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SSD 64GB
HDD1 1TB
HDD2 3TB
Ram 16GB
I've decided to use GPT for all along with UEFI and dual boot Windows 7 64 bit on the HDD.
Since i want Linux as my main system i've was thinking of the following split:
#ssd
/boot 300-500 mb
/ 20GB
/var 15GB #not sure if it's the right place for var but i think the SSD will survive
/home rest of the ssd
#Probably Ext4 for all tho i don't why some choose ext3 for boot, do i need a COW FS?
#No need for swap as far as i can see
#Not sure but do i need to have /usr in a separate partition?
#hdd1
C:\ NTFS 200-300GB
D:\ (/data on linux) NTFS rest of the HDD to be shared as Downloads etc.
#hdd2
Backup Drive - Weekly backup of /Home
I'm also considering pushing /tmp /var/spool /var/tmp and /var/log to Ram(tmpfs).
Since i'm still new at this what do think? I'm planning to run a few vm's and is mainly for personal\code development machine..
There is no 'best' way of partitioning, but for a typical desktop I would suggest the following be mounted on separate partitions:
/
/home
/usr/local (optional)
swap >= the amount of RAM - mainly for hibernation (not double the RAM or anything as wasteful and pointless as that)
There is no real sense in mounting /usr separately, at least not for a typical user's desktop system. /usr/local does make sense as you may have your own software there (software which is not from your distribution's repositories). With a separate /home this can make reinstalls, borked upgrades or whimsical changes of distro less painful (it happens).
I don't have a separate /boot partition and / root is using ext4 - never had any problems there (that's all I can say on that however).
If it's an option for you, I would suggest partitioning the SSD into (e.g.) two and reinstalling windows on that first. Then create your / partition on the other half of the SSD and use the HDDs for all the user data for both OS. You could even make a separate partition for /var on one of the HDDs. Needless to say, swap is also better off being on an HDD.
Just my two cents: what distro are you considering? If you are consider something like Gentoo, your /usr should be large enough. Either keep / large (> 50G) or have separate partition for /usr. But for a typical binary distro your scheme look OK.
'/dev/sda' is a 'SSD' with the hdd in the second bay of my Dell XPS 702XL for Win/7. Be sure to optimize your system for the 'SSD' for the install. Look at this thread: Slackware on an SSD in post #17 & #24 you will find some useful links.
Although I've done it for years when disks were smaller I no longer suggest /usr be a separate partition.
Can you please explain why not?
Quote:
Originally Posted by cynwulf
There is no 'best' way of partitioning, but for a typical desktop I would suggest the following be mounted on separate partitions:
/
/home
/usr/local (optional)
swap >= the amount of RAM - mainly for hibernation (not double the RAM or anything as wasteful and pointless as that)
There is no real sense in mounting /usr separately, at least not for a typical user's desktop system. /usr/local does make sense as you may have your own software there (software which is not from your distribution's repositories). With a separate /home this can make reinstalls, borked upgrades or whimsical changes of distro less painful (it happens).
I don't have a separate /boot partition and / root is using ext4 - never had any problems there (that's all I can say on that however).
If it's an option for you, I would suggest partitioning the SSD into (e.g.) two and reinstalling windows on that first. Then create your / partition on the other half of the SSD and use the HDDs for all the user data for both OS. You could even make a separate partition for /var on one of the HDDs. Needless to say, swap is also better off being on an HDD.
Can't i use suspend rather then hibernate? is there any reason to have swap besides that?
Can i really restore my /usr/local without any issues or should i just give up on splitting /usr at all?
First of all i still need a seperate partition for the ESP but i might be into some encrypting so having a separate /boot is a good idea i think.
I should say that i previously had windows alone on the ssd and 64GB isn't really enough for that beast i ended up splitting my user profile to an HDD and the updates kept coming and coming so windows ate about 35 GB at the end so i'm not really sure if it's a good idea to have 2 OS's sharing that small ssd, unless i'm missing something here???
Quote:
Originally Posted by saivinoba
As suggested already, there is no 'best' way.
Just my two cents: what distro are you considering? If you are consider something like Gentoo, your /usr should be large enough. Either keep / large (> 50G) or have separate partition for /usr. But for a typical binary distro your scheme look OK.
Can you elaborate on this? i was considering Archinux since i had a good experience in the past but Gentoo might be a good option when i'm an experienced linux user..
Quote:
Originally Posted by onebuck
Hi,
Way too much space for '/var'. I configure my system;'/dev/sda' is a 'SSD' with the hdd in the second bay of my Dell XPS 702XL for Win/7. Be sure to optimize your system for the 'SSD' for the install. Look at this thread: Slackware on an SSD in post #17 & #24 you will find some useful links.
Scroll down within this thread to find similar threads that my help.
Hope this helps.
Have fun!
Looking at your scheme i can only say WOW! how do you survive on that? what are you running on that machine? do you do any development or gaming or anything of a large scale sort?
Thanks for the SSD guides i will be reading them for sure
Can't i use suspend rather then hibernate? is there any reason to have swap besides that?
Can i really restore my /usr/local without any issues or should i just give up on splitting /usr at all?
Can you elaborate on this? i was considering Archinux since i had a good experience in the past but Gentoo might be a good option when i'm an experienced linux user..
Most distros are switching to systemd init system and per systemd developer having separate /usr is broken. However, if we have to use separate /usr, we will have to use an initrd (initial ram disk) along with the kernel to boot. You can always google for advantanges/disadvantages of separate /usr. The advise given was to be future proof I guess. Even otherwise, for a home user without any specific requirements, separate /usr is not needed. This avoids complications and keeps things simple.
Wrt large partition size for / (or separate /usr) in Gentoo, I mentioned so because Gentoo is source based distro. We download the source code for all the software we want to install and compile them on our machine. There is an advise in Gentoo circle to keep the downloaded source for future use, so that we don't have to download full source each time we compile/upgrade/downgrade packages. Hence, it's better to have large enough / (or /usr in case of separate partition). Same applies to /var. If we are compiling libre office or such, it is recommended to have atleast 6GB of space on /var/tmp. That's why I suggested a rough figure of 50G for Gentoo installation.
You can speed up your system if you arrange your partitions so that the hard drives and the SSD can run in parallel most of the time. I have 2 hard drives and I have /usr on the second and the rest of Debian on the first. I picked this arrangement because on my system /usr has close to half of my disk activity.
You have a SSD and two hard drives. I suggest that you configure your main system, Linux, so that 1/3 of your disk activity occurs on each of your three drives. Then fill in the rest of your partitions wherever you have space left. Also put your busiest data toward the center of the two hard drives to decrease seek time on those two drives. Where you put the busiest data on the SSD is irrelevant, it can go anywhere on the SSD.
As to putting some files in RAM, I recommend against that. Linux has very efficient buffer pool arrangement. If you select what is placed in RAM then probably the best you can do is to match the Linux efficiency.
You could spread your files over the 3 disks using a small /boot + LVM for the rest.
This would allow you to put /boot on SSD and part/all of / on the SSD and part of /home on the SSD etc...
Looking at your scheme i can only say WOW! how do you survive on that? what are you running on that machine? do you do any development or gaming or anything of a large scale sort?
Thanks for the SSD guides i will be reading them for sure
I use the system for development and my daily workload here at LQ. My intermediate storage is on the servers. I can use my externals for local heavy work. More than enough space on the 'SSD' when properly configured to run a Stable Slackware install. I know loads of users that must have large TB drives. I just purchased my first WD 1TB USB3 external to move stuff around when needed. I usually use 500GB WD hdd in my enclosures. Those are cheap and still reliable for heavy work. All my music, video and large data sets are on the server. I can share when I need too locally over the LAN.
My daily Laptop is a Dell XPS 702xl -i7 with 16GB memory & two bays for storage. One OCZ 120GB SSD and hdd a WD320GB for win/7 plus additional storage. I have tweaked the 'SSD' configuration(s) for performance purposes with Slackware to optimize the system. I am spoiled and prefer 'SSD' for my base systems for optimized configurations. Love my 'SSD' installs and the costs are coming down daily.
Why mess with mechanical when a SSD will fill the void. Do not come back with 'SSD' failures, new designs do not have issues when configured properly. I use the tools afforded to me for my needs.
You could spread your files over the 3 disks using a small /boot + LVM for the rest.
This would allow you to put /boot on SSD and part/all of / on the SSD and part of /home on the SSD etc...
I can't run windows as a VM since i also use the machine for gaming and other things that run much better or even require a physical windows machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by onebuck
Hi,
I use the system for development and my daily workload here at LQ. My intermediate storage is on the servers. I can use my externals for local heavy work. More than enough space on the 'SSD' when properly configured to run a Stable Slackware install. I know loads of users that must have large TB drives. I just purchased my first WD 1TB USB3 external to move stuff around when needed. I usually use 500GB WD hdd in my enclosures. Those are cheap and still reliable for heavy work. All my music, video and large data sets are on the server. I can share when I need too locally over the LAN.
My daily Laptop is a Dell XPS 702xl -i7 with 16GB memory & two bays for storage. One OCZ 120GB SSD and hdd a WD320GB for win/7 plus additional storage. I have tweaked the 'SSD' configuration(s) for performance purposes with Slackware to optimize the system. I am spoiled and prefer 'SSD' for my base systems for optimized configurations. Love my 'SSD' installs and the costs are coming down daily.
Why mess with mechanical when a SSD will fill the void. Do not come back with 'SSD' failures, new designs do not have issues when configured properly. I use the tools afforded to me for my needs.
Thanks for the info
I've decided to go with:
#SSD
1 mega for grub2
/boot +ESP 1GB
/ 20GB
/home what's left of the SSD
and the HDD will be 2 NTFS partitions.
Now the only question is should i install linux then windows or the other way around and should i perform SSD optimization before or after installation.
You can setup the kernel scheduler for one. I like to use 'noop' since a FIFO and you do not need to worry about head latency access. Be sure to setup TRIM for the 'SSD'. Most recent 'SSD' you can setup write back if the 'SSD' controller supports. Look at: #26 & #27 for some useful information on setting up. Another useful thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4586044
You can also do a LQ Search on the topic since I know there are more 'SSD' posts. Just do not mix older & new information for 'SSD' setups as this will cause some unwanted issues. Be sure to check your 'SSd' manufactures information.
Hope this helps.
Have fun!
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