Put /usr on a different drive

[Jerry McAllister]

On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 10:46:48AM +0100, Daniel A. wrote:

> On 1/14/07, Jerry McAllister <jerrymc at msu.edu> wrote:
> >On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 12:08:13AM +0100, Daniel A. wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >> I'm wondering if someone could point me in the right direction of
> >> moving the entire /usr partition to a second hard disk, given that I
> >> am on an existing (newly installed) install of FreeBSD.
> >>
> >> Also, is it possible to specify something like this during the
> >> installation itself?
> >
> >It is quite possible, but not quite as convenient as it could be if
> >you are not familiar with the installer.
> >
> > ... much excised ...
> >
> >  /dev/ad1s1a             /usr            ufs     rw              2       2
> >
> >Then reboot and things should be just hunkie-dori.
> >
> >
> >////jerry
> >>
> >>
> >> Sincerely,
> >> Daniel A.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
> >> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> >> To unsubscribe, send any mail to 
> >"freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
> >
> That sounds absolutely fantastic!
> I did think over just copying the contents and then mounting the drive
> as /usr, but I was unsure if doing it so simple would break something.
> Apparently it wont, if I just do it in single-user mode?

Well, as long as you do it right.

> Anyway, now that I've got that settled, would anyone recommend me what
> to do with the now empty space in ad0?

What do you want to do with it?

First of all, I can't believe you can't get by with 55GB in /usr.
You must have stuff in there I would never put there, so take a 
look at what is using up all that space first before you start
moving it around.

Then, I would just mount that space previously used for /usr as
something else like /work or /scratch, empty it out and use it
for stashing stuff there like all pictures you take in a lifetime
or something like that.

> My current layout is like this:
> ad0 - 60GB
> 1gb swap
> 520M /
> 520M /tmp
> 55G /usr
> 1.5G /var
> 
> ad1 - 120GB
> (Currently only one partition, occupying full drive)
> 
> Once I move my /usr to ad1, I'll have 55 gigabytes of space available
> on ad0, and nowhere to put it. I've thought of assigning that space to
> /var, but 55G would be overkill for a little home server like mine,
> don't you think?

You don't have to put it anywhere.   It is already there.
Just make up a mount point - which is just a directory and
is done with mkdir  as in   'mkdir /work'  or  'mkdir /scratch'
or  'mkdir /pics'  or  'mkdir /web'  or whatever you want.
Then mount the partition that had previously mounted as /usr
maybe it was  /dev/ad0s1e  on that new mount point.

It sort of looks like you must have put home directories for user 
accounts in /usr and I would suggest putting them in a filesystem 
just for them.  So, maybe you want to mount it as /home and put user 
accounts there.    Depends on how many you have, probably.   Although, 
once upon a time /usr  was thought to be a place for user accounts - 
maybe /usr/home actually, nowdays /usr is too important to the
system itself to put user accounts' home directories, which can 
grow unexpectedly sometimes in it, unless you are the only one with
any user accounts, and then you can even surprise yourself sometimes.
 
> Maybe I should just assign ad1 to /home, which is basically the one
> place where I use most disk space?
> 
> Oh snap, never mind answering this email. I think that is exactly what I'll 
> do!

OK.  Well, that is what I have been saying, somewhat.
Don't make it ad1, but ad1s1a.   I would suggest fully slicing
and partitioning it (fdisk and bsdlabel) rather than using it
as the so-called dangerously-dedicated disk (eg newfs-ing and mounting
it as just ad1.
> 
> And thanks for the replies, Jerry and Andrew.

////jerry

> 
> -- 
> Sincerely,
> Daniel A. A.
> dienub.org
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