[CONFIGURATION] Suggestions for setting up Data/Backup disk

[SpecialEd]

I have a 500GB SSD as my main drive, and a 1TB HDD in a CD caddy that I want to use for Data and backup purposes. Should I do anything special with formatting/partitioning? You can see my SSD setup below. I am considering setting aside about 100GB for distro testing.

Thanks,

[jglen490]

I wouldn't use my backup storage unit as a current data store, also.

[SpecialEd]

I wouldn't use my backup storage unit as a current data store, also.

It would only be one level. I have several external, USB hard drives also.

[vinnywright]

the btrfs file system ,,,,,,,,,,,you would not half to "set aside" any space for extra installs ,,,,,,,you can install multiple OS's on the 1 file system in the form of sub volumes with all drive space available to whatever is on it .

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

I wouldn't use my backup storage unit as a current data store, also.

I can't think of any issues that would be caused by this.

Whether or not you use btrfs as Vinny suggests would depend on whether or not you're comfortable with using btrfs and whether or not you're considering switching your boot drive to btrfs. If you are, it's a no-brainer - format btrfs on the backup drive then you can use the amazing btrfs send|receive feature to make backups. The benefit that Vinny refers to - subvolumes - allows you to segregate data without partitioning by using subvolumes instead. This feature keeps all free space in a single location and available to all subvolumes. When you partition, you have to divvy up free space and make a guess as to how much you need here vs. there. Guess wrong and you'll be re-partitioning down the road. A process that's arguably the most dangerous thing we do to hard drives.

The one point no one else has brought up is MBR (Master Boot Record) vs. GPT (GUID Partition Table) partitioning. I noticed your current drive is MBR. There are several advantages to using GPT partitioning, the foremost of which is a full partition table backup is one the disk in case the primary one gets damaged. In the old days, I manually made backups of my MBR partition tables (and had to use one once or twice). Not anymore. The only caveat is if you plan on booting (or being able to boot) to the GPT disk using GRUB. If so, you need to prepare a small partition for GRUB to use as GPT doesn't automatically reserve space for it. Other than that, the user interaction required for GPT vs. MBR is identical - no more or less complicated.