large partition decreases performance?

deNiro · 10-23-2003, 06:18 AM

Hello,

I installed slack 9.1 yesterday.

I've got a question on the partition size. Currently i have 18 GB reserved for /
also have a 1GB swap, and another partition for big data. I have no seperate partitions for /home, or other directories. All partitions are formated with EXT3.

Will a large / partition decrease the overal performance? since only 2.6 GB is used on that partition. Also.. i was thinking of imaging the / partition. But i think when i make a ghost image, that image will be enormous.

Another question is.. would it be better to reinstall, with seperate /home, smaller /, and perhaps other partitions?

i am still thinking of a better backup strategy.. so making a 1 or 2GB /home partition might not be a bad idea.

Perhaps you can give me some answers.

Thanks

slightcrazed · 10-23-2003, 10:55 AM

You shouldn't see much (if any) of a performance difference. EXT3 does not become fragmented (at least not nearly as much as Fat32 or NTFS) so it is no less efficient to have a smaller or larger partition. I DO think you're wasting some space though. Unless you plan to DO something with all of that space (i.e. save all your source trees under /usr/src or something ) then it probably wont get used, at least not if you're like me and save 90% of your stuff in /home.

slight

Azmeen · 10-23-2003, 12:23 PM

Good God... why would you need a gig of swap?

slightcrazed · 10-23-2003, 01:20 PM

Probably following the 2x rule, if you have 512MB of RAM then you need 512X2 for swap.

Although, I rarely if ever hit my swap, and I only have 256MB RAM.

A gig does seem a bit overkill.

slight

spacejunk · 10-23-2003, 01:41 PM

I have a gig of swap, but only to match the gig of RAM the machine has running behind it.

kasperhans · 10-23-2003, 02:43 PM

oh damn i whish i can one day have such a computer

but its soo expensive ...

Streams · 10-23-2003, 04:14 PM

My server has 512MB ECC ram, I only allocated a 100MB for the swap partition, seems to run fine.

deNiro · 10-24-2003, 10:29 AM

Thanks for the tips.

i installed slack again. Becomming real handy in it now

. have made different partitions. 1.2 GB /home, 14 GB /, 25 GB /bigdata, 1 GB swap

Why i am using the 1GB swap? wel, because i read everywhere, and also a poster wrote it, that you have to take twice your memory. and i have 512 mb. Also, i am a multi-tasker.. use 4 desktops.. and fully.. with office aps.. internet apps, multimedia, and..... VMware.. which is a huge memory eater.. (depending on your configs)

i need vmware because for work i have to work a lot with MS access. So winXP install within vmware.

i seperated the /home dir because it's more easy to backup with a linux disc imaging tool, and that will just fit (compressed) on one cd rewritable.