Arch Linux

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,392

Website

large ext4 vs. LVM and several ext3

I am getting a new laptop with a 500GB hard-drive and am deciding how to partition it.  It will only have Arch on it so there is no need for many partitions.  Here is my current plan:

"The usual"
100MB /boot  (ext2)
10GB /  (ext3)
8GB swap

With the rest, I could go for a single ext4 or LVM with several ext3.  A single ext3 would take forever for fsck so is not really an option.  I'm thinking the single ext4 would just be easier and I am a lazy person...   

Any opinions on those two options?   (and only those two. I do not want to know about other FS types).

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foutrelis

Developer

From: Athens, Greece

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 705

Website

Re: large ext4 vs. LVM and several ext3

A single ext4 (mounted on /home I suppose?) sounds like the simpler and probably better choice of the two. I use a similar setup on my desktop:

Model: ATA ST3500320AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system     Flags
 1      32.3kB  65.8MB  65.8MB  primary  ext2            boot      [/boot]
 2      65.8MB  2213MB  2147MB  primary  linux-swap(v1)            (swap)
 3      2213MB  23.7GB  21.5GB  primary  ext4                      [/]
 4      23.7GB  500GB   476GB   primary  ext4                      [/home]

Which laptop are you getting by the way?

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,392

Website

Re: large ext4 vs. LVM and several ext3

Yes, a single ext4 would be /home.  I guess the decision points are:

1) is ext4 stable enough (probably yes...)
2) would I even need other partitions (probably no - I use qemu to test other distros etc).

So I suppose ext4 is the best idea.  I was just checking other opinions...

Which laptop are you getting by the way?

It is being bought through work so I am basically stuck with Dell (the other options are not any better...):
Dell Studio XPS 13
Intel Core2Duo P9600  (2.66GHz/ 1066 FSB/ 6MB Cache)
6GB (1x4GB/1x2GB) 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
NVIDIA® GeForce® 210M – 512MB

Should be good enough to check emails.   

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hatten

Arch Linux f@h Team Member

From: Sweden, Borlange

Registered: 2009-02-23

Posts: 736

Re: large ext4 vs. LVM and several ext3

I bet you have a reason for having 8gb swap. I've got 3.5GB ram and never used swap, I have 512MB /tmp in ram. Of course you might be hibernating, but for that you don't need 8gb.

IncredibleLaser

Member

From: Germany, NRW

Registered: 2008-07-16

Posts: 158

Re: large ext4 vs. LVM and several ext3

Well, I'd have trouble with only 10 GB for /. I'd recommend using lvm. And why 8 GB LVM? Sounds a bit too much for me. I have 4 GB DDR3 and no swap, never ran into a problem. And I wonder - there are C2Ds supporting DDR3?