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promitheas

Member

Registered: 2019-02-24

Posts: 40

[SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

Hello everyone.

I just built a new PC yesterday and am trying to install Arch on the 2TB nvme drive which will be my main one. Currently I only have 8GB of RAM because I am still waiting for my 4x32GB sticks to arrive (relevant info for swap partition question later). I plan on mainly using this Arch install, and having a small 240GB SSD with windows for those situations where I absolutely need it. So linux and windows will be installed on separate drives. Will I need to follow the steps for dualbooting in the arch wiki installation guide, or do I just need to add the windows SSD to my grub after installing windows on it?

So now for the main question: How do you guys recommend I set up my partitions if I plan on having quite a few games installed at a time, along with other software?

I know that I want separate root and home partitions.

I'm thinking:

• 1GB for /boot (might want to play around with multiple kernels)

• 200GB for /

• Not sure about how much for the swap partition (with hibernation)

• Rest for /home

I read in this fedora article that for over 64GB of ram with hibernation the recommended swap size is 4GB. Do I not need to scale it up? Elsewhere I read that it's supposed to be RAM+2GB so I'm unsure which information is correct. Currently I only have 8GB but any day now the 128GB sticks I ordered will be arriving. Is it possible/easy to increase swap size if I need it?

I have the space on this drive so even if 200GB is too much for the / partition, what would be your recommendation (again, keeping in mind that I plan on having quite a few games installed at a time)? Almost everything I'm reading suggests 20-50, but I have a feeling it wont be enough.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Last edited by promitheas (2023-07-03 23:03:24)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Zram#U … -generator

You might want to skip a swap and just use some of the 128GB as compressed swap.  I use the the zram-generator and enable it by the kernel boot option "systemd.zram".  No other config than that and it works faster than a drive and doesn't wear your drives.  You have plenty of memory to spare.  You won't have hibernation support without a drive swap area though so there is a trade-off.

promitheas

Member

Registered: 2019-02-24

Posts: 40

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

I need to be able to hibernate unfortunately. Do you mean that I wouldn't be able to have a 4GB swap partition and would need to go for 130GB?

Also, do you have any advice for the root partition size? Thanks

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

I need to be able to hibernate unfortunately. Do you mean that I wouldn't be able to have a 4GB swap partition and would need to go for 130GB?

Also, do you have any advice for the root partition size? Thanks

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_ … ibernation
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Btrfs

The wiki should detail all you need for hibernation.

Since it's all on the same underlying drive then you shouldn't need much.  /boot has to be separate for startup, but then / could be the rest of the drive.  Filesystem also matters and before you go ahead and install everything you might want to consider if you'd use something like btrfs which has lots of advanced features.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

And I'm ext4 for for my partitions, I believe that "not losing your data" is a feature of ext4 because it is a very mature file-system.

promitheas

Member

Registered: 2019-02-24

Posts: 40

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

Both articles you sent were very helpful, and regarding btrfs I decided to not use it and stick with what I know + what is well tested. Also, I watched some videos on it, and while the subvolumes are interesting, I came to the conclusion that due to the size of my drive, its not necessary to allow them to use that feature.

I'n the end, (and please do correct me if there is something silly/unnecessary with it) I decided on the following scheme:

• / = 200GB

• swap = 10GB (gave it a little extra from the 4GB the fedora article in OP stated, just in case)

• /boot = 1GB

• /home = rest of the drive (around 1790GB on my 2TB drive)

Thank you!

I'll mark it as solved, but again, if there is something off with what I decided please let me know.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

I think that's a sensible layout.  / = 200 GB you might want to increase just-in-case as there are many directories under / that will take up space and taking that from /home wouldn't matter much unless you intend to have big things in /home like games.  The reason you might want to pad / now is that if you realize that you needed more space later it is more problematic to solve then.  The amount of swap needed to hibernate 128 GB of RAM though really needs to be sure, because once things are set again they become debt later down the line.

promitheas

Member

Registered: 2019-02-24

Posts: 40

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

I now resized my swap to be 128 GB and my / to be 300 GB. I do intend to have games in /home due to steam as far as I understand it installing games there. Thanks!

jl2

Member

From: 47° 18' N 8° 34' E

Registered: 2022-06-01

Posts: 1,248

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

Depending on what you want to use Hibernation, you might want to read https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dual_b … ibernation
because hibernating linux/windows and booting the other OS is unsupported, it might overwrite something that is shared (perhaps your EFI partition)

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ghen

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2010-08-31

Posts: 124

Re: [SOLVED] Partitioning recommendations for gaming on 2TB nvme+128GB ram

So now for the main question: How do you guys recommend I set up my partitions if I plan on having quite a few games installed at a time, along with other software?

I know that I want separate root and home partitions.

Use LVM, not raw partitions, and allocate only half of the space to get started.  That way you'll have flexibility in the future.

Last edited by ghen (2023-07-04 19:45:07)