Hi all,

Just wanted to check if there is a best practice on how to split the storage?

For example, I have:

Total: 20480 MB
Disk 1: Ubuntu 11.04 LTS Disk Image - 15384 MB, ext3
Disk 2: Swap (1000 MB, swap)

Free: 4096 MB

Now, I would like to re-evaluate the partition in order to ensure that no data is lost when upgrading OS etc. So I am considering creating a new disk just for that and then changing configurations etc. to use that.

Any recommendation?

Your swap is way to much, 256 is the recommended size for Linode.

--
Travis

You've got too much for flash, go for 256MB or so..

Isn't the usual recommendation (non virtualised world) to have swap = twice RAM? I am on on Linode 152.

That's the old rule of thumb, but it was conceived a long time ago when RAM was more scarce and memory managers not as evolved. For a server you don't want any swapping ever, but the space should be just large enough that you don't get horrendous disk thrashing if it does happen. The default is probably a good balance, since disk space is at a premium.

You'd be fine with a 1:1 ratio on ram:swap space.

Just to close this thread. I decide on this setup finally:

Disk 1: Ubuntu 11.04 LTS Disk Image (5120 MB, ext3)
Disk 2: Swap (512 MB, swap)
Disk 3: Content (14848 MB, ext3)

"Content" contains all my /home and data for serving "www" applications running on nginx, sinatra etc.

I used this guide to move my /home from Disk 1 to Disk 2, specifically the "The hard way (multiple directories on same partition)" section
http://linux.chrissweeney.co.uk/topic.php?t=16