Hi,

I'm adding a new harddrive to my linux system (RH8) (and then will be upgrading to RH9). My existing hd is pretty full.

My question is how to alllocate partitions.

My inclination is to make one big partition, mount it perhaps as /usr2 and then make symbolic links from any directories that I want to move over to the new disk. This might include my html directory, or mysql data files, or backup files in a home/something directory. That way I won't have to worry about reconfiguring other apps as I discover they've broken because their files moved to a different mount point.

Does this make sense?
Is there a performance hit in relying on symbolic links? for things like my html directory (which is only used for local development, not on the internet) and other file server type functions.

TIA

linoj

You should really look into longterm solutions.. making symlinks to me would not be a good idea.

If you have some way of backing up the important data off the first disk, you should either look into LVM and other setups if your needing more space, then add the second disk, reinstall with a proper long term solution to fit your needs.

/usr is for applications on the server/machine.. where is most of your space taken up on the existing machine? Is it /usr, /home, etc?

More details get better replies.

/dev/hda1 45.4 MB /boot 29.6 MB 35.1%
/dev/hda2 4.3 GB /usr 908 MB 79%
/dev/hda5 1.8 GB /home 334 MB 82%
/dev/hda6 372 MB / 246 MB 34%
/dev/hda7 250 MB /var 63.6 MB 75%

The basic problem is /var and /home were running out of space, so I linked to directories on /usr which had plenty (until now).

/home is mostly used to backup desktop systems on the network

presently I have symbolic links setup for

several directories under /var/www/html are linked to ones on /usr

I also linked /var/mysql to a directory on /usr

I've added a new 120 GB drive, so there's plenty of new space.

Also, I'm running RH8, and have the disks for RH9, I plan to upgrade as soon as the disk is setup.

What do you think?

/var is a pseudo type file system, which stands for various.. and mainly log files, files that change all the time, etc.

This is what I would do in your case:

1. Install the new drive.
2. Format and create the filesystem on it. (either creating one big partition or several for each of the below)
3. Move your mysql database to its own directory on it (or create its own partition and mount)
4. Create a fairly large partition for your /home backups or just move home there altogether on its own partition.
5. Move your httpd directory I assume is hosting your webserver over with its own directory or partition that is mounted, etc.
6. Remove your symlinks and redirect your applications/services to point to the newly created directories/mounts, etc.

The one reason I say remove your symlinks is that if one of those partitions fail, it takes down whatever was linked there as well, etc.

thanks, man

the reason I skirted around this is because I don't know how to reconfigure mysql where to look for its files, same with apache for the web files, etc. oh well, it's just time. Any hints?

If I move the /home there with it's own partition, what do with the 'old' /home partition? can I give that space to /var somehow?

linoj

the other consideration is I'm running on a 5 year old system (dual PII) and it's drive is just as old, so I want to put any "live data" on the new disk and nothing critical on the old one, so when (not if) the system dies I can move the disk over to a new box with my work and backups etc.

I believe that once you have successfully moved your /home partition to the new drive you can just change /etc/fstab to mount that partition (/dev/hda5) as /var also, adding that extra space to the exisiting /var partition (/dev/hda7). /var will then just appear as a single directory.