this is definitely not the right way to do this!


Partitioning - UNIX style

Working fullt-time as UNIX + Linux support engineer for a really big company I shall be so arrogant and simply claim that I know what I am talking of.

Putting the entire operating system into one single partition is a big "No" ... It's a mistake ex-Windows users often make because they don't know it better. OK, we shall forgive them. But if you as administrator do this in a live environment with critical applications running on the machines you will get your head whacked off -- either by "friendly" colleagues such as myself or we will make sure the responsible manager will do it. Can you say BOFH?

Why this is a bad idea: Please read this article: http://www.hccfl.edu/pollock/AUnix1/Partitioning.htm

Basically, if something goes wrong and you have everything in one single partition, repairing this will be very hard.

Having your stuff broken up into the various UNIX-style mount-points has vast advantages here, as any broken partition can be mounted individually and independently from the main " / " root partition.

How I partition my disks (work + private!)

Before exploring this we should take a look what mount-points a typical UNIX and/or Linux system has. And I will sort them here by read/write access likeliness - meaning: Those mount-points which will mostly be read are on the top, followed by mount-points which mostly will get written to:
  • /boot -- contains the boot loader and boot menu. Is mostly read at boot time, has only limited numbers of write accesses. Because of its importance this should be the first Linux partition on the disk.

    / -- contains all the other filesystems, plus important locations such as /etc, /sbin, /lib, and many other important places that cannot exist on separate partitions. Can have some limited write accesses (e.g. temporary files in /tmp) but for the most of the time only gets read accesses. Because of its importance for the boot process this partition should be right after the /boot partition (otherwise the heads of the disk have to move a lot, especially during the boot process ...)

    /usr -- contains all the binaries and the X11 graphical interface (e.g. /usr/X11R6) and libraries that don't belong to the OS proper but rather to an application somewhere somehow (e.g. /usr/lib). Only gets bigger write accesses when applications get installed or someone compiles a kernel (the kernel sources are usually located in /usr/src/linux), other than that this mount-point mostly gets read from not written to. Because of its importance for the boot process and overall significance for the functioning of the system this partition should be right before or right after the " / " partition.

    /opt -- some distributions use this for optional stuff, e.g. non-essential tools (from the system's point of view!) such as GoogleEarth and other things that are considered "nice to have" but not really "must have or the system won't work without it". This partition can be anywhere on the disk, but I personally prefer to place it before /var ...

    /srv -- some distributions use this to run their WWW and/or FTP servers in there. Sometimes admins chose to create this mount-point as some sort of "sand box" in which they run their network services. Can have some fair amount of write accesses, especially if you have stuff running in there that produces logs.

    /var -- used for variable data. Usually your system logs are in there (e.g. /var/log/* ), some distributions use it for the WWW pages that are being served (e.g. /var/www). Gets mostly written to, and then a lot!

    /home -- where the users place all their stuff. Bookmarks, config files created by all the various applications and desktops, all one's personal files, and all the stuff you do all day ends up here. Gets read and written to like mad.
So ... given how certain mount-points get written to a lot and others don't, I'd order them the way as written above. Now let's assume you have a 100 GB disk you want to partition, and you will use your system for WWW (e.g. to host your personal homepage on it + a small forum?) and maybe for some FTP (e.g. to exchange files easily with other users?), here is the partitioning I would suggest:
  • /dev/hda1: /boot, 50 MB min., 150 MB max.
    /dev/hda2: /, 2 GB min.
    /dev/hda3: extended partition, up and until the end of the disk
    /dev/hda5: /usr, at least 5 GB
    /dev/hda6: /opt ... if you want it. 2 GB should be enough
    /dev/hda7: /srv ... if you really want it. At least 4 GB
    /dev/hda8: /var ... at least 2 GB.
    /dev/hda10: /home ... at least 75-80 GB if we take a 100 GB disk as basis
    /dev/hda11: swap ... 2x the size of your RAM, but not more. If you have like 2 GB RAM, then 1x the size of your RAM should be enough.
Now, the beauty in this setup is that first of all it's properly partitioned and less likely to give you headaches, and the second aspect is that all the partitions with lots of read accesses are concentrated towards the beginning of the harddisk and thus can be read faster whereas the partitions which will get lots of write accesses and which are more likely to fragment a little are towards the end of the harddisk (towards the physical center as stated by someone else further down in this thread).

This is how it's supposed to be done.

Suggestions and flame messages welcome :lol:


EDIT: some factual errors about where harddisks begin or end corrected ... :wink: Thanks to all :D
Last edited by scorp123 on Sun Apr 22, 2007 6:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by scorp123 »

9812713 wrote: "Is there an easy way to upgrade an OS or do a fresh install, without loosing data"

OK, let's talk about a simplified scheme where you indeed put all the OS into one single " / " root filesystem, e.g. you don't want to create separate /boot and /usr partitions, but you create a separate /home so you can keep your data. Let's also assume you want to have multiple distributions on the same harddisk, e.g. they will all share your /home partition (you could still use different user names if needed):

I'd then suggest to put your root filesystems to the front of the harddisk as the grub or lilo boot loaders might have troubles if you place them towards the end. Windows XP doesn't have this problem apparently, so I assume a Windows partition can be anywhere on the disk.

Also, let's again take a 100 GB disk as basis. So I'd partition like this:
  • /dev/hda1 -- 8 GB, e.g. LinuxMint 2.0 "Barbara"
    /dev/hda2 -- 8 GB, e.g. SuSE 10.2
    /dev/hda3 -- extended partition, includes the rest of the harddisk
    /dev/hda5 -- Windows XP, e.g. 50 GB
    /dev/hda6 -- /home, e.g. 30 GB
    /dev/hda7 -- swap, whatever is left of the harddisk (around 4 GB)
With a partitioning scheme like this you could constantly format /dev/hda1 and /dev/hda2 again and again and install any distribution you want to try.

Different than what you claimed in your first posting it is not necessary to completely delete the partitions! It's enough if you overwrite them during the installation.
9812713 wrote:Please I am sure you can agree that Ubuntu is NOT an "advanced" installer..

I don't agree. No installer can replace human intelligence ... at least not yet. Even in professional products such as HP-UX (that's the UNIX produced by Hewlett-Packard ...) or Red Hat Enterprise Server the installer will by default suggest very stupid things. In the end you the user have to make use of all the possibilities and decide what you want. No installer can do that for you.

Best regards,

Scorp123
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Post by scorp123 »

9812713 wrote:But in order to create your current structure ...
That was just an example. Your mileage may vary :wink:
9812713 wrote:You do either have to start from scratch, or.... go through the process of moving, shifting your data around, which I may add, is not 100% safe...
True. But then again many people in the Windows world have applications such as PartitionMagic (and similar ones), and those are quite safe to use, even for the unexperienced user.
9812713 wrote: as one wrong key stroke, can end in a deleted partition, this is why I suggested before you start to play around with (your curent structure) to Backup..
I am getting your point, it's just that in my opinion if you really want to "educate" users and "pass on knowledge" (quotes from your posting) you should at least do it right and either tell users the whole story how partitioning is really supposed to be done or you should label your "How To" as being a simplified version for new Linux converts. :) But I think we pretty much achieved that now, all the postings combined here in this thread pretty much cover the topic plus it can't harm to have a little controversy about partitioning schemes. If nothing else it will at least motivate people to think about their partitioning schemes before they touch their harddisks ... or so I hope :)
9812713 wrote: As a system admin yourself I guess you don't even resepect the thought that I suggested to back up all your data.
Huh? Nope, in fact doing backups before touching your harddisk is very very wise. Better have a backup and never need it than being in need of restoring a backup but not have one :lol:
9812713 wrote:It seems that we are on the same page
I guess so :D
9812713 wrote:Not a " Adminisrators Guide to Partitioning "
OK, my bad. You know, bad habits die slowly :lol:

Regards,
Scorp123
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Post by buster »

"And you can't install grub were you like and you can not put it on floppy.
This is on all ubuntu dists."

I will have to tell my system that it can't boot from a Ubuntu floppy, even though it does. :lol: Ubuntu has the best Grub as well. It picks up all the other distros and names them pretty well. Here are two quotes from the web:

"If you have a specific requirement not to install GRUB to the MBR, you need to install using the Alternate disc, which will allow you to specify the install location for GRUB."

"This website is about how to use the Ubuntu 'Dapper Drake' and 'Edgy Eft' Alternate' Install CDs. The 'Alternate' Install CD features the more traditional text based partitioner. The main advantage of using the 'Alternate' install CD is that more choices are available for people who want to control the installation more precisely to customize their install. For example, you can choose between GRUB and LILO bootloaders and also specify exactly where you want the the bootloader installed. You can install the IPL for the bootloader to MBR on your first hard disk or any other hard disk you specify, or to the bootsector of the partition, or to a floppy disk or anywhere. "

Hope I haven't repeated someone else's post or laboured the fact too long. But I love to have the floppy option for GRUB, and I duplicate the floppy if it's critcal.
mdd4696

Re: How To: Partition your Hard Drive.

Post by mdd4696 »

scorp123 wrote:Now, the beauty in this setup is that first of all it's properly partitioned and less likely to give you headaches, and the second aspect is that all the partitions with lots of read accesses are concentrated towards the beginning of the harddisk (towards the physical center where sectors are closer together and thus can be read faster!) whereas the partitions which will get lots of write accesses and which are more likely to fragment a little are towards the end of the harddisk.
Thanks for the post scorp123, it was very helpful! However, I think I've caught a technical error. Isn't the beginning of a hard disk on the outer edge, not the center?

I think this is because modern hard disks rotate at a constant speed, but have an increasing number of sectors per cylinder as you move from the inner to the outer zones. The fastest read rates occur at the outer edge.

Anyways, I've used scorp123's post to partition a drive for a small desktop/server running Ubuntu 6.10 with a 200GB drive (pretty much the system he designed his example for).
  • Primary (sda1) ext3 128MiB /boot/
  • Primary (sda2) ext3 4GiB /
  • Extended 182.18GiB (the rest of the drive)
    • Logical (sda5) ext3 8GiB /usr/
    • Logical (sda6) ext3 4GiB /var/
    • Logical (sda7) ext3 168.18GiB /home/
    • Logical (sda8) linux-swap 2GiB swap
Can anyone comment on this partition scheme? Does it seem reasonable?

I will soon be setting up a RAID5 array with three 200GB SATA disks (that should give me a total of 400GB of space to partition). Will I be able to use the same partition scheme as above, but with a larger /home/ partition?
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Re: How To: Partition your Hard Drive.

Post by scorp123 »

mdd4696 wrote:Isn't the beginning of a hard disk on the outer edge, not the center? I think this is because modern hard disks rotate at a constant speed, but have an increasing number of sectors per cylinder as you move from the inner to the outer zones. The fastest read rates occur at the outer edge.
I heard it the other way round ... But that doesn't really matter, for as long as you really put stuff in the right order IMHO :wink:
mdd4696 wrote:Anyways, I've used scorp123's post to partition a drive for a small desktop/server running Ubuntu 6.10 with a 200GB drive (pretty much the system he designed his example for).
  • Primary (sda1) ext3 128MiB /boot/
  • Primary (sda2) ext3 4GiB /
  • Extended 182.18GiB (the rest of the drive)
    • Logical (sda5) ext3 8GiB /usr/
    • Logical (sda6) ext3 4GiB /var/
    • Logical (sda7) ext3 168.18GiB /home/
    • Logical (sda8) linux-swap 2GiB swap
Can anyone comment on this partition scheme? Does it seem reasonable?
Looks OK to me. ext3 is very reliable, even if you should ever suffer from an instant power failure chances are very good that you will get all your data back.
mdd4696 wrote: I will soon be setting up a RAID5 array with three 200GB SATA disks (that should give me a total of 400GB of space to partition). Will I be able to use the same partition scheme as above, but with a larger /home/ partition?
Hmmm .... just make sure your SATA controllers are really really supported. Google around if needed. Google a lot! Even in the professional area people make very bad choices and buy super-expensive "professional" equipment only to find out that this stuff doesn't run on Linux, or will only work with proprietary closed-source drivers which totally sucks as soon as you have to or want to upgrade your kernel: such drivers will usually stop to function, giving you a non-bootable or otherwise crippled system. Whatever device controller you want to use: make sure the Linux kernel supports it natively out of the box ... no experiments with closed-source drivers please, it will only disappoint you and give you sleepless nights.

As for partitioning ... this should be possible in my opinion.

But again, please Google around ... depending on what you want to do with your system RAID-5 may not be ideal ... e.g. RAID-5 sucks for write-intensive applications, e.g. databases or similar taks that constantly write chunks of data to the disk. For something like that RAID-0+1 or RAID-10 may be a better choice ... But I am not really a RAID specialist, you should talk to someone else.

BTW, what about physical security? Please really make sure nobody can just walk in and pull the plug "by accident" ... You wouldn't believe the stupid BS that happens to "professionals" when they stumble over cables or hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on the wrong keyboard ... :lol:

Regards,
scorp123
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Re: How To: Partition your Hard Drive.

Post by gramnemo »

scorp123 wrote:
mdd4696 wrote:Isn't the beginning of a hard disk on the outer edge, not the center? I think this is because modern hard disks rotate at a constant speed, but have an increasing number of sectors per cylinder as you move from the inner to the outer zones. The fastest read rates occur at the outer edge.
I heard it the other way round ... But that doesn't really matter, for as long as you really put stuff in the right order IMHO :wink:
mdd4696 wrote:Anyways, I've used scorp123's post to partition a drive for a small desktop/server running Ubuntu 6.10 with a 200GB drive (pretty much the system he designed his example for).
  • Primary (sda1) ext3 128MiB /boot/
  • Primary (sda2) ext3 4GiB /
  • Extended 182.18GiB (the rest of the drive)
    • Logical (sda5) ext3 8GiB /usr/
    • Logical (sda6) ext3 4GiB /var/
    • Logical (sda7) ext3 168.18GiB /home/
    • Logical (sda8) linux-swap 2GiB swap
Can anyone comment on this partition scheme? Does it seem reasonable?
Looks OK to me. ext3 is very reliable, even if you should ever suffer from an instant power failure chances are very good that you will get all your data back.
mdd4696 wrote: I will soon be setting up a RAID5 array with three 200GB SATA disks (that should give me a total of 400GB of space to partition). Will I be able to use the same partition scheme as above, but with a larger /home/ partition?
Hmmm .... just make sure your SATA controllers are really really supported. Google around if needed. Google a lot! Even in the professional area people make very bad choices and buy super-expensive "professional" equipment only to find out that this stuff doesn't run on Linux, or will only work with proprietary closed-source drivers which totally sucks as soon as you have to or want to upgrade your kernel: such drivers will usually stop to function, giving you a non-bootable or otherwise crippled system. Whatever device controller you want to use: make sure the Linux kernel supports it natively out of the box ... no experiments with closed-source drivers please, it will only disappoint you and give you sleepless nights.

As for partitioning ... this should be possible in my opinion.

But again, please Google around ... depending on what you want to do with your system RAID-5 may not be ideal ... e.g. RAID-5 sucks for write-intensive applications, e.g. databases or similar taks that constantly write chunks of data to the disk. For something like that RAID-0+1 or RAID-10 may be a better choice ... But I am not really a RAID specialist, you should talk to someone else.

BTW, what about physical security? Please really make sure nobody can just walk in and pull the plug "by accident" ... You wouldn't believe the stupid BS that happens to "professionals" when they stumble over cables or hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on the wrong keyboard ... :lol:

Regards,
scorp123
It is necessary to put Boot? At me such was not when I put automatically linuh Mint
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Post by kenetics »

Scorp123 posted:
Also, let's again take a 100 GB disk as basis. So I'd partition like this:

/dev/hda1 -- 8 GB, e.g. LinuxMint 2.0 "Barbara"
/dev/hda2 -- 8 GB, e.g. SuSE 10.2
/dev/hda3 -- extended partition, includes the rest of the harddisk
/dev/hda5 -- Windows XP, e.g. 50 GB
/dev/hda6 -- /home, e.g. 30 GB
/dev/hda7 -- swap, whatever is left of the harddisk (around 4 GB)
Some questions:
Where is the boot assigned (kernel, start up) if there is no boot partition? also where does Grub reside?
Can one assign other Linux OS's to hda5? Will Grub handle this?

Thanks, Ken
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Post by scorp123 »

kenetics wrote:Some questions:
Where is the boot assigned (kernel, start up) if there is no boot partition? also where does Grub reside?
Always in /boot ... If you don't have a separate /boot partition then /boot will most likely exist as sub-directory on your " / " root filesystem. :wink:

Yes, you can install more than one Linux distro on the same machine, but this needs a little bit of planning ahead. But usually a fresh Linux install should detect the presence of a previous Linux installation and then offer this as a boot option after it has installed its boot loader.

Of course, it's always better to have some sort of emergency boot disk or Live CD ready, just in case something goes wrong.
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Post by kenetics »

Thanks. One other question, will there be a /boot for each Linux OS and does Grub reside in the boot? These are questions that I can't seem to find clear explanations to on the internet. I'm almost ready to partition my drive, which is 120 GB.

Ken
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Post by scorp123 »

kenetics wrote:Thanks. One other question, will there be a /boot for each Linux OS and does Grub reside in the boot?
Each Linux installation has its /boot directory, yes. So this can either just be a sub-directory in each of the root directories of each installation ... or if you really want it super complicated, you could create each /boot for each Linux installation as a separate partition and mount point. The big question is: How are you going to partition your harddisk then so that these things don't get into each other's way ?? (It can be done ... but it's not easy!!) Also, something that you need to think ahead of: The GRUB installation of the last Linux distribution you install is most likely the one that will take control of the Master Boot Record of your harddisk. So when the PC boots, you'll first see the GRUB of the last Linux distribution you installed. All other Linux installations should still be selectable as boot options. Regardless of this, you can still always overwrite the MBR's GRUB with a GRUB from your currently running distribution, regardless in which order it was installed. You'll just have to make sure that the /boot/grub/menu.lst you want to use is right about the various menu entries and that everything is selectable. Basically you can copy and paste the relevant sections of each menu.lst file from one distribution to another (ain't that cool or what?)

My partitioning scheme which I posted in this thread was assuming that one would only have one Linux as the main OS and a Windows installation somewhere (e.g. for the casual game here and there).

With multiple Linux installations things might be slightly more complicated. Let's take a 120 GB disk as basis and let's assume you would install up to three Linux distros on it (e.g. for evaluation purposes). Let's assume we're talking about these fine Linux distributions:
  • - openSuSE 10.2
    - Linux Mint "Bianca"
    - Fedora Core 6
So here we go:
  • /dev/hda1 -- 15 GB openSUSE 10.2, containing everything but /home
    /dev/hda2 -- 15 GB Fedora Core 6, containing everything but /home
    /dev/hda3 -- 15 GB Linux Mint, containing everything but /home
    /dev/hda4 -- extended partition, from here to the end of the HD
    /dev/hda5 -- ca. 75-78 GB shared /home between all three distros (user names could nontheless be different between the three; having the same user name on all three may create new problems eg. with incompatible settings in GNOME and KDE ... with the help of symbolic links stuff like documents, browser settings, etc. could still be shared easily between all three distros and user accounts!) ...Very important: Make sure you only format this partition the first time (e.g. during the installation of the first Linux distro you want to use) and then don't format it in all subsequent installations! :wink: Or else: bye bye oh beloved files, bye bye browser settings, bye bye e-mails ... :wink:
    /dev/hda9 -- swap, whatever is left of the harddisk (e.g. 2 GB)
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Post by kenetics »

¡Muchas gracias!
You answered a whole lot of questions!
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Post by marcus0263 »

You can slice up the drive to how ever fits your needs. For a "Desktop" workstation/home use I usually go this route.

/boot ext2 (128 Meg sufficient unless you have a number of kernels)
/ reiserfs (12 - 15 Gig)
/home reiserfs (rest of the free space)
swap swap (512 Meg sufficient)

If you have a number of large files like video I'd use XFS

Also for security reasons it is HIGHLY recommended not to have /boot mounted for example

/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 1
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Post by scorp123 »

marcus0263 wrote:/ reiserfs (12 - 15 Gig)
I'd stay away from ReiserFS ... It crashed several times on me and took all the data with it to Nirvana. If you want reliability I'd go with ext3 or XFS.
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Post by marcus0263 »

scorp123 wrote:
marcus0263 wrote:/ reiserfs (12 - 15 Gig)
I'd stay away from ReiserFS ... It crashed several times on me and took all the data with it to Nirvana. If you want reliability I'd go with ext3 or XFS.
I've been using Reiser for a few years and have never had a problem, it's pretty stable. SuSE uses it along with a few other distro's as their default FS. Reiser4 has a number of issues, but Reiser3 is pretty solid.
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Post by clem »

Just a quick off-topic question Marcus. In your avatar: is that "tower" in Sydney or Seattle? It reminds me of something I've seen down under.. not to sure though.

Clem
you know those moments when you know you're about to say something obviously stupid ? I feel like that right now.. come on guys finish me :)
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Post by kenetics »

It's the Seattle "Space Needle", built for the Seattle World's Fair in 1962.

It's actually only this big!
Image
I'm sure Marcus will confirm this.
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Post by clem »

ah.. here's the one I was thinking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Tower

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Post by scorp123 »

marcus0263 wrote: I've been using Reiser for a few years and have never had a problem, it's pretty stable.
You were just lucky :wink:
marcus0263 wrote: SuSE uses it along with a few other distro's as their default FS.
I always change it to ext3 or XFS. It was exactly on one of my SUSE servers where I once had a really bad crash. I never quite understood why it happened, it just came out of the blue. That day I lost 500 GB of data. Thank you Hans Reiser ... :evil: And besides: Novell/SUSE have dropped ReiserFS as their default filesystem! If you check their wikis and mailing lists they even advise against using it because of the increasing amount of strange stories where people like me lost gigabytes of data due to ReiserFS doing strange things ...

Thank the Gods I had a backup somewhere that day ... But for me ReiserFS is dead. I've heard other horror stories from other admin colleagues who had a similar bad experience. It appears that if your machine goes beyond a certain workload (as it could happen on a server!!) ReiserFS has the tendency to cripple its filesytems all of sudden. You get I/O read errors, you reboot, hoping that a fsck will fix the problem .... and BLAMMMO! your data is gone.

No thanks. If I wanted to lose data without apparent reason I'd be using Windows. :wink:
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Post by marcus0263 »

clem wrote:Just a quick off-topic question Marcus. In your avatar: is that "tower" in Sydney or Seattle? It reminds me of something I've seen down under.. not to sure though.

Clem
you know those moments when you know you're about to say something obviously stupid ? I feel like that right now.. come on guys finish me :)
That's here in Seattle, actually I took the picture from my Apartment. I have to brag I've got a killer view of the Needle, Puget Sound, Mt. Rainer and the Olympic Mountains. No I'm not rich, I just got very lucky with this Apartment :D
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