andy@zeno.mn.org (Andy Joe) (01/18/91)
Current system: Mac IIci, Color Monitor, CD-ROM, CDC WREN V with a Unimac enclosure, AUX 2.0, and Storware (software for formating/partitioning the harddrive). I have several questions concerning AUX 2.0 and partitioning a hard drive. Firstly, I am wondering if there is any problems (pros or cons) with setting up a 450 meg partition for the Root & Usr, a 18 meg swap, and a 3 meg Eschatology. I am actually running with a 450 meg Root & Usr and a 18 meg swap, but do not have the 3 meg Eschatology partition due the formatting software (see problem # 2 below). The system seems to be running fine, but I have heard rumors that having a huge root & usr partition may be unwise. Is this true and can anybody explain why. I would rather have a just one partition for AUX, instead of having to mount another usr2 file system. My second problem concerns the Storware partitioning software, and the Eschatology partition. The software allows you to create partitions on the hard drive for a 40-meg AUX system, a 80-meg AUX system; or a partition of any size with the following types: a misc AUX partition (unreserved 1), a Root & Usr partition, a swap partition, or a Eschatology 2 partition. Therefore as stated above, I do not have a auto-recovery partition (who says you need on anyways, huh?? :-> ). (I have spoken to Unimac, who were very helpful and they are attempting to fix this problem) I would like to know if it is possible to use 'dp' to modify the partition (I created it as an Eschatology 2 partition in hopes that AUX 2.0 would reconize it) to be the correct one. I've read the manual page and I think it can be done, but I am not sure what the correct parameters or arguments are. My last question concerns the 100 meg Mac partition that I created on the WREN V. It is visiable when I am running under the Mac OS, but when I boot up AUX, only the original 80 meg Quatum drive (Mac partition) and the root folder shows ups. Is there some magic I have to perform or do I have to RTFM? (If so, then I'll have to purchase TFM, in the meantime, could you tell me what I need to do) Thanxs.
sramtrc@windy.dsir.govt.nz (01/19/91)
In article <1991Jan17.231709.8562@zeno.mn.org>, andy@zeno.mn.org (Andy Joe) writes: > > I have several questions concerning AUX 2.0 and partitioning a > hard drive. Firstly, I am wondering if there is any problems (pros > or cons) with setting up a 450 meg partition for the Root & Usr, > a 18 meg swap, and a 3 meg Eschatology. I am actually running with My personal preference is to have separate root and usr partitions. The root partition is not written to very frequently and so you can fill it right up to, say, 99% full instead of 90%. That way you get an extra 9% disk space. I used to recommend a seperate /tmp partition but that was in the old days of the svfs filesystem which used to keep inodes separate from files. The ufs filesystem does not have this problem since it spreads the inodes out over the disk. Another possibility that I have not tried since it involves a lot of work is to mount the root partition read-only. That gives a margin of safety and means that you only have to do one backup since nothing changes. A good reason for partitioning drives is to speed up the seek time. I have a ZBR disk which means the outside tracks are read faster. So I have the swap partiton first, then root, then /tmp partition, then 3 usr partitions, then 4 MacOS partitions. I do my active work on the usr partition closest to the root, and keep the others for lesser used stuff. So most of the time my drives seeks over 30% of the disk which brings the average seek time down to 5 ms. When I run MacOS the seek time is still 5ms since I use about 30% of the disk there. Again the most active partitions are together. > > partition. Therefore as stated above, I do not have a auto-recovery > partition (who says you need on anyways, huh?? :-> ). (I have spoken You don't need one. Making backups is for pessimists. > I would like to know if it is possible to use 'dp' to modify the partition dp will let you modify the partitions to anything you like, even to create partitions that overlap or have the wrong type etc. So it can do everything you like plus more. You just have to make sure you know what you are doing. A dose of RTFM (including Inside Mac V) is pretty important. > My last question concerns the 100 meg Mac partition that I created > on the WREN V. It is visiable when I am running under the Mac OS, but > when I boot up AUX, only the original 80 meg Quatum drive (Mac partition) > and the root folder shows ups. Is there some magic I have to perform or > do I have to RTFM? I don't think there is a FM on this one. I don't know why it doesn't show up. As long as it was mounted before you ran A/UX Startup and it is the only HFS partition on the drive it should show up under MacOS under A/UX. Read some earlier news articles because I vaguely remember someone offering advice that fixed someone's problems in this regard. Note that Apple only support one HFS partition per drive. There is third party software to support more than one partition so if you want to create more than one you can go ahead. If all this proves to be too much trouble for you I will exchange your Wren V for my Quantum 80. It is an official Apple drive and is already partitioned and boots quite well. And if you use only two tracks you can get the average seek time down to a millisecond. Cheers, Tony Cooper sramtrc@albert.dsir.govt.nz
liam@cs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) (01/21/91)
In <18805.27979475@windy.dsir.govt.nz> sramtrc@windy.dsir.govt.nz writes: >My personal preference is to have separate root and usr partitions. The >root partition is not written to very frequently and so you can fill it >right up to, say, 99% full instead of 90%. That way you get an extra 9% >disk space. Don't forget to leave room for autoconfiguration (i.e. about 1.5 megabytes if you have a separate tmp partition, twice that if you don't). Various things go very horribly wrong if your autoconfiguration fails and fills up what little space there is left in root: in particular root is the default SWAPDEV so spare blocks in root have to be available if you want pipes & command-redirection to work. The /etc/startup.d/ae6 file is not at all resilient to pipe failures! >I used to recommend a seperate /tmp partition but that was >in the old days of the svfs filesystem which used to keep inodes separate >from files. The ufs filesystem does not have this problem since it spreads >the inodes out over the disk. We have separate tmp partitions: partly habit but also so that we don't worry about the fact that root is full for normal users (who therefore can't make pipes: see above). >Another possibility that I have not tried >since it involves a lot of work is to mount the root partition read-only. >That gives a margin of safety and means that you only have to do one >backup since nothing changes. It won't work. This is a nice trick (Sun have done things to achieve this) but A/UX gets most of the advantages by doing an fsck BEFORE A/UX get launched (unless you turned that off as well as autorecovery). -- William Roberts ARPA: liam@cs.qmw.ac.uk Queen Mary & Westfield College UUCP: liam@qmw-cs.UUCP Mile End Road AppleLink: UK0087 LONDON, E1 4NS, UK Tel: 071-975 5250 (Fax: 081-980 6533)