Re: single partition worst-case scenarios

[Andreas Leitner <nozone@sbox.tugraz.at>]

On Tue, 2001-10-23 at 14:03, Adam Warner wrote:
> I like to have two partitions: one for my data (/home) and one for
> everything else (and a third for the swap file, and a physically
> different hard disks for backups). Such a small number of partitions
> might make me a heretic :-)
> 
> There are clear advantages to this setup:
> 
> 1. I can backup/restore the entire operating system partition without
> losing my data.
> 
> 2. I can reformat and reinstall the operating system without losing my
> data.
> 
> If possible it's always a good idea to separate the OS and your data. I
> bet if you had to choose between losing your data or having to reinstall
> your OS you'd go for the latter.
> 
> Your single partition worst-case scenario is if you reinstall/format the
> OS partition forgetting that some of your own data also resides on the
> partition.
> 
> Separating data (along with user settings) and programs is simple in
> Unix-like environments. Symbolic links are your friend.

Yep, the idea is good. But in practice how much space do you give /home
? I hate it when I ran out of disk space, even though there would be
plenty.

If you are talking about dedicated servers, that's another issue, there
you probably know what partition will need how much data. But for my
private workstation, where I like to experiment and shuffle things
around ...

Andreas