I have been gently suggesting a new practice. Making it routine to keep the Non-OS data on a separate drive from the OS. Bluntly stating the two bedrock facts seems belaboring the obvious. But the percent of such default installs is trivial at best. So? I invite constructive comment on why or why NOT using a separate device for OS and user data makes any sense.
The two bedrock facts being? 1: that any disaster befalling the OS device's file system has "less chance" of damaging user data. 2: Establishing that user data as detached from the OS assists many things. The list of those "many things" is non-trivial and more. Let me give the short closers
*IF* we establish it as default practice that future Linux installs use a two device minimal mode we banish whole categories of data disasters. That alone is good enough for me. The icing on that being swapping an OS becomes closer to a trivial "no user data risked" operation.
Addendum forced by premeditated desire to stifle the YahBut gallery is the cherry on top.
In a long past time a "drive" was a truly major expense. Even removable media such as floppy etc were cost issues. Today ? I humbly offer the KCLUG thread on Craig's issues RE: Rolling back updates. as "Exhibit A"
How are "we" going to set that as a default practice?
As far as your idea goes, it's hardly new or novel. It's also not appropriate for the vast majority of people. Why? Because most people _only have one hard drive_. Laptops only have room for one hard drive, many desktops only have room for one as well. Many people can't afford the extra expense or would prefer to spend their money on other things.
Also, using a second hard drive for user data storage is hardly a solution for preventing data loss. Everyone should be backing up their data to an external device (preferably off-site) or removable media. If you add a second hard drive that's not going to help you if your computer shorts out and fries the electronics.
Now, that all said, using a separate drive for the reasons you've stated is certainly not a bad thing. It can make installs and upgrades a bit easier, and it does provide you a bit more extra safety should you have a root volume failure (but obviously won't help you should your user volume fail). What you've stated is very common practice on servers that provide user services (or have application users).
But instead of spending energy promoting using a second hard drive, you ought to be promoting backups.
Jeffrey.
On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
I'll be honest.
A second hard drive for user data only is a decently ideal practice if you have the technological know-how, as well as are paranoid about your data. However for the common user, this practice really doesn't do them any justice.
from my experience, this practice won't do you much good, even with Windows. I've found that when i've had PC crashes with Windows 98 (god that was ages ago) my secondary drive also crashed with the primary. linux, the same thing can happen if you're not careful. I know there's been advances in how ext3 and the new ext4 file systems recover data, but it's not fool-proof. Backups are your friend, and thats what people should always do.
As far as servers go.. You ALWAYS keep the OS on it's own partition. may it be either a physical partition on a single hard drive, or a software partition on a spanned array. Data goes in it's own drive. (I should follow that with my new dedicated boxes...)
Certainly, I highly recommend keeping user data files separated from the "OS" files. However, it is not always reasonably possible to have the data on a separate drive. Such as laptops which have one internal drive. I always have a partition just for data. However separate drives, are better.
Brian J
--- On Sat, 1/31/09, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
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Jack -
Jeffrey Watts -
Joe Brouhard -
Oren Beck