I am getting ready to partition the hard disk in my new computer for 64 bit Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. The hard disk is 1 TB (more than one trillion bytes), and I plan to use EXT3 for all partitions. There will be no Windows or NTFS partitions on this box. I want my /home to be a separate partition.
I have read Rog131's post FAQ: How to Partition, and many of the articles linked from it.
My plan is to use the first three primary partitions for Kubuntu, and make an extended partition in the last primary partition. The extended partition is for future use, as I haven't yet decided what to do with so much space. For simplicity's sake I am not bothering to count every byte, so the math approximate at best. With over one trillion bytes storage, I don't see why I should care whether 1 GB = 2^30 bytes or 10^9 bytes.
Primary 1: / = ? GB
Primary 2: SWAP = ? GB
Primary 3: /home = ? GB
Primary 4: EXTENDED
For "/", I think I can guess the size based on my old system. The old system has 32 bit Kubuntu 8.04.3 Hardy Heron and has been in use about 6 months. The old system has /home in the same partition as "/", so some math is needed to calculate size of "/" without including /home.
Thus I believe the size of "/" is about 5 GB, not including /home. To be safe, I think I should double this to 10 GB for "/' on the new system.
For SWAP, I think a good size is double my physical RAM. Since the new disk has plenty of space I could even allocate more, but would that really be necessary? The new system has 6 GB physical RAM, so the new SWAP should be 12 GB.
For /home, I have some concerns. The old system's /home is about 100 GB, and I find myself running out of space for my videos, pictures, and music. My first inclination is to allocate about half the remaining space for the new /home, which would leave about 500 GB for the EXTENDED partition.
Primary 1: "/" = 10 GB
Primary 2: SWAP = 12 GB
Primary 3: /home = about 500 GB
Primary 3: EXTENDED = about 500 GB
But now I wonder, how large can an EXT3 partition grow before performance degrades? Other filesystems (e.g. FAT32) perform poorly when partition size reaches a certain limit, even though the filesystem may support larger partition sizes.
Possible uses for secondary partitions in the extended partition:
What other considerations are there for partitioning such a large disk? Perhaps "/" or SWAP should be larger? Perhaps /home should be smaller? Am I forgetting anything?
Your thoughts?
I have read Rog131's post FAQ: How to Partition, and many of the articles linked from it.
My plan is to use the first three primary partitions for Kubuntu, and make an extended partition in the last primary partition. The extended partition is for future use, as I haven't yet decided what to do with so much space. For simplicity's sake I am not bothering to count every byte, so the math approximate at best. With over one trillion bytes storage, I don't see why I should care whether 1 GB = 2^30 bytes or 10^9 bytes.
Primary 1: / = ? GB
Primary 2: SWAP = ? GB
Primary 3: /home = ? GB
Primary 4: EXTENDED
For "/", I think I can guess the size based on my old system. The old system has 32 bit Kubuntu 8.04.3 Hardy Heron and has been in use about 6 months. The old system has /home in the same partition as "/", so some math is needed to calculate size of "/" without including /home.
Code:
~$ du -h -s -x / /home/ken/ du: cannot read directory `/etc/cups/ssl': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/etc/ssl/private': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/tmp/ksocket-root': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/root/.gconf': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/root/.kde': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/root/.config': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/root/.gconfd': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/root/.mozilla': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/root/.emacs.d/auto-save-list': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/root/.aptitude': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/tmp/kdecache-jan': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/tmp/kdecache-root': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/spool/cups': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/spool/cron/atjobs': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/spool/cron/atspool': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/spool/cron/crontabs': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/games/falconseye': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/cache/ldconfig': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/log/samba/cores': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/var/lib/PolicyKit': Permission denied du: cannot read directory `/lost+found': Permission denied 76G / 71G /home/ken/ $ echo $((76 - 71)) 5
For SWAP, I think a good size is double my physical RAM. Since the new disk has plenty of space I could even allocate more, but would that really be necessary? The new system has 6 GB physical RAM, so the new SWAP should be 12 GB.
For /home, I have some concerns. The old system's /home is about 100 GB, and I find myself running out of space for my videos, pictures, and music. My first inclination is to allocate about half the remaining space for the new /home, which would leave about 500 GB for the EXTENDED partition.
Primary 1: "/" = 10 GB
Primary 2: SWAP = 12 GB
Primary 3: /home = about 500 GB
Primary 3: EXTENDED = about 500 GB
But now I wonder, how large can an EXT3 partition grow before performance degrades? Other filesystems (e.g. FAT32) perform poorly when partition size reaches a certain limit, even though the filesystem may support larger partition sizes.
Possible uses for secondary partitions in the extended partition:
- media for DVD and CD ISOs (would be quite large)
- torrents for preventing fragmentation in /home caused by torrent activity
- 2burn for things waiting to be burned to optical disc
What other considerations are there for partitioning such a large disk? Perhaps "/" or SWAP should be larger? Perhaps /home should be smaller? Am I forgetting anything?
Your thoughts?
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