21

I have an SSD with 64 GB and a 6 GB/s 1 Terabyte hard drive. I want to use the SSD only as a boot device and maybe for swap storage. On the 1 Terabyte hard drive, I want to have the main file system. As in Windows, I liked to have at least 2-3 Partitions example for music games programs and so on.

Which partition layout do you recommend to me?

Tejas Lotlikar
  • 2,875
  • 5
  • 16
  • 26
Alexander Marcev
  • 315
  • 1
  • 3
  • 7

2 Answers2

14

64GB is more than enough for a root filesystem, a default installation will probably occupy about 3GB. When installing Ubuntu, choose for a custom partitioning scheme:

  • Put a partition on your SSD with mount point /
  • On your 1 TB data disk, create a partition with /home

Variations are possible. You can store all your settings and documents on the SSD and store large files like music and video on the 1TB disk:

  • Install Ubuntu to /
  • Create some partitions on your 1 TB disk, and mount those on /media/DESIRED-PARTITION-NAME.

Some folders in your home folder may become too large for the SSD, like ~/.wine. In that case, create a partition (or folder) on your 1 TB disk named "DATA" (with /media/DATA as mount point). Then, move the ~/.wine folder to the data partition:

mv ~/.wine /media/DATA/wine

If you've just installed the system and the folder did not exist yet, just create the empty folder:

mkdir /media/DATA/wine

Next, create a symbolic link from your home directory to the wine folder on the big disk:

ln -s /media/DATA/wine ~/.wine

The latter can also be performed after installation of Ubuntu to the SSD. Use GParted to create partitions on the 1 TB disk.

Related SSD questions:

Anthony Geoghegan
  • 1,386
  • 14
  • 20
Lekensteyn
  • 171,743
  • 65
  • 311
  • 401
  • Thanks for your hints. But as i understand is that / is the root directory where all files and programs are installed right? I think 64 gigs are enough for programs and tools, but i am worried if i want to install some games. How can i example install wine and some games on my /home or maybe /games directory? – Alexander Marcev Sep 19 '11 at 21:34
  • Also, I'd recommend installing using LVM, so that you can more easily move things around later on. – poolie Sep 19 '11 at 22:29
  • @AlexanderMarcev what games are you talking about (where do those games get installed to?) – Lekensteyn Sep 19 '11 at 22:31
  • @poolie I would recommend against using LVM for a SSD. If you combine the SSD and a HDD with LVM, you'll loose a lot of your performance. – Lekensteyn Sep 19 '11 at 22:32
  • like in windows i have a partition for games only. i would like to do this on ubuntu also, but as i see the ssd is to small so i have to get exmple wine and other games installed to my 1 TB drive.... – Alexander Marcev Sep 20 '11 at 04:22
  • I'm not suggesting creating a single logical volume spanning the disks, which would likely perform poorly. – poolie Sep 20 '11 at 05:49
  • @AlexanderMarcev If using wine, the games will likely be installed to the "drives" in Wine which is located somewhere in the `.wine` folder in your home folder. In that case, putting `/home` on SSD is sufficient. I'll include an alternative in the answer. – Lekensteyn Sep 20 '11 at 09:44
  • hi there, now i am ready to learn. i installed ubuntu on my ssd and my /home folder on the 1 TB Disc. Now i created a DATA Folder under /home/Username/Data. Than i made the /Data/wine Folder in /media. And finally the symbol link. BUT in my /home/username/data folder i cant see anything from wine!? – Alexander Marcev Jun 18 '12 at 22:21
  • just in /media/Data/wine i see the wine folder but if i click on this folder it show me another wine folder and so on.... – Alexander Marcev Jun 18 '12 at 22:26
  • Have you correctly created the symlink? It sounds you have put a symlink at `/media/Data/wine/wine` pointing to `/media/Data/wine`. The symlink should be created in `/home/Username/.wine`. – Lekensteyn Jun 18 '12 at 22:39
  • can i delete the exisitng symlink in media? Why do i need /media/data ? and now i thought to do this: sudo ln -s /home/alexander/DATA/wine ~/.wine correct? – Alexander Marcev Jun 19 '12 at 05:31
  • I assumed that you had an disk mounted at `/media/Data`, but it sounds like you have put it on `/home/alexander/DATA`. If `~/.wine` already exists, you have to remove (or move) it first, otherwise the command creates `~/.wine/wine` which is not what you intend to do. – Lekensteyn Jun 19 '12 at 08:54
  • ok, so now i just delte /media/data right? Whats next? again, my / partition is on the ssd with wine on it, but i want to symbol link it to /home/data/wine, do i habe to go to this folder and create the symbol link? When yes, how? – Alexander Marcev Jun 19 '12 at 13:19
  • What is not clear from my answer, where does the confusion arise? – Lekensteyn Jun 19 '12 at 14:03
12

Do not put swap on the ssd. Put it on the hdd. Some pointers about swap and ssd: Installing Ubuntu on a SSD

Do make sure you enable trim on the SSD: How to enable TRIM?

My personal layout that works best for me:

  • / 20 Gb (sda1) (is on a 120 Gb ssd); gets formatted every time I re-install.
  • swap 4 Gb (sdb1).
  • /home 15 Gb. (sdb2) Holds only settings, no userfiles. I remove all directories after install and symlink them to /discword/; gets formatted every time I re-install. After format I recreate the symlinks and press F5 on my desktop to get all my video files back I had on my desktop.
  • /discworld (sdb3) is my data partition. Has a /discword/Downloads/ and /discworld/Desktop/ etc. Never gets formatted.
  • /disworld2/ (sda2) is the 100 Gb remainder of my SSD. Unused; never gets formatted.

You can set this up during installation with the something else option (i.e. manual partitioning).

Community
  • 1
Rinzwind
  • 293,910
  • 41
  • 570
  • 710