Hi, I'm installing Ubuntu server on a server with 3 Tb of space. It will be used to run ResourceSpace Digital Asset Management, on a LAMP stack. I would like to have the server set up so that the data sits on a volume separate from critical operating system files, in case it ever fills up. I'm tempted to just put /var on its own volume, so that both mysql and the www root (where the data will be stored by default)are on that volume, but that's only because it looks easy to do during operating system installation.

I would appreciate any feedback on what is considered the best way to do this. Is it better to create a separate volume for the /home directory and just use a symbolic link for the data I want to store in that separate volume? Would it be better still to just create a partition called /Data, and put it there, in the hope that future admins might easily make sense of the setup?


Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

Define what you mean by "volume". 3T is nothing these days - just a USB portable disk.
Best might be LVM - then you don't have to pay for any inappropriate initial sins. Even if you have separate physical volumes, LVM is probably your best choice by some margin.

Yes, I do mean LVM. All 3T will be in 1 partition. Is there a common convention for doing what I'm looking to do (Running a LAMP based application that will hold significant amounts of data)?

Thanks,
Kevin

You simply define two distinct physical storage pools and assign disk drives to each one as you see fit. Then, allocate the logical volumes corresponding to each mount-point so that they initially draw from separate pools. (You can change this decision at any time in the future, drawing from more-than-one pool if need be.)

That much I understand.
My only question is: Is there a common practice for where to put the data files for a web application that runs on a LAMP stack, so that it can grow indefinitely, and not crash the system if the volume is full?

LVM is what you need.
It will grow indefinitely, giving you room to adapt the machine to your future needs.

I don't know about "common practice", but I simply figure out where the (most) data is going to be held, and hive that off to a separate partition/lv. Add it to fstab. Done.
"Best practice" seem to be an amorphous concept - some new-beaut theory gets proposed, and "best practice" morphs to suit. What was once accepted by the crowd becomes passe. I just follow what seems sensible.