[PLUG] Partitioning advice for development Linux database server

[Wil Cooley]

Also Sprach Steve Jorgensen <jorgens at coho.net> on Fri, May 10, 2002 at 03:53:52AM PDT
> Hi all,
> 
> I've just finished my manual hardware inventory on the box I want to use 
> for my database server, and now it's time to install Linux.  I'll be 
> running several database server services on it (not usually all running at 
> once), but the primary concern for now is Oracle.  I'm planning to keep the 
> box light on UI, probably no X at all.
> 
> Before I start installing the OS, I'd like to get some input on the best 
> way to partition the drives for this system.  It's a development and 
> learning system, not a production system, so I'll want to lean towards 
> flexibility and ease of management, but still pay still some basic 
> attention to performance issues, if for no other reason than to learn more 
> about what they are.
> 
> The box in question has
> 	one 9GB, 10,000 RPM, 8.2 ms avg. seek, fast/wide SCSI-2 drive (and 
> fast/wide SCSI controller)
> 	and one 1.75GB, 5400 RPM, 10ms avg. seek IDE drive.
> 
> Specific questions:
> 1. In what path do most database server packages normally put data files by 
> default?  Obviously, I'll want that to be fairly big and choose the 
> partition's filesystem carefully.

/var.  Here's the layout from a db server I just built that has a
pair of 4G disks, configured as RAID1 with Red Hat 7.2:

$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/md2              288M  154M  119M  57% /
/dev/md4               23M   13M  9.3M  57% /boot
/dev/md3              190M   20M  160M  11% /home
/dev/md1              1.4G  457M  943M  33% /usr
/dev/md0              1.8G  106M  1.6G   6% /var

/usr could probably have been smaller, but I didn't want to give
myself problems upgrading in the future.  In other recent builds
I've done, I've made /tmp a pair of separate 32MB partitions,
configured as RAID0 (stripe), so it's 64MB (mine ext3 journal).


> 2. What are some other considerations on what and how many partitions
> to use on this box and what filesystems to use on each?  I'm leaning
> toward a journaling filesystem, and I guess EXT3 is an obvious choice,
> but is it considered well tested and trustworthy yet?

Pretty much so.

> 3. Are there any other questions I might be forgetting to ask before
> I install Linux on this box?

You might ask yourself why the hell you're putting an IDE drive
into it...

Wil
-- 
Wil Cooley                                 wcooley at nakedape.cc
Naked Ape Consulting                        http://nakedape.cc
                * Linux and Network Consulting *               
irc.linux.com                                     #orlug,#lnxs
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