mount point for second hard drive

[zogthegreat]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to mount a second hard drive on a clean install. Here is my hardware;

Gigabyte MA770-UD3 w/ Phenom 9950 BE
6 gig Corsair 800 mhz DDR2
1 x 40 gig Seagate SATA
1 x 500 Seagate SATA
Fedora 11

What I want to do is install my OS on the 40 gig and mount the 500 gig as my /home.

If I mount it after I install, I my home directory is deleted. I know I can just create a mount point and mount it there, but I would really prefer to mount it as /home.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

zog

[SlowJet]

Only you can determine how you will use the diskspace.
Only you can use commands or methods to make that happen.
If you don't know enough then you need to learn how to do things.

1. How is the current 40GB disk being used?
Chances are you did a default install, which uses a small ext3 /boot, and a LVM containing two LV of ext4 / and a 2 GB swap.
So adding space to the system is very easy.
a. Install new disk.
b. Issue commands in LVM
lvm pvcreate /sdb
lvm vgextend VolGroup00 /sdb
lvm lvextend /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 /dev/sdb
c. extent the lv file system
resize2fs /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
continue on as if you had a formatted (35 + 465 GB) / containing all the normal mounts.

Next time you will know more and can plan to use the 500 GB space better as sda, and maybe the 40 GB as sdb swap /tmp and /var

Because you will need to learn the commands before you can make magic happen post install.

SJ

[zogthegreat]

Hi SlowJet,

Yes, you are right, I am using the default partitioning from Fedora. I was hoping to get some improved I/O by mounting my /home o the 500 gig.

From what you have written, it would seem that I would get better performance by mounting my /swap /tmp and /var directories on the 40 gig.

I am goggling on how to do this now, do you have any suggested reading?

Also, if I use a 10 gig IDE for this setup, instead of the 40 gig SATA, will I still see a performance increase?

Thanks

zog

[SuperNu]

When you mount your 500 gb hard drive as /home, then the contents of that hard drive will be shown and the current contents of /home. What I would recommend you do is to create a directory in /mnt, such as /mnt/home, mount your 500 gb hard drive as /mnt/home instead of /home, copy all files/directories from /home to /mnt/home. Once this is complete, you can safely mount your 500 gb hard drive as /home and have access to your files.

--SN

[SlowJet]

Originally Posted by zogthegreat

Hi SlowJet,

Yes, you are right, I am using the default partitioning from Fedora. I was hoping to get some improved I/O by mounting my /home o the 500 gig.

From what you have written, it would seem that I would get better performance by mounting my /swap /tmp and /var directories on the 40 gig.

I am goggling on how to do this now, do you have any suggested reading?

Also, if I use a 10 gig IDE for this setup, instead of the 40 gig SATA, will I still see a performance increase?

Thanks

zog

If you want better partitioning and speed and less scattered files then
re-install onto the 500 GB as sda and throw 10 and 40 GB in the donation bin.(They are not currently compatible with SATA or IDE 100 + drives. Some of them can actually stop the computer from booting and make the video or other disk crash. Any less than 40 UDMA100 do not use UDMA but pio or at best dma double word) Also an ide and a SATA may change your sda/sdb when Linux is installed, not allowing the sata to be used as sda..
The 160 GB is 30% faster (internally) than lesser drives, about 320 GB range is 30% faster yet.
So you will see a 60% increase without the 40GB drive. You will boot up faster with a spread of partitions for /boot, and patitions (or LV's) for/, /usr, /var, /tmp, /home, swap.
There will be less volatility in the individual file systems, less full seeks, and more faster writes.

But you must learn how to use the anaconda installer custom partitioning (which is easier than fdisk and mk2fs and LVM commands from a Live CD.)

Coping sub directories like /home and /var and /tmp to another is old style and will not necessarily be correct for the system files, let alone Fedora. Plus you need to know several commands to do that, and the posts here over simplify the process. Firstly it must be done with another booted system, meaning you need to use several commands to make it happen.

This subject has been posted many times.

SJ

The Linux learning curve doesn't start until the 3rd install.

[JohnnyLinux]

Originally Posted by zogthegreat

Hi SlowJet,

Yes, you are right, I am using the default partitioning from Fedora. I was hoping to get some improved I/O by mounting my /home o the 500 gig.

From what you have written, it would seem that I would get better performance by mounting my /swap /tmp and /var directories on the 40 gig.

I am goggling on how to do this now, do you have any suggested reading?

Also, if I use a 10 gig IDE for this setup, instead of the 40 gig SATA, will I still see a performance increase?

Thanks

zog

I used this for my custom partition scheme:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/instal...oning-x86.html

I have six hard drives:
I only used 1) 500GB for the install and the rest are for media files and backups.

The "main" drive I partitioned like so:

/boot 250Mb
swap 10,000Mb (10GB)
LVM:
/ 70000Mb (70GB)
/home 350,000Mb (350GB)
/tmp 15,000Mb (15GB)
/var 15,000Mb (15GB)

[SlowJet]

Originally Posted by timmywear

I used this for my custom partition scheme:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/instal...oning-x86.html

I have six hard drives:
I only used 1) 500GB for the install and the rest are for media files and backups.

The "main" drive I partitioned like so:

/boot 250Mb
swap 10,000Mb (10GB)
LVM:
/ 70000Mb (70GB)
/home 350,000Mb (350GB)
/tmp 15,000Mb (15GB)
/var 15,000Mb (15GB)

That's close enough to get the effect.


SJ

[JohnnyLinux]

What effect?

[SlowJet]

to get faster boot up, less volatility, writes concentrated in /tmp, /var , /home
I would have put swap last and had a /usr and made the system sizes smaller.

/boot
LVM
/
/usr is low volatility (except for updates), keeps / compact for quick reads at boot.
/tmp
/var
/home mostly using the front part of the partition. cuts down seeks.
swap usually not used much with >= 1GB Desktop

SJ

[zogthegreat]

OK, how does this sound:

boot = 250
swap = 8gb (based on 6 gig system memory, S = M + 2
using the formula found here: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/instal...mmend-x86.html)
LVM
/ = 70 gb
/usr 15 gb
/tmp = 15 gb
/var = 15 gb
/home = 377000 gb (aprox.)

Also, SlowJet had mentioned 160 gig SATA would be a better choice than the 40 gig SATA, since I just happen to have a 160 gig SATAII, does anyone recommend my installing this drive and if so, what partitioning scheme should I use building a system with a 500 gig and a 160 gig?

The reason I had wanted to use the 40 gig was I had wanted to get another 160 gig and do a RAID 0, (stripe) for my /home. (yes, yes, I know, does not provide redundancy, this is why we have backup servers and rsync !) I usually use hardware raid, however, everything that I have read has said that a Linux soft-raid will give better data transfer rates. The problem that i have is I can't find anything on how to do a dm-raid 0 that you can boot from.

The main application that I am using is Virtualbox, so one thought that I had was to install the system on the 500 gig as described above, and then mount the 160 under /home/virtualbox, redirect all of my VB paths to the 160 gig.

Anyone have any thoughts on all of this?

Thanks to SlowJet and everyone else for taking their time one this one.

zog

[JohnnyLinux]

@zogthegreat

That's almost like mine except I did 10GB Swap (because I have 8GB RAM.)

BTW a lot of people recommend leaving some free space for expansion later on.

As for the /usr partition I don't have one because of what this says:

Do not place /usr on a separate partition
If /usr is on a separate partition from /, the boot process becomes much more complex, and in some situations (like installations on iSCSI drives), might not work at all.

I'm no expert so I rather just have it on / instead

[SlowJet]

/usr is ok for local disks.
There is a political and religious drive to revamp the file system into a flatter model.
Some are trying to get rid of /usr.
It all steams from a narrow view point of the wide range of options and the ignorance of the benefits of using a spread of file systems. Mostly, they want to just use / and swap, some even objecting to a separate boot (or swap).
Their windows bred idiots driven by a vision to simplify reality to fit their limited knowledge.

SJ

[JohnnyLinux]

Originally Posted by SlowJet

/usr is ok for local disks.
There is a political and religious drive to revamp the file system into a flatter model.
Some are trying to get rid of /usr.
It all steams from a narrow view point of the wide range of options and the ignorance of the benefits of using a spread of file systems. Mostly, they want to just use / and swap, some even objecting to a separate boot (or swap).
Their windows bred idiots driven by a vision to simplify reality to fit their limited knowledge.

SJ

You're kidding... This is my favorite part of the whole install process. Damn it! I really hope Linux keeps a lot of its core values as it becomes more mainstream (if it does).