[wellylug] Finally going to do it .. only ...

[David Antliff]

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Ian Beardslee wrote:
> Hmm yes reiser is supposed to be better for many small files isn't it?

Yes.

> What about large files (ISOs, video, vmware disk images)?  What about
> oggs?

XFS outperforms Reiser. There are plenty of benchmarks around - I think 
IBM did a few and SGI would certainly have some.

> Would it be considered a bright idea to do separate partitions based on
> expected content and have different filesystems for them or (as Richard
> may note) is that starting to complicate things?

That's one use for partitions that I hadn't considered much and it might 
have it's place. However I've found XFS performs very well with all file 
types and access methods except unlinking - that tends to be a bit slow.

As far as organising things - like someone said, split partitions are 
useful in a multi-user environment, where filesystems can fill up and you 
want to replace them with minimal downtime. I don't believe they are the 
right tool for the job of organising files and information - that's what 
directories are for, and they do the job well. Besides, even if you use 
separate partitions, they'll just be accessed by a directory structure 
which completely nullifies any organisational improvement partitions might 
offer.

If you use separate partitions, I can almost guarantee you'll outgrow one. 
Then you'll have to shuffle everything around. Do this a few times and 
you'll settle with one big / partition I'm sure.

One good reason for having separate partitions is you can clone them 
easily with 'dd'. This is good for backups and upgrades, but those are 
done so infrequently is it really worth the trouble?

My vote is for a nice big XFS root filesystem + /boot+grub on another and 
a separate fs for /home if you use multiple distros. Keep regular backups 
and you can survive any sort of disk or partition table failure.

-- 
David.