From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 11 15:13:31 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 84C4116A4CE for ; Wed, 11 May 2005 15:13:31 +0000 (GMT) Received: from out1.smtp.messagingengine.com (out1.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.25]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 17EB043D67 for ; Wed, 11 May 2005 15:13:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from d@donnacha.com) Received: from frontend3.messagingengine.com (frontend3.internal [10.202.2.152]) by frontend1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 860C9C8E39A for ; Wed, 11 May 2005 11:13:29 -0400 (EDT) X-Sasl-enc: yInlV3t7Xfm8yAbg/uxbFZdRt/iXSvSJ34oRW+8nrnm2 1115824409 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (82-41-213-217.cable.ubr12.edin.blueyonder.co.uk [82.41.213.217]) by frontend3.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E0D084 for ; Wed, 11 May 2005 11:13:29 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <42822285.9050402@donnacha.com> Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 16:19:33 +0100 From: freebsd.org@donnacha.com User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: I need further HDD advice before submitting order. X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 15:13:31 -0000 Hi again, I posted a question here last week, asking for advice on how I should ask my datacenter to divide up the HDDs in my new server. Thank you to everyone who responded. I have tried to understand all the advice given and, since then, have tried to get myself up to speed by reading the relevant sections in The Complete FreeBSD, FreeBSD Unleashed, Absolute BSD and Teach Yourself FreeBSD in 24 Hours (it didn't). I understand a little more than I did but am still unsure as to how I should divide the HDDs and would very much appreciate reactions to my current proposal. ---------- Server purpose: Initially just forums, later sundry other Web apps i.e. ecommerce, ticket bookings etc. Will possibly become a heavy-duty email server at some stage. 2GB RAM 80GB HDD IDE: / = 1GB /usr = 15GB /local = 15GB Swap = 4GB Unallocated = 40GB 200GB HDD IDE: /tmp = 2GB (is that enough?) /home = 28GB /var = 100GB (will inclube the forum databases etc) Unallocated = 70GB I'll be asking them to put the both disks in dangerously dedicated mode, with each on a different IDE bus. ---------- Is it a good idea leaving so much unallocated space? My research suggests that this may be useful for moving directories around or giving specific subdirectories their own partition at a later date when I have a better idea of usage, does that sound right? The only problem about creating partitions at a later date is that I will have command line access only, I'm not even sure if I can create partitions at a later date, I think that for sysinstall I might actually have to be there. Can anyone advise me on this? Swap: As the second disk will have the presumably quite busy /tmp and /var, placing all the swap on this the first disk, rather than shared between both, could help to balance the load a bit (thanks to Henry Miller for that suggestion). With 2GB of RAM, I'm hoping the Swap won't be needed very often anyway; if it is, I may simply add more memory. I decided not to use GPT because, although it sounds great, it seems a little complicated for a newbie like me. Apologies for seeking your help once again, I just need to get this straight before submitting the order, I would be very grateful for any and all advice. Thanks, Donnacha