I have a PC on which I want to Install Linux (Fedora ??) as a file server and I would like some advice on how to partition my hard disk drives. This would be a stand alone Linux system. (no dual boot).

This PC has two 80 GB HDDs.

I have searched numerous websites for advice and most seem focused on partitioning in order to coexist with another OS, or to fit in as small a space as possible.

As I recall, from my days past in a Linux Users Group, there were some limitations on the sizes of certain partitions, and also that if you separated certain partitions from others, then backup/recovery would be much more efficient??

It seems from all that I have read, that /boot and /root should go on hda,
and that /swap and /user and /home should go on hdb.

Also, possibly putting /var on hdb, but this is why I would like some advice.

Do any of these partitions, other than swap, have any sort of maximum size restrictions?

To my knowledge, there are no reasonable restrictions within the bounds of two 80 gig hds. Though, you don't want to waste space with ridiculously large partitions for folders such as /boot (if I recall correctly should be 32-64mb only).

I have never tried to over complicate things so I have a root paritiontion, a swap, and another partition just for files.

What I would do in your direction is, make a swap (sized based on how much RAM you already have), a root, and a /home. If you want to go extra cautious, you can add /boot (as I had done before with Gentoo).

I think that making too many partitions is tedious and that you can run into problems such as too little space or wasted space since your partitions are only used for single purposes and maybe over or underestimated in size needed.

Again:
/(root), swap, /home
or /, /boot, swap, /home

sound reasonable.

I wish I read that earlier. Maybe for security reasons, someone may recommend another way to partition your harddisk for the purposes of a file server.

Well, I can tell you how I think you should do it, but you know what they say about opinions

/ and /boot can (and likely should) be mounted read only unless you're actively engaged in something that requires changes to them. /boot can additionally have no-exec if you like. /usr can (and again likely should) be mounted read only as well, as there shouldn't be a need to change anything on it once the box is installed (other than updates, but since you'll most likely be interactive with the machine at that point, mount it rw when you're doing that).

Note that /home is 2GB. With a file server (assuming no shell logins) that's probably too much, and you might not need a separate partition at all.

Also, if you're not going to have a bunch of stuff cluttering up /opt, you can go with an even smaller /.

/var should just have log files, so 2GB should be more than enough.

1xRAM means "How much ram you have". So for 512M, swap would be 512M (though you'll probably *never* use that much).

Use the rest of the space for your file serving. THe stuff about /usr and swap being on seperate disks (hda/hdb) and all that is pretty pointless. IDE isn't going to win any races, regardless of how you bust up the partitioning (especially when you break up the FS over two disks on the same cable ...). The reasons to partition wisely are many, but a good one is so that if one FS gets corrupted, it (hopefully) doesn't screw up the whole machine while it's at it. It also makes it easier to change things around and add/remove disks later.

See man hier for more info (I think Linux still has a hier(7) page ...)

Edit: In case it's not obvious, /fserve1 and /fserve2 are intended to use whatever space is available and be used to store the files you're going to serve. They should probably be no-exec, and maybe read only, but I don't know the specifics of your situation.