From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 27 18:28:42 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A084B16A553 for ; Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:28:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df@mired.org) Received: from mired.org (vpn.mired.org [66.92.153.74]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 189A543DD3 for ; Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:28:19 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df@mired.org) Received: (qmail 48624 invoked by uid 1001); 27 Jul 2006 18:28:19 -0000 Received: by bhuda.mired.org (tmda-sendmail, from uid 1001); Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:28:18 -0400 (EDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <17609.1474.618423.970137@bhuda.mired.org> Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:28:18 -0400 To: rick-freebsd@kiwi-computer.com In-Reply-To: <20060727180412.GB48057@megan.kiwi-computer.com> References: <20060727063936.GA1246@titan.klemm.apsfilter.org> <20060727122159.GB4217@britannica.bec.de> <20060727134948.GA3755@energistic.com> <20060727180412.GB48057@megan.kiwi-computer.com> X-Mailer: VM 7.17 under 21.4 (patch 19) "Constant Variable" XEmacs Lucid X-Primary-Address: mwm@mired.org X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`; h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.0.3 (Seattle Slew) From: Mike Meyer Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: disklabel differences FreeBSD, DragonFly X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:28:42 -0000 In <20060727180412.GB48057@megan.kiwi-computer.com>, Rick C. Petty typed: > On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 09:49:48AM -0400, Steve Ames wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 02:21:59PM +0200, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote: > > > DragonFly disklabels allow 16 entries by default, FreeBSD still limits > > > it to 8. That's why you can't read it directly. > > Are there plans to bump the default up from 8? I'm honestly torn on > > this topic whenever I install a new system. On the one hand I like > > having a lot of discrete mountpoints to control potential usage. On > > the other hand with drive space being so inexpensive I sometimes > > wonder if I need to bother and can get away with very few mountpoints. > I would think that cheap disk space would mean larger disks which implies > more mountpoints ??? Nope. One of the historical uses of partitions was to act as firewalls between subsystems, so that subsystem A running out of space didn't cause subsystem B to die for lack of space. This had the downside of making it more likely that one of the two would run out of space because the excess space from another subsystem could only be used by it. With cheap disk space, you overallocate by enough to give you plenty of warning before you have to deal with the issue. You can safely share that space, and doing so means you have to "deal with the issue" less often. These days, the only technical reason I know of for having separate mountpoints is because you want to run commands that work on filesystems on the two parts with different arguments or under different conditions. > I wasn't very happy with gpt or bsdlabel recently because you aren't > allowed to modify the partitions if the gpt/bsdlabel is in use (i.e. one > of the other partitions is currently mounted as a filesystem). I hope the > GEOM people are working to improve this. Yet another reason for having fewer partitions: you're less likely to want to modify them :-). http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.