Forumites,
My main disk is a 40GB SATA hard drive, currently loaded with PCLinuxOS and all my data. I've been trying to set up dual boot scenarios with my external 160GB USB hard drive for over a week, as some of you know. That's proving to be difficult, so I'm concocting backup plans to make sure I get my money's worth.
Yes, I would have gotten a second SATA drive if there was room in my computer, however it is a "compact" model
Backup idea #1: use the USB for backup and "overflow" of data; unlikely to need it for this, since the most storage-intensive stuff I have is photos of the baby; slice up my SATA drive at will and have a place to protect my data.
Backup idea #2: transfer my /home and /usr directories to the USB drive, repartition, install other OSs on the SATA drive and have all my data on the USB. Then switch the mount points so the chosen USB partitions are on /home and /usr. Basically the SATA drive becomes the "OS disk" and the USB becomes the "data disk." As long as they still use Linux filesystems, I could even use the same /home and /usr across multiple OSs (e.g., PCLinuxOS and Slackware, plus an "experimental" partition for messing with window managers and other stuff).
Does anybody have this setup? Does anyone foresee any problems with it? Isn't that the beauty of UNIX, being able to mount whatever devices wherever you need them? Like I said, my most storage-intensive things are (a) MP3s and (b) photos.
A third setup would be to backup my data once, repartition and install new OSs, then move my /home directory back to where it was on the main drive. This seems to actually involve more work.
Joel
