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Multiple partitions during install of debian

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:09 am
by alex.barylski
We have a Debian based web server which I installed using the multiple partitions (tmp, var, usr, home, whatever)

What is the difference in using one partition or multiple partitions? I was under the impression it was for performance and recommended for live web servers so log files and tmp files didn't bog the system down?

Does it make any difference to me as a web developer who occassional admin's the system?

Re: Multiple partitions during install of debian

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 6:24 pm
by Chris Corbyn
It makes maintenance simpler. You can backup and restore partitions independently of each other and you can have different mount options for permissions etc on each partition. It won't make your day to day web development any easier no.

Re: Multiple partitions during install of debian

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 6:55 pm
by alex.barylski
It doesn't impact performance though, having all files under a single partition? This was the impression I was under. Not sure how that would work. :P

I guess I thought that log files would constantly be added/growing/shrinking as would files in the var/ for a web server so I thought maybe having them on separate partitions would mean less fragmentation for the core partitions used by the OS itself, or something like that.

Re: Multiple partitions during install of debian

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 10:15 pm
by Christopher
It does not impact performance, except for tools that work on partitions. That's sort of stating the obvious, but there are a number of tools that work on partitions. If you use those or need them for emergencies then partitions are a good choice. For performance, obviously multiple disks or RAID is the way to go.

Re: Multiple partitions during install of debian

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:31 pm
by alex.barylski
Hmmm...OK good to know...thx :)