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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:	AMIGA NOTES
Notice:	Join us in the NEW conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:	HYDRA::MOORE

Created:	Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:	Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	5378
Total number of notes:	38326

5017.0. "Disk partitioning revisited." by CAMONE::ARENDT (Harry Arendt CAM::) Tue Sep 03 1991 23:19



  Hi all,

    This is an old subject, however after searching all the available
  notes I could find on the subject I could not find the information
  that I was looking for.  I am looking for information on disk partitioning.
  By using dir/title=parti I found notes 4959,3773,2654,and 2433 dealing with
  disk partitioning.

    These notes did not answer my question though.  Any pointers to other
  notes or answers would be appreciated.

    My situation is that I have currently have one 20 meg drive and I
  have just purchased another 20 meg drive used.  My current drive is
  57% full and I want to create a system where if one of my drives fails
  I can fall back to a one drive configuration.  The partitions I have
  thought of are;

  Disk 1:

       System : 10 meg  - Amiga system stuff and any installed programs

        Work1 :  5 Meg  - Containing financial data. (Most important)

        Work2 :  5 meg  - Containing utilities.

  Disk 2:

        Work3 :  5 meg  - Containing C development system

        Work4 :  5 meg  - Containing games.

        Work5 :  5 meg  - Containing Word perfect and spread sheet data
                          files.

        Work6 :  5 meg  - Scratch disk.


The three questions I need answered are;

  1. How much memory does each partition cost me?  I have a 5 meg Amiga
     so I am not too worried.

  2. What should go on the system disk?
    
  3. What is the best way to move from 1 partition to 7.


  I have the utility quarterback (V2.2) and I have made two backups of my 20
meg hard disk to floppies.  I thought that I would do the following;

  1. Install the second drive and create all the 4 partitions on the
     second drive.

  2. Populate the partitions on the second drive by moving the appropriate
     directories.  Move the utilities to the scratch disk.

  3. Back up the financial data to floppies and delete it from the first
     drive leaving only the system files and the installed programs.

  4. Back up the remainder to floppy using quarterback. This should be
     well under 10 megabytes.

  5. Reformat the first drive to contain the 10 meg and two 5 meg
     partition and restoring the last backup to the 10 meg partition
     (system)

  6. Populate work 1 from backups.

  7. Transfer the utilities from scratch to Work2.

T.R Title User Personal
Name Date Lines

5017.1 To many little partitions... TENAYA::MWM Wed Sep 04 1991 14:48 50

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
5017.1	To many little partitions...	TENAYA::MWM		`Wed Sep 04 1991 14:48`	50
	I think you're creating to many small partitions. I've never bothered to partition anything as small as a 20 meg drive. However, wanting to be able to continue working if one drive dies is a pretty good reason for doing so. I think you've got the basic idea right, just to many partions. For 1.3, disk 1 is fine (assuming that the financial data isn't being accessed constantly). I'd chop disk 2 up to either mimic disk 1, or into 2 partitions; one scratch to restore the system to, and one for everything else. You then use directories to divide up the rest of the disk. With 2.0, it becomes reasonable (and desirable) to leave the CBM-supplied WB software in a partition of its own, and put everything else in another partition. If you're going to upgrade to 2.0, you might want to plan for that in advance. The second change is that you ought to try and arrange things to take advantage of having two spindles. That means you want to arrange things so that applications can read from both spindles at once, rather than having everything go to the same spindle. This depends on the application, and for many it won't matter. The setup below works well for C compiles. Taking all the above into considerationg, and leaving your financial data alone, I'd be tempted to do something like this: Disk 1: System: 5 meg - CBM software, plus things that must live here. Finance: 5 meg Binaries: 10 meg - things that you install and don't otherwise change: utilities, C include files & libraries, etc. Disk 2: Scratch: 5 meg Data: 15 meg - things that you work on; C sources, WP documents etc. If disk 1 fails, you restore System to scratch, and put whatever utilities you need for the current project in Data or the new system. If Disk 2 fails, you put the current project in either System or Binaries. I followed a similar plan in the past, and it worked just fine when the System drive failed. <mike

I think you're creating to many small partitions. I've never bothered to
partition anything as small as a 20 meg drive. However, wanting to be
able to continue working if one drive dies is a pretty good reason for
doing so.

I think you've got the basic idea right, just to many partions. For 1.3,
disk 1 is fine (assuming that the financial data isn't being accessed
constantly). I'd chop disk 2 up to either mimic disk 1, or into 2 partitions;
one scratch to restore the system to, and one for everything else. You
then use directories to divide up the rest of the disk.

With 2.0, it becomes reasonable (and desirable) to leave the CBM-supplied
WB software in a partition of its own, and put everything else in another
partition. If you're going to upgrade to 2.0, you might want to plan for
that in advance.

The second change is that you ought to try and arrange things to take
advantage of having two spindles. That means you want to arrange things so
that applications can read from both spindles at once, rather than having
everything go to the same spindle. This depends on the  application, and
for many it won't matter. The setup below works well for C compiles.

Taking all the above into considerationg, and leaving your financial data
alone, I'd be tempted to do something like this:

Disk 1:

	System:	5 meg - CBM software, plus things that must live here.

	Finance: 5 meg

	Binaries: 10 meg - things that you install and don't otherwise
			    change: utilities, C include files & libraries,
			    etc.

Disk 2:

	Scratch: 5 meg

	Data: 15 meg - things that you work on; C sources, WP documents
		       etc.

If disk 1 fails, you restore System to scratch, and put whatever utilities
you need for the current project in Data or the new system. If Disk 2 fails,
you put the current project in either System or Binaries.

I followed a similar plan in the past, and it worked just fine when the
System drive failed.

	<mike