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#1 2013-06-08 13:00:35

kdar
Member
From: Sweet home Alabama!
Registered: 2009-06-27
Posts: 356

How to partition 8GB USB drive?

I will try to install Arch linux on 8GB USB drive used for a DIY NAS which I built. The NAS itself has space for 6 SATA drives, but at the moment I am just using two.

Before I start installing it, I was wondering how should I partition my 8GB drvie....Specifically.. How much should I give to / and to /home?

Since this is going to be for NAS, I will not keep any media in /home.. I will create partitions from disks in NAS and use that for media. But I guess /home will store some configuration files and what not.

Some of the software that I want to install on NAS is some good UPnP (especially the one that will work the best with XBMC client in another room - maybe mediatomb?), a NFS server, a torrent (not sure which one), and mkvmerge..... I might also try to install one of those webGUIs to manage it later.

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#2 2013-06-08 13:02:22

graysky
Wiki Maintainer
From: :wq
Registered: 2008-12-01
Posts: 10,595
Website

Re: How to partition 8GB USB drive?

Why not just make a single partition / to keep it simple?  I have Arch on a usb and have one 250 MB partition for /boot and the rest of the stick for /.

As an aside, running on a USB stick is slow.  You will often saturate the USB bandwidth often waiting 2-3 min for most things in my experience.  For example, updated the system can take 6-8 min.  I understand you're serving file from HDDs, but just be aware that any access to / will be limited to the USB bandwidth.

Last edited by graysky (2013-06-08 13:04:00)


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#3 2013-06-08 13:21:32

kdar
Member
From: Sweet home Alabama!
Registered: 2009-06-27
Posts: 356

Re: How to partition 8GB USB drive?

oh.. well.. actually you are right.
Since I will not keep any potentially important files (that I will afraid to loose), there is no reason to partition it.

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#4 2013-06-08 16:12:22

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: How to partition 8GB USB drive?

I think you should really note Trilby's advice about the speed of running off a USB.  For me, I can use my USB 3.0 and it works pretty well, but anything USB 2.* is going to be painful.  So even if yu are just serving files, you are likely going to end up waiting on the I/O of the USB all the time (and therefore the operating system) which is going to slow things down considerably. 

Also, I agree that since it is just a system you are running that will be serving files, it would seem that the real important data is going to be found on the other disks, so one big partition should be fine.  I don't think you even need a separate /boot if you don't want to, unless of course you are planning on making your rootfs something non-common.


Edit: As noted by Trilby, I meant graysky.  I had another tab open reading something Trilby wrote... whoops.

Last edited by WonderWoofy (2013-06-08 16:33:37)

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#5 2013-06-08 16:17:54

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,447
Website

Re: How to partition 8GB USB drive?

?? You mean GraySky's?  Though I do concur.  I have a couple live usb's I've made.  They're quite handy for many purposes, but I've found them completely unusable for others due to the io lag.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#6 2013-06-08 16:34:21

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: How to partition 8GB USB drive?

Yes, that is waht I meant, sorry Trilby.  I had another tab open and was reading another thread you were participating in.

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