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To: Bob Johnson <bob@eng.ufl.edu>
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Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 12:33:40 -0800
Subject: Re: how big a partition is too big?
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hmm.... as i was afraid, the answer that further study is warranted :)

i think i'm also going to look at using files as file systems.  this would
provide the flexability i'm looking for...

I guess i shouldn't feel so bad about having to wait till monday for the hard
drives to arrive :)



> I wrote:
>
> am building a file server with 90 G of storage (2x 45gig on a highpoint raid
0)
> , and would like to keep this partitioned as few times as possible.  is there
a
> point when i run out of inodes or something?  maybe a better question is,
what's
> an ideal partition size ? should i tune this by hand, or are default settings
> ok?
>

The right answer to this really depends on things like the
average file size that you expect and the number of files
you will have in the average directory.

The only time I've had problems is when I filled up a disk
with a bunch of small files; I ran out of inodes before the
disk was full.  If your files end up being larger on average
than you expect, you waste disk space on the unused inodes,
and if your files are smaller than you expect, you waste
disk space by running out of inodes before it is full. If
you already have a good idea of what the statistics for your
filesytem are likely to be, then you might gain something
by hand tuning.

My understanding is that UFS is not too wonderful when
faced with a huge number of files per directory.  I don't
have personal experience with that, but you might want to
look in to the implications.

I would mount the data stuff as a separate filesystem
from the operating system stuff.  This helps both when
doing backups and when doing upgrades.

- Bob






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