From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 11 20:57:04 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31BEE16A4CE for ; Wed, 11 May 2005 20:57:04 +0000 (GMT) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (clunix.cl.msu.edu [35.9.2.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C76BA43D5F for ; Wed, 11 May 2005 20:57:03 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) j4BKv2JF011969; Wed, 11 May 2005 16:57:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by clunix.cl.msu.edu (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.2/Submit) id j4BKv20h011968; Wed, 11 May 2005 16:57:02 -0400 (EDT) From: Jerry McAllister Message-Id: <200505112057.j4BKv20h011968@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: freebsd.org@donnacha.com Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 16:57:02 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <42825F50.4040007@donnacha.com> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL7] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: I need further HDD advice before submitting order. X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 20:57:04 -0000 > > Chuck and Jerry, thank you so much. > > Chuck - I'm going to take your advice on setting up some kind of mirror, > software RAID or whatever, thanks. > > Jerry - that breakdown of how you would allocate space was amazing - > seriously, a better division and a better explanation than anything I've > found in the FreeBSD books. > > The idea of allocating almost the entire 2nd drive to /spill is great, > that will give me all the flexibility I need, brilliant! Some There are many thought of how to set up disk based on the need and also on history. Some people have habits built from when disks were small. The one difficulty of having one giant partition is making backups. Unless you use some very large media, it will take more than one piece of media (tape, etc) and that tends to discourage people from making backups. This type of scheme makes it pretty simple to add additional large disks later (for /spill2, /spill3, etc) if you need them too and just do some additional moving, though if you have a really big disk farm, it begins to get too difficult to manage. Then you would have to come up with a more sophisticated system. One small modification, as someone noted, if you make a vinum or mirror, you will probably not want the chunk of swap to be on the front of the second drive. So, you can make it last without too much difficult. ////jerry