Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

BurningFury · 2009-10-01 15:04:12

So, here it is. Time to take the plunge and install Arch *drum roll*

However, I'm having a bit of a hard time deciding how to structure my HD.
I have 1TB of space, and for sure I don't want to use the whole disc to install Arch,
so I'll have to partition it.

Currently I thought of breaking down the disk into 4 partitions: 1 200GB partition that will host Arch, and 2 300GB partitions to host files,
and 1 200GB for disk backups, because we know that things can go wrong from time to time.

Now, it would be very insightful if you guys could post your partition set up.
How do you guys have it set up?
How much space should I give to root, or /usr for that matter?
Should they be in a different partition all together? Primary or Logical, Extended?
How about swap? I have 8GB of Ram! So was thinking of making a 2GB swap partition! *just for extra performance *
Even more interesting is what file system to choose, for each partition.
Was thinking of making the 2 300GB partitions into ext4, but as of now, I don't trust it, so will have to make them ext3.
And my main partition would probably contain ext3, ReiserFS (swap), and what not.

Questions, questions, questions... for the record I did a lot of research about this in the forums,
but mostly found problems about a hard drive going dead, or Gparted deleting a partition, etc, etc.

As always, suggestions are welcomed.

spiky25 · 2009-10-01 15:50:50

Dell inspiron 1501 Windows xp sp3/Archlinux x64
80 Gb sata hard drive setup :

Windows xp 10Gb (minimal - just in case I need it)
Linux-swap 2Gb (same as my ram just in case - not used at all)
/boot ext2 100Mb (don't need journalizing cause never changed - hold grub for my dualboot)
/ ext4 10Gb (ext4 for speed - I backup my stuff in /home if needed)
/home ext3 57Gb (ext3 to be read on windows - I use mostly linux)

Last edited by spiky25 (2009-10-01 15:55:02)

Shodan · 2009-10-01 16:00:13

Archlinux and WindowsXp on 500GB and 400GB harddrives.
Got 4GB RAM, so no swap. /var on separate because I rarely delete packages.

sda1 10.0GB / ext4 (37% used)
sda2 10.0GB /var ext4 (25% used)
sda3 10.0GB /home ext4 (10% used)
sda4 430GB /mnt/data ext4 (9% used)

sdb1 100GB Windows ntfs (45% used)
sdb2 270GB /mnt/stuff ext4 (66% used)

Last edited by Shodan (2009-10-01 16:08:04)

litemotiv · 2009-10-01 16:11:43

Clean and simple:

SSD (30GB)

/dev/sda1   /       (5GB JFS)
/dev/sda2   /home   (25GB JFS)

Last edited by litemotiv (2009-10-01 16:12:12)

m_ad · 2009-10-01 16:29:18

I just installed Arch and had the same questions AFTER I installed. I have a /, /boot and /home partition, which I _think_ should be good for me.

For a regular desktop user, what is the advantage of splitting up your filesystem more than that?

sHyLoCk · 2009-10-01 16:31:24

m_ad wrote:

I just installed Arch and had the same questions AFTER I installed. I have a /, /boot and /home partition, which I _think_ should be good for me.
For a regular desktop user, what is the advantage of splitting up your filesystem more than that?

Agreed. I just use / and swap partition.

Gen2ly · 2009-10-01 16:34:12

clean and simple too:

Model: ATA WDC WD3200AAJS-2 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  10.7GB  10.7GB  primary   ntfs                Windows Rescue
 2      10.7GB  116GB   106GB   primary   ntfs         boot   Windows Vista
 3      116GB   260GB   143GB   primary   ext3                Arch
 4      260GB   320GB   60.3GB  extended
 5      260GB   260GB   49.3MB  logical   ext2                Pardus /boot
 6      260GB   320GB   60.2GB  logical   ext3                Pardus /

stefanwilkens · 2009-10-01 16:40:13

As soon as I find the space, I'm converting that last HPFS partition to EXT4, if anybody knows a lossless way please let me know

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb7e61057

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux (/boot)
/dev/sda2              14        5113    40965750   83  Linux (/)
/dev/sda3            5114       30149   201101670   83  Linux (/media/data)
/dev/sda4           30150       30401     2024190   82  Linux swap / Solaris (swap)

Disk /dev/sdb: 400.1 GB, 400088457216 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 48641 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xad99fb77

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1       47257   379591821    7  HPFS/NTFS (/media/data2)
/dev/sdb2           47258       48641    11116980    7  HPFS/NTFS (/media/XP)

Last edited by stefanwilkens (2009-10-01 16:40:44)

brando56894 · 2009-10-01 21:10:56

Mine is pretty simple also since I tend to reinstall arch about every 1-3 months due to me testing something out and screwing up the install or just to test new releases of Chakra. I have a total of a terrabyte. 1 WD 150GB Raptor for OSes, 2x WD 500GB drives for tv shows, movies and random stuff.

/dev/sda1 is my windows 7 install and its about 50 or so gb (im not at my home pc right now)
/dev/sda2 is my chakra install which is ext4 (its definitely faster then jfs, which i was using before the ironed out the ext4 bugs) and is about 20gb

/dev/sdb1 is for all of my tv shows and is ntfs
/dev/sdc1 is for movies and all other random stuff such as documents,downloads, etc...

ive tried the multiple partitoning scheme and didnt really seem to notice a difference in performance so i ditched it.

Mardoct · 2009-10-01 21:14:24

Disk Drive: /dev/sda
Size: 250058268160 bytes, 250.0 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 30401

Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
] sda1 Boot Primary NTFS [ 115343.11
sda2 Boot Primary Linux ext2 98.71
sda3 Primary Linux swap / Solaris 4614.39
sda5 Logical Linux ext3 130000.56

BurningFury · 2009-10-02 05:22:48

Nice info.

I understand that everyone's set up is different, due to different needs.

For what I can see, the partitions which allocate the OS are rather small in comparison (10GB or more for a OS).
But they tend to be rather large for file storage and the likes (20GB+ for file storage).

In the end I guess it comes down to what you're going to use your system for:
- If you are big on performance then allocate more room for /root and other stuff.
- If you are big on storing files, then allocate more room for /home and external partitions.

Thanks for the good info. Will look into it.

Last edited by BurningFury (2009-10-02 05:23:14)

chender · 2009-10-02 06:00:36

sda3 for filesystem
sda4 for home

Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 17 136552 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 18 336 2562367+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 337 2886 20482875 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 2887 12161 74501437+ 83 Linux

zowki · 2009-10-02 07:48:04

/dev/sda1 / 18GB
/dev/sda2 swap 2GB
/dev/sda3 Windows XP 60GB

I have 2GB of RAM so I never need swap but I still have it for the purpose of sleep mode and hibernation.
I need Windows XP for iTunes. It has all my music and videos on it so it has the largest partition.

vacant · 2009-10-02 08:28:11

I only use two partitions on a day to day basis:

/dev/sda3 / is 10GB, for years this has been around 60-70% full (includes around 1GB current packages in cache)
/dev/sda4 is 60GB encrypted. Although mounted as /home as well as my user directory, I also keep directories for "multimedia", "distros" (iso img) and "archives", and a 1GB swap file under it

The others I sometimes boot: sda1 Vista 40GB, or sda2 test 5GB.

ezzetabi · 2009-10-02 08:53:29

/boot 150MB
/ 20GB
/home the rest

inside /home there are two files: /home/tmpfs and /home/swapfs that I mount via loop as /tmp and swap.

fukawi2 · 2009-10-02 09:27:35

If I was you:

/dev/sda1  32mb  /boot
/dev/sda2  4gb   <swap>
/dev/sda3  <rest>  LVM

/dev/vgData/root   20G  /
/dev/vgData/home   <enough to hold all your current data>

Leave the rest of the LVM free to create new volumes or resize existing ones as you need them

FWIW:

fukawi2@Phil-Desktop ~  $ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vgSys-root
                      9.9G  4.4G  5.1G  47% /
none                  502M  268K  501M   1% /dev
none                  502M     0  502M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/md1              107M   14M   88M  14% /boot
/dev/mapper/vgData-home
                      200G  131G   70G  66% /home
/dev/mapper/vgSys-var
                      4.0G  2.1G  2.0G  51% /var
/dev/mapper/vgData-archive
                      9.9G  4.3G  5.2G  46% /mnt/archive
/dev/mapper/vgData-torrents
                       30G   13G   16G  44% /media/Torrents
kangaroo.fukawi2.local:/srv/BackupData
                      446G  280G  167G  63% /mnt/Backup
kangaroo.fukawi2.local:/home/fukawi2
                       20G  2.4G   18G  13% /home/fukawi2/kangaroo
//kangaroo.fukawi2.local/scratch
                      446G  280G  167G  63% /media/scratch
//kangaroo.fukawi2.local/shared
                      446G  280G  167G  63% /media/shared
//koala.fukawi2.local/Volume_1
                      931G  112G  819G  13% /media/NAS
/dev/mapper/vgData-music
                       40G   29G  8.8G  77% /mnt/music
fukawi2@Phil-Desktop ~  $ mount
/dev/mapper/vgSys-root on / type ext4 (rw)
none on /dev type tmpfs (rw,relatime,mode=755)
none on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/md1 on /boot type ext2 (rw)
/dev/mapper/vgData-home on /home type jfs (rw)
/dev/mapper/vgSys-var on /var type reiserfs (rw)
/dev/mapper/vgData-archive on /mnt/archive type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/vgData-torrents on /media/Torrents type ext4 (rw)
kangaroo.fukawi2.local:/srv/BackupData on /mnt/Backup type nfs (rw,soft,addr=192.168.235.201)
kangaroo.fukawi2.local:/home/fukawi2 on /home/fukawi2/kangaroo type nfs (rw,soft,addr=192.168.235.201)
//kangaroo.fukawi2.local/scratch on /media/scratch type cifs (rw,mand)
//kangaroo.fukawi2.local/shared on /media/shared type cifs (rw,mand)
//koala.fukawi2.local/Volume_1 on /media/NAS type cifs (rw,mand)
/dev/mapper/vgData-music on /mnt/music type ext4 (rw)

Berticus · 2009-10-02 09:33:32

All in MB:
/boot - 65.81
/ - 30721.43
swap - 509.97
LVM - 1719058.86
/common - 1657618.86
/home - 61440

kinda wish I had my old partition scheme, which put both /usr and /opt in the LVM. Now I'm sort of afraid I'll run out of room in both.

brazzmonkey · 2009-10-02 11:15:57

general setup for desktop
/boot
swap
/
/home

+ for server
/var

BurningFury · 2009-10-02 17:49:33

Great stuff indeed.

I noticed that some people give /var a separate partition, perhaps for Game Severs?

Also, would I run into problems if I have my file systems diverse?
Let's say I have ext3 for /root, ReiserFS for swap, ext4 for /home, etc?

Just making sure that I won't lose data. I know ext4 is great, but don't trust it as of now, since it's too new.

zen3 · 2009-10-02 17:54:12

litemotiv wrote:

Clean and simple:

SSD (30GB)

/dev/sda1   /       (5GB JFS)
/dev/sda2   /home   (25GB JFS)

JFS?
I think JFS is only usable if you use many ports/small tarballs and small sized files, in general.

My Setup:

WD HDD (320GB)

/dev/sda2 /boot (150MB)
/dev/sda4 /home (250GB)
/dev/sda3 / (15GB)

I have 2GB of ram, but no swap.

Last edited by zen3 (2009-10-02 18:28:22)

Misfit138 · 2009-10-02 18:35:16

zen3 wrote:

JFS?
I think JFS is only usable if you use many ports/small tarballs and small sized files, in general.

Nope. JFS is an excellent filesystem with great all-around performance..you may be confusing it with ReiserFSv3..

steve_v · 2009-10-03 01:55:39

Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x744f46a4

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4849 38949561 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 4981 7470 20000925 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda3 7471 24321 135355657+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 4850 4980 1052257+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.0 GB, 999984988160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121574 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000bb2ee

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 121574 976543123+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hde: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa8d7a8d7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hde2 1 9729 78148161 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdg: 80.0 GB, 80000000000 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 155009 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x92c4d5f7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdg1 1 155009 78124504+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdh: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 155061 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x04f704f7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdh1 1 155009 78124504+ 83 Linux

Allan · 2009-10-03 02:05:36

My laptop hard-drive is not that big...

/dev/sda1, 122M, /boot, ext2
/dev/sda2, 9.3G, /, ext3
/dev/sda3 3.7G, swap
/dev/sda4, 98G, /home, ext3

BurningFury · 2009-10-03 04:48:20

So I decided on how to partition my drive.

Is as it follows:

4 Partitions:

1 = 200GB for Linux of course.
(Out of those 200GB =
15GB for /
150MB for /boot
2GB for swap *even though it's not needed since I have 8GB of Ram, but just to be safe*
Rest for /home)

2 = 2 300GB Partitions for storing files and the likes.

3= 1 200GB Partition for back ups and disk cloning.

That would do I think ^^

mikesd · 2009-10-03 07:04:37

/dev/sda1 - 2 GB - Swap
/dev/sda2 - 120 GB - Spare
/dev/sda3 - 120 GB - Arch Linux

Pretty simple. I have two main partitions. I use one as my primary root file system. The other one I use for trying out new filesystems or distributions. At the moment it is formatted as a secure file system using luks. In the past it has also been formatted as ZFS and BTRFS. When I want to try a new distribution I install it to the spare partition and update GRUB. That way I can just switch back if needed.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-01 15:04:12

Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#2 2009-10-01 15:50:50

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#3 2009-10-01 16:00:13

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#4 2009-10-01 16:11:43

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#5 2009-10-01 16:29:18

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#6 2009-10-01 16:31:24

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#7 2009-10-01 16:34:12

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#8 2009-10-01 16:40:13

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#9 2009-10-01 21:10:56

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#10 2009-10-01 21:14:24

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#11 2009-10-02 05:22:48

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#12 2009-10-02 06:00:36

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#13 2009-10-02 07:48:04

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#14 2009-10-02 08:28:11

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#15 2009-10-02 08:53:29

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#16 2009-10-02 09:27:35

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#17 2009-10-02 09:33:32

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#18 2009-10-02 11:15:57

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#19 2009-10-02 17:49:33

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#20 2009-10-02 17:54:12

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#21 2009-10-02 18:35:16

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#22 2009-10-03 01:55:39

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#23 2009-10-03 02:05:36

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#24 2009-10-03 04:48:20

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

#25 2009-10-03 07:04:37

Re: Can you post your partitioning set up, just for reference. Please?

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