Partitioning for server

barton · 03-25-2006, 09:05 PM

So I'm in the early stages of setup a homebrew fileserver/backup server.
In it will be two harddrives:
hda (80gigs)
hdg (160gigs)

I will be using Slackware 10.2 as my distro of choice.

My question is how should partition this harddrive space?
Where should the different partitions be mounted?
I would appreciate you could be specific.

Like:
/
/boot
/home
/bin
/tmp
....

I have no idea on how to approach this situation.

If my anything I'm saying sounds vague please do NOT hesitate to ask.

barton · 03-25-2006, 09:24 PM

I did some digging and came up with a rough sketch. What do you think?

/
/home
/usr
/var
/tmp
swap

These were the six partitions I am considering doing.
Any suggestions? How much space should I allocate to each?

Here is one idea.

1gig swap hda1
39gig / hda2
160gig /home hdg1
20gig /usr hda3
5gig /var hda4
5gig /tmp hda5

How does this sound?

mdarby · 03-25-2006, 09:31 PM

If it will only be serving files and storing archives, I would do as follows:

/boot: 50M
/usr: 1G
/var: 1G
/: 2G
/mnt/backup: 130G
/mnt/files: 100G

As a comparison, my office fileserver / domain controller is as follows:

Code:

Disk usage :
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2             1.9G   85M  1.8G   5% /
/dev/sda1              46M  7.1M   37M  17% /boot
/dev/sda3             1.4G  116M  1.3G   9% /var
/dev/sda5             1.4G  767M  662M  54% /usr
/dev/sdb1              35G   15G   20G  43% /home
/dev/sdc2              38G   19G   19G  51% /mnt/smb
/dev/sdd1             280G  168G  112G  61% /mnt/data1
/dev/sdc1              75G  2.1M   75G   1% /mnt/blank1
/dev/sdc3              38G  272K   38G   1% /mnt/blank2
/dev/sdf1             234G  170G   65G  73% /mnt/data2

This machine serves 50+ users and ten years of business data.

phil.d.g · 03-26-2006, 06:05 AM

If your putting /usr on a separate partition then there is no need to have so much space for /. Maybe 512 megs for /.

Depending on what software you are going to install a gig for /usr may be a bit short, and 20 gig is way over the top. I also like to put /tmp on a separate partition.

Your swap space could also be reduced to 512 megs.

Remember the less space you waste in things like /usr, / the more you have for backups and future ideas. You don't have to use all of the space now, leave some unpartitioned space left on the drive if you don't need it - it'll give more flexibility for the future.

Anyhow, for the sake of interest:

Code:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1             283M  137M  146M  49% /
/dev/hda5             283M   33M  251M  12% /tmp
/dev/hda6             2.0G   58M  1.9G   3% /var
/dev/hda7             7.7G  1.9G  5.8G  25% /usr
/dev/hda8              20G  1.1G   19G   6% /home
/dev/hdb1             154G  105G   49G  69% /disk1

When I first built the server I didn't know exactly what I wanted it to do, so I left loadsa room for /usr. It servers about 6 people, though only one has an account, the others have access to the public (within local network only of course) smb file shares only. hda is 60 gigs, the difference between that and adding up all the partitions on hda on the table is unpartitioned, so when I need a new partition for some project I don't have to reorganize the whole drive and reinstall