File System Tweaks

Pagan · 2010-07-24 18:30:45

First off at the very, very minimum one needs to slice up their drives with -

/boot
/
/var/log
/home

Also I would recommend an additional slice for /tmp also, but that depends on how much drive space you have, 2-4 Gig is usually fine

Reason for the extra slices is boot really does need to be secure and root needs to be isolated from home and log. For those who just put everything on one slice just get a buggy daemon or something that fills up and corrupts your file system wink

Anyway for a basic set up I'd do this to squeak a bit of performance, with the following slicing scheme as -

/dev/sda1 ext2 /boot (around 256MB is fine)
/dev/sda2 ext4 / (depending on drive, I usually go for around 12 - 15 GB)
/dev/sda5 ext4 /var/log (around 256MB is fine)
/dev/sda4 swap (me, I usually only have about 1 GB)
/dev/sda6 ext4 /home (rest of the drive space)

For /var/log while booted into a boot disk or Live CD tweak /var/log with -

tune2fs -o journal_data_writeback /dev/sda5
tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/sda5

Then mount root to /mnt with

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
cd /mnt/etc

Edit fstab with what ever tool you're comfortable with, vi or nano. I use vi so I would execute this

vi /mnt/etc/fstab

The options for the modified file systems are -

# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=xxxxxxxxx / ext4 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=xxxxxx /boot ext2 noatime,defaults 0 1
# /home was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=xxxxxx /home ext4 relatime 0 2
# /var/log was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=xxxxxxx /var/log ext4 noatime,data=writeback 0 1

What this does is increase read/writes to file systems where you don't need the precautions like that of journaling for example. There is a lot a activity with /var/log so this would tweak out a bit of performance. If you're on an old laptop also you may want to turn off journaling, then set noatime and writeback on all slices also if it's on a very sluggish system. But be aware though you loose the ability to recover from a crash. But on old hardware one has to do what one has to wink

yahya · 2010-09-10 02:25:47

:|and so we should all stand, clap, cheer, and follow you blindly?...

iggykoopa · 2010-09-10 09:49:48

good advice for older machines. If you have the ram to spare and don't mind losing the logs on reboot you can mount /var/log and /tmp on a ramdisk, that'll help a little too.

iann · 2010-09-10 23:51:12

Still recommending /swap on a separate partition? And a monolithic chunk of swap space? I'm no expert but I read that there are better ways of doing this now.

alef · 2010-11-09 15:04:05

Hi,

Thanks for these tips.

I have just found some explanation about noatime, relatime and atime option, maybe it can be useful for some people not knowing what it is like I just was: http://linux.koolsolutions.com/2009/01/ … t-options/

May I ask why /boot partition is in ext2 ?

I am planning to switch to statler as main system via a clean install on my eeepc; do you guys recommend ext4 or another file system (home usage for that machine)?

thanks,

snowpine · 2010-11-09 15:23:52

alef wrote:

I am planning to switch to statler as main system via a clean install on my eeepc; do you guys recommend ext4 or another file system (home usage for that machine)?

I use (and recommend) ext4 on my netbook SSD. Almost 2 years and counting of obsessive daily use, no problems yet.

My "partitioning scheme" is a single ext4 partition that spans the entire tiny (8gb) drive. There is no "one size fits all" solution for every user.

Unia · 2010-11-09 15:58:38

Ext4 is generally regarded as the best option and most people use it. For SSD's, I think there is some tweaking one has to do to ensure it's lifetime, but I don't own one so I can't tell you. Snowpine doesn't mention anything about tweaks though and since he uses one, I guess it's a better option to follow his advice regarding SSD's.

For a regular HDD, no tweaking is required.

snowpine · 2010-11-09 16:05:13

I think I chose the 'noatime' option (can't remember and I'm not at that computer right now).

I lurk on several Linux forums and I have never, not once, heard of a single user wearing out their SSD running Linux. It's a myth. smile

On the other hand, I did destroy a conventional HDD once (while defragging Windows XP)...

pvsage · 2010-11-09 16:30:21

My SSD partitions (root and home) are both ext3, noatime, relatime. Runs great.

I've heard of one Dell Mini user killing a SSD, but this was due to mechanical/thermal damage, not writes.

Unia · 2010-11-09 17:02:06

Hmm, maybe I should consider getting one. Oh well.. don't have the money atm. sad

alef · 2010-11-09 17:31:04

thanks all for your answers.

Unia wrote:

For a regular HDD, no tweaking is required.

Do I understand well: you are considering here tweaking regarding drive lifetime, and Pagan's post rather refers to performance.

I have a regular HDD, no SSD, but was considering to follow part of his advices to have better performance and security.

always open for suggestions.

Unia · 2010-11-09 17:42:58

Sure, there are options to tweak it for optimal performance, but I don't think you will notice any big difference as a regular user; ext4 will do. Don't get too confused by all the filesystem types out there.

boromeus · 2010-11-09 19:31:31

Separate partition for your data is also recommended, as it's not very good to store important things in your /home folder (together with just downloaded "funny" pictures, browser cache, instant messenger log and other crap.)

/home is excellent for keeping your config files for different apps you want to use after a reinstall (unless you distro-hop... in this case it may be safer to manually reconfigure each application's settings) but not for your private things like home video and PhD thesis.

The /data partition shouldn't be messed up with different hidden folders, and it should always be available neatly, regardless what distro you use from the ones that exist on your computer or other live systems. Since its content is usually irreproducible - best thing we can do is to clone this partition as frequently as possible.

(IMHO)

snowpine · 2010-11-09 20:19:38

You should always have an external backup of your PhD thesis and other important documents (on an external drive, a CD, a thumb drive, over the network, etc.).

If your computer is stolen or destroyed, it does not matter whether your documents are on /home or a separate data partition. smile

boromeus · 2010-11-09 20:28:07

snowpine wrote:

You should always have an external backup of your PhD thesis and other important documents (on an external drive, a CD, a thumb drive, over the network, etc.).
If your computer is stolen or destroyed, it does not matter whether your documents are on /home or a separate data partition.

Of course. That's default for me. I use CDs and Dropbox paralelly.... sometimes I even upload a file into my gmail account.

GuruX · 2010-11-09 21:32:30

When it comes to backups, I prefer scattering my most important files around. Two copies on different HDDs in the same computer. Then another copy on a computer that isn't in the same house (usually at my mom's) and then somewhere on the internet, like dropbox or SkyDrive. Keeping copies on the same physical location is a really bad idea if someones decides to start a fire.

As for the partitioning, my Eee 900 runs the whole 16gb SSD as one Ext4 partition. /tmp on ramdisk. 1GB ram is seldom filled under Statler.

boromeus · 2010-11-09 22:24:40

btw, how do you make ramdisk for /tmp?

alef · 2010-11-10 08:55:01

boromeus wrote:

btw, how do you make ramdisk for /tmp?

I think the technique is explained here: http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/crunche … ll_tips?s\[]=fstab#purge_logfiles_at_boot

boromeus · 2010-11-10 11:46:29

^
thx

CrunchBang Linux

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