On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 13:51:47 -0700, K7MEM <k7mem@myrealbox.com> wrote:

>Josh McKee wrote:
>> On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 07:24:20 -0700, K7MEM <k7mem@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>First, Force CPU-56, Solaris 8, 512 MBytes memory, 4 GBytes swap.
>>>
>>>Initially we were running a 9 GByte disk with partitions for
>>>"/", "/usr", "/opt", and "/var". Pretty standard so far. When
>>>we upgraded from Solaris 2.8 we reworked this to put everything
>>>in a single partition. This made life a little easier with backups
>>>and replicating the disk. So effectively we split the disk so
>>>that partition 0 (/) was ~5 GBytes and partition 1 (swap) was
>>>4 GBytes.
>>>
>>>But now we are increasing the size of the disks and going to disks
>>>that are 50 to 70 GBytes in size. Is there any performance hit if
>>>I simply use the same setup with the exception that partition 0
>>>would be the entire disk, minus space for swap? Or is it better
>>>to expand to 3 partitions with partition 0 at ~5 GBytes, partition 1
>>>at 4 Gbytes and then partition 3 taking up the rest of the disk?
>>
>>
>> I'm not aware of any performance advantage to be gained by
>> partitioning a single disk. You still have a single disk arm.
>>
>>
>>>Does the position of the swap area on a disk cause any performance
>>>problems? There shouldn't be a lot of activity in swap, so I'm thinking
>>>that it won't matter, but I would like some input from other admins.
>>
>>
>> By placing the swap partition on the faster part of the disk (the
>> outside edge) you will gain some performance. However I would suggest
>> that due to the high expected use of swap that you, if possible, move
>> this to a separate disk dedicated solely to swap. Perhaps the 9GB disk
>> you're replacing could be used.
>>
>> Josh
>
>Thanks for the input Josh.

You're welcome. Does the 9GB disk need a new home?

Josh

>I didn't think there would be much gain
>using a single disk unless I was dealing with swap alot.Having
>another disk in this case is not an option. The 9GB disk is a large,
>by todays standards, old Seagate and the new drive is a little
>notebook disk drive. The next generation disk will be one that
>mounts directly on the Force CPU-56. The whole chassis needs to
>fly and any weight savings is a plus.
>
>Thanks again.