From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jan 5 13:44:49 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id NAA13987 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 13:44:49 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA13974 for ; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 13:44:41 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id IAA09546; Wed, 6 Jan 1999 08:13:48 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) id IAA81560; Wed, 6 Jan 1999 08:13:54 +1030 (CST) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 08:13:54 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Mike Meyer Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: max partitions in one slice? Message-ID: <19990106081353.O78349@freebie.lemis.com> References: <19990106075150.N78349@freebie.lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.1i In-Reply-To: ; from Mike Meyer on Tue, Jan 05, 1999 at 01:31:29PM -0800 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tuesday, 5 January 1999 at 13:31:29 -0800, Mike Meyer wrote: > > > On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 07:51:50 +1030 >> From: Greg Lehey >> To: Drew Derbyshire >> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG >> Subject: Re: max partitions in one slice? >> >> On Tuesday, 5 January 1999 at 11:37:24 -0500, Drew Derbyshire wrote: >>> What's the maximum number of partitions (file systems) allowed in one >>> disk slice? >> >> 8 partitions, 7 file systems. That's at least 5 file systems too >> many. > > Hmm - considering that two file systems is at least one two few for a > Unix system, I'm curious as to what you're going to do with those few? > > To justify my statement, and start a discussion of file system > allocation, you want the following (bare miminum): > > 1) OS installed software (/ & /usr) > > 2) Spool area (/var) > > 3) Things that didn't come with the OS (i.e. - your home directory). > > On second thought, if you don't ever spool anything (i.e. - no mail, > no printer, nothing logged, etc.), you can get away without > /var. That's not very likely, though. You haven't said why you think you need separate file systems for all these things. It's perfectly possible to have a UNIX system with only one file system; I have at least one on my network, and that may be too few. In general, there are three possible reasons for having more than one file system: 1. Security. If you break one file system, you still have the other. This was once a serious problem, but nowadays the systems are so reliable that it hardly counts. I've been running BSD for nearly 7 years now, and I've only had one crash (on a BSD/OS root file system, FWIW). Still, this and superstition are the reason that I accept a separate root file system on the system disk. 2. Because they are on different disks. Vinum will solve this problem too. See http://www.lemis.com/vinum.html for more details. 3. Because otherwise it would be too big to make a backup on a single tape. The biggest disadvantage of separate partitions is that it fragments your data space. In this forum we continually see people running out of space, usually on /var, and wanting to know what to do. If they hadn't had a separate /var in the first place, they wouldn't have had the problem. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message