Re: hard drive usage advice

[Gil Andre <gandre@arkeia.com>]

Hi Travis,

On Sat, 29 Jun 2002 21:00:46 -0500, Travis wrote:
> Hi all,
> I need some pointers of where to read more about
> Linux's disk drive management.

Hmmm. First of all, I am not sure this is a good message for
this list: what does this have to do with people with sight
disabilities and Linux?

Seems to me you could ask the same question on comp.os.linux.*
and probably get a better answer.

Anyway... <grin>

Here are my quick answers:

> I installed RedHat 7.3 on and asked it to be installed
> using the server configuration.

Question: what kind of server would you like to install?
You should always include as much information as you can
on what, exactly, you are trying to do and on what your
setup is.

> This appears to have partitioned the drive into 6
> partitions. (I allowed it to partition according to
> the installer's defaults.)

As somebody else remarked, the Red Hat "defaults" are
often very strange and/or broken beyond repair. Whenever
you install a Red Hat machine (or any other kind of free
UNIX system), just make sure *you* set up the disk, and
not Red Hat/SuSE/whatever. Remember: *you* know what the 
machine is going to be used for -- not Red Hat.

> Of concern to me is /dev/hda2 has 20GB of space alocated and
> it is assigned to the /usr directory.
> /dev/hda3 has about 8GB and is assigned to /home.

OK. Strange, but nor too strange, since /usr is going to
contain the software used for the services themselves.
Apache, for instance, can be quite big, especially if
you start adding all the modules and CGI-BIN. Same with
Sendmail and others.

> The /home directory is where all my accounts are and where lots
> of files will be stored. How can I keep it from running out of
> space?

Again: what kind of server are you trying to setup? If you
are putting together a mail system with POP3/SMTP, 8GB for
the /home directory is probably more than enough. An IMAP
server is a completely different beast, and may require 
humongous amounts of free disk space.

If you are setting up a server for print services, 8GB may
even be too much!

If you are setting up a web server 8GB may be too small --
it depends on the amount of space allocated to each user.
For instance, we have several web servers at my company,
running off old systems with 4GB disks. Works pretty well.
(But they are low-traffic web servers, I should add).

If you are putting together a file server, again, it depends
on the number of users and the space allocated to them. For
a smallish server, I'd go as far as saying that 8GB is more
than enough, again depending on the number of users and the
amount of space you allocate to each of them. For your info,
we have been running a Linux CVS server with a smallish
(16GB) disk without any problems, and that thing contains 
thousands of files.

If you are putting together a firewall, 8GB is plenty!

So... As you can see, the answer really depends on what kind
of server you'd like to put together. I can't help you unless
you tell me what you are trying to do, and I don't think anyone
else can.

>Will Linux automatically switch to another partition for /home
> when /dev/hda3 fills up?

Simple answer: No.

Simple solution? Add another disk when /home is getting filled up.
Check the status of the partition with the command "df -h", and,
for more details on what exactly is filling-up the partition or
which user need to calm down with his MP3, try "du -h".

As usual "man df" and "man du" are your best friends!

Hope this helps!

Regards,


-- 

Gil Andre          gandre@arkeia.com
         Technical Writer
Arkeia Corp.   http://www.arkeia.com