Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2020 22:19:52 -0700 From: Doug Hardie <bc979@lafn.org> To: Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman@gmail.com> Cc: FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: (very OT) Ideal partition schemes (history of partitioning) Message-ID: <AD3B3E73-73AA-4C4E-AD9A-B22EEB47FFD5@mail.sermon-archive.info> In-Reply-To: <CAGBxaXkf53K4EHtq9cDaRm3MOZZixyBq-aQfZ7upHo-wUwrmCg@mail.gmail.com> References: <CAGBxaXkf53K4EHtq9cDaRm3MOZZixyBq-aQfZ7upHo-wUwrmCg@mail.gmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> On 28 August 2020, at 20:08, Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman@gmail.com> = wrote: >=20 > When installing another OS then FreeBSD (won't state which one to = avoid > flame wars) I noticed it's default partitioning scheme breaks the main = (and > only) drive on the system down into 50 GB chunks (in my case / and = /home) > by default (I over road to FreeBSD's default of one big partition for = the > whole drive [minus swap]). >=20 > I was wondering what people think of different generalized = partitioning > schemes? (there is no right answer here but I might question your = comments) >=20 > Also why are partitioned need at all? (both currently and = historically) I may not be the best to address this, but I have been running systems = since the late 60's. In the (not so good old days) the disk drives were = unreliable, the drivers were unreliable, and software was unreliable. = Disks had no partitions. So if any of the disk control tables got = corrupted, generally you had a worthless drive. It had to be completely = restored. I went so far as to dump a good disk setup to punched cards = (lots of them) so that when corruption occurred, I could easily, but not = quickly, restore the disk to a working state. As disks got bigger, someone came up with the partition concept. You = would put the stuff that the system needs to run in one "read only" = partition. In theory, it would not get corrupted by problems with other = partitions. Unix used the / partition to hold most of that. /var was = generally a separate partition because its contents were always = changing. Likewise with /tmp. User partitions were often setup so that = a rogue user would not corrupt other users. Often, if you had the = money, some of those partitions would be put on different drives. The problem with this approach showed up as system software increased in = size. For example, the first FBSD systems I use were setup for 3.5 and = 3.7. The / partition was doubled what the best practice said was = needed. Var and tmp were in separate partitions as was user data. = Somewhere around FBSD 5 or 6, I was no longer able to upgrade the = kernel. The kernel was larger than the / partition. These were = production system with no acceptable down time. I had to purchase four = new systems and repartition the drives with much larger partitions for = /, var, and tmp. Then everything had to be rebuilt, and the systems = swapped. There was still a lot of down time. Then OSX arrived and it used only one partition for everything. At = first I thought that was going to be a disaster, but it was not. UFS = was by that time quite stable. I have never encountered an issue with = it, although others have. Not long after that, I encountered the same = issue with FBSD. The / partition was now smaller than the most recent = kernel. I had to delete all the symbol files from the kernel to be able = to update a system. As a result, I bought more drives, and partitioned = them as a single partition which is now what I run on all my systems. = Often I will put archival information on a second drive, or a second = system. Interestingly enough, OSX has recently gone to multiple = partitions. In this situation Apple is trying to prevent anyone from = modifying their code. I do recall one situation, probably in the FBSD 4 era where syslog went = berserk and completely wrote over the entire var partition. As a side note, a friend of mine in college worked at IBM in San Jose on = OS360. His job was to take all of the example code in the assembler = reference manual, punch them up and run them to ensure that they = actually worked. There was only one 360 working so everything ran on = it. His jobs were the lowest priority, so he had to wait days sometimes = to get them run. Once, he was in the computer room watching them run = and every disk was actively writing at max speed. Since none of code = wrote anything anywhere, he was a bit concerned. So was the operator = and he quickly terminated the jobs. But the damage was done. All of = the single copy of the OS 360 source had been overwritten. As I recall, = both he and the rest of the OS team were terminated. OS 360 was already = years late at that point. I don't recall OS 360 supporting disk = partitioning. -- Doug
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?AD3B3E73-73AA-4C4E-AD9A-B22EEB47FFD5>