Re: Full-screen ed Now: partitions
On 31 Jul 2002, Ron Johnson wrote:
> Dumb question: in this era of HUGE drives, why put /usr on a
> separate partition? I've only got:
> / - used 3GB
> /boot - used 6MB
> /home - used 2GB
> /var - used 5GB
> /usr/local/data - used 32GB (where all big data files go).
>
> Putting /usr in a separate partition, IMO, is a relic from when
> a 250MB drive was considered huge.
I disagree.
For single user systems this is often of little import.
For larger systems it is about user control, damage containment,
and administrative ease.
/usr may be a read-only filesystem.
A runaway program may only fill one filesystem.
A small root partition is less likely to be struck by badness.
This seems old-fashioned as drive reliability has improved. But
when the drive suddenly starts to wobble and uptime shrinks
dramatically, it may seem a prudent thing to have.
A /tmp partition gives a size to a userland playground and keeps
such play separate. Some sites with small disk quotas for users
encourage users to use /tmp when they need space for a build or
whatever.
Differing backup needs can be contained in different partitions. My
/pub partition has stuff that I could get off the internet again,
the backup policy is very slack. My /local partition is locally
generated stuff and foreign stuff that would be difficult to reimport,
it has a more rigorous backup scheldule.
rob Live the dream.
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