All,

Right now, I have the following configuration on two HDs:

/dev/sda3 2316536 1655404 543456 76% /
/dev/sda2 600864 111680 458664 20% /boot
none 257608 0 257608 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda5 101086 7562 88305 8% /home
/dev/hda 4136348 3534320 391908 91% /usr
/dev/sda1 723540 398788 287404 59%
/usr/local/misterhouse

I have a newer, larger SCSI drive. Since it is big enough, I would
like to use just 1 partition (except for SWAP).

1. Are there any performance drawbacks to having 1 partition as opposed
to several (like I currently have)?

2. To do this, is it as simple as mounting the new drive, "cp -R
--preserve=all /* /mnt/new_drive/", changing fstab, removing the old
drive, and reboot? Or is there something else I have to do to make it
"bootable" (I am currently using grub)?

Thanks,
Dan

In article <1162400239.874149.266290@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups .com>,
Dan <dan_hoffard@hailmail.net> wrote:
> Right now, I have the following configuration on two HDs:
>
> /dev/sda3 2316536 1655404 543456 76% /
> /dev/sda2 600864 111680 458664 20% /boot
> none 257608 0 257608 0% /dev/shm
> /dev/sda5 101086 7562 88305 8% /home
> /dev/hda 4136348 3534320 391908 91% /usr
> /dev/sda1 723540 398788 287404 59%
> /usr/local/misterhouse
>
> I have a newer, larger SCSI drive. Since it is big enough, I would
> like to use just 1 partition (except for SWAP).
>
> 1. Are there any performance drawbacks to having 1 partition as opposed
> to several (like I currently have)?

In the "several partitions" case:

File fragments are confined to their own partition, which is a fraction of
the disk, meaning less head movement is necessary to access them.

If something goes wild and logs millions of errors, /tmp doesn't fill up
just because /var does.

If the OS crashes and nukes /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2 is still OK.

> 2. To do this, is it as simple as mounting the new drive, "cp -R
> --preserve=all /* /mnt/new_drive/", changing fstab, removing the old
> drive, and reboot?

I always do

{ cd / ; tar cxf - . ; } | { cd /newdrive ; tar xvf - ; }
^ ^^^^^^^^^

changing the indicated things for each mount point. I think your solution
would copy filesystems like /proc .

> Or is there something else I have to do to make it "bootable" (I am
> currently using grub)?

I haven't used grub (I use lilo), but neither of these do anything WRT
booting. Treat the new drive as if it were, well, new. With lilo I'd
edit /etc/lilo.conf and run /sbin/lilo .

--
-eben QebWenE01R@vTerYizUonI.nOetP http://royalty.no-ip.org:81
ARIES: The look on your face will be priceless when you find that 40lb
watermelon in your colon. Trade toothbrushes with an albino dwarf, then
give a hickey to Meryl Streep. -- Weird Al, _Your Horoscope for Today_

Hactar wrote:
> In article <1162400239.874149.266290@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups .com>,
> Dan <dan_hoffard@hailmail.net> wrote:
> > Right now, I have the following configuration on two HDs:
> >
> > /dev/sda3 2316536 1655404 543456 76% /
> > /dev/sda2 600864 111680 458664 20% /boot
> > none 257608 0 257608 0% /dev/shm
> > /dev/sda5 101086 7562 88305 8% /home
> > /dev/hda 4136348 3534320 391908 91% /usr
> > /dev/sda1 723540 398788 287404 59%
> > /usr/local/misterhouse
> >
> > I have a newer, larger SCSI drive. Since it is big enough, I would
> > like to use just 1 partition (except for SWAP).
> >
> > 1. Are there any performance drawbacks to having 1 partition as opposed
> > to several (like I currently have)?
>
> In the "several partitions" case:
>
> File fragments are confined to their own partition, which is a fraction of
> the disk, meaning less head movement is necessary to access them.
>
> If something goes wild and logs millions of errors, /tmp doesn't fill up
> just because /var does.
>
> If the OS crashes and nukes /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2 is still OK.
>
> > 2. To do this, is it as simple as mounting the new drive, "cp -R
> > --preserve=all /* /mnt/new_drive/", changing fstab, removing the old
> > drive, and reboot?
>
> I always do
>
> { cd / ; tar cxf - . ; } | { cd /newdrive ; tar xvf - ; }
> ^ ^^^^^^^^^
>
> changing the indicated things for each mount point. I think your solution
> would copy filesystems like /proc .
>
> > Or is there something else I have to do to make it "bootable" (I am
> > currently using grub)?
>
> I haven't used grub (I use lilo), but neither of these do anything WRT
> booting. Treat the new drive as if it were, well, new. With lilo I'd
> edit /etc/lilo.conf and run /sbin/lilo .
>
> --
> -eben QebWenE01R@vTerYizUonI.nOetP http://royalty.no-ip.org:81
> ARIES: The look on your face will be priceless when you find that 40lb
> watermelon in your colon. Trade toothbrushes with an albino dwarf, then
> give a hickey to Meryl Streep. -- Weird Al, _Your Horoscope for Today_

So if I understand you correctly, just copying the files from one drive
to another is not enough.. I still have to have grub configure the new
drive.

In article <1162417652.387388.195300@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups. com>,
Dan <dan_hoffard@hailmail.net> wrote:
>
> Hactar wrote:
> > In article <1162400239.874149.266290@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups .com>,
> > Dan <dan_hoffard@hailmail.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Or is there something else I have to do to make it "bootable" (I am
> > > currently using grub)?
> >
> > I haven't used grub (I use lilo), but neither of these do anything WRT
> > booting. Treat the new drive as if it were, well, new. With lilo I'd
> > edit /etc/lilo.conf and run /sbin/lilo .
>
> So if I understand you correctly, just copying the files from one drive
> to another is not enough.. I still have to have grub configure the new
> drive.

Correct. Unless grub does some magic, the nature of which is unfamiliar
to me, just copying the files would leave the boot sector unchanged.

--
-eben QebWenE01R@vTerYizUonI.nOetP royalty.no-ip.org:81

And we never failed to fail / It was the easiest thing to do -- CSN

On 1 Nov 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.setup, in article
<1162400239.874149.266290@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups .com>, Dan wrote:

>Right now, I have the following configuration on two HDs:

OK

>I have a newer, larger SCSI drive. Since it is big enough, I would
>like to use just 1 partition (except for SWAP).
>
>1. Are there any performance drawbacks to having 1 partition as opposed
>to several (like I currently have)?

In theory, there is a performance hit by having separate partitions
because everything can be dumped around one physical range of cylinders
on a single partition, while the heads would have further to travel to
reach the partition that has what you are reading/writing to. How
important this might be depends solely on your system usage, and what
you've got stashed on the disk.

There is major benefit to having /home on a separate partition. Most
people never back up (or even have the capability to back up) their disks
and when they install a new distribution - /home is toast if it's on the
same partition as the rest of the stuff. Here are two mini-howtos that
should be on your system that discuss this and other concepts. The first
is a bit dated.

-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 39240 May 3 2001 Install-Strategies
-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 68659 Jan 4 2006 Partition

>2. To do this, is it as simple as mounting the new drive, "cp -R
>--preserve=all /* /mnt/new_drive/", changing fstab, removing the old
>drive, and reboot? Or is there something else I have to do to make it
>"bootable" (I am currently using grub)?

-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 23639 Aug 21 2000 Hard-Disk-Upgrade

Like Hector, I'm not using GRUB, but that's also got to be changed to
point to the new locations, etc. FREE CLUE: Make sure you have a
rescue capability - either a bootable CD (such as the rescue CD that
comes with some distributions) or bootable floppy. "Bad stuff happens."

Old guy