[mythtv-users] Partitioning

[Mark Knecht]

On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 1:40 PM, Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com> wrote:
> On 3/6/2010 16:04, Simon Hobson wrote:
>>
>> Christopher Meredith wrote:
>>
>>> > I am setting up my mythbox today, and I have two hard drives one is 750
>>> > GB
>>>>
>>>>  and the other is 500 GB...what would be the best way to partition them
>>>>  should i put / on the 500 then /var/lib/mythtv on the 750 and
>>>> /var/lib/mysql
>>>>  on the 500?
>>>
>>> Why put / and /var on different partitions?
>>
>> So that when /var fills up, it doesn't bring the whole system down with it
>> - potentially corrupting your root filesystem while it's at it.
>
> If your filesystem becomes unstable because you filled it, you need to find
> a better filesystem.  If you manage to fill /var, either you forgot to set
> up log rotation, or you're using it to store some bulk data that probably
> shouldn't be there.

All of that may be true but none of it is an argument against placing
/var on it's own partition.

If nothing else it takes times to clear /var when it's on the /
partition. The whole system slows down until it's completed. If /var
fills up on it's own parition things just don't get written which is
what happens no matter where it goes, but in this case it's only /var
stuff that doesn't get written and not something I care about as a
user.

I place /var on it's own partition on all my machines. There's no long
term support issues. Just label the partition, put the line in fstab
and forget. It's good design as far as I'm concerned.

- Mark