partitioning server with 2 hard drives

[David Christensen]

On 2020-09-15 14:34, Marwan Sultan wrote:
> Good day/Evening for all FreeBSDers 🙂
> 
>   I want to install latest FreeBSD for a business server
>   erver with the following specification. :
>   Intel Xeon E3-1240 v5 3.5GHz
> Hardware RAID Controller 1 GB Cache with BBU
> 16 GB DDR4 RAM - Total
> 1 TB 7200 SATA
> 1 TB 7200 SATA
> 
> I understand its advised to create it in this order and SWAP double (or triple) of the RAM (is 50 GB ok) ?
> /
> swap
> var
> /tmp
> /usr
> 
> Questions :
> 
>    1.  Would you kindly advise what is the best partitioning scheme on 2 hard drives?

ZFS is supported OOTB on FreeBSD.  Choose the "Auto (ZFS)" option for 
partitioning the system drive.  You can set the swap size as you choose 
(I use 2g).  You can also mirror and/or encrypt swap.


I keep my operating system images on single, non-RAID SSD's.  This makes 
it easy to backup, clone, and restore raw binary images.  If you install 
onto a 1 TB drive, imaging operations will be impractical.


Unfortunately, the FreeBSD installer  does not provide an obvious way to 
limit the size of the FreeBSD installation -- it uses the entire drive. 
So, unless you are prepared to resort to more complex measures, the easy 
answer is to get a 16 GB SSD and install onto that.


Once your system is installed, create a ZFS pool using the two 1 TB 
HDD's as a mirror.  Create filesystems, create volumes, and/or set 
properties as required for your needs,


>    2.  in FreeBSD handbook says i would better create swap on both partitions? may someone advise HOW 

Let the installer do it for you.


> and WHY ?

Having swap partitions on multiple devices allows the kernel to reduce 
contention and/or perform concurrent I/O.


David