On Mon, Aug 13, 2001 at 08:15:03AM -0500, Kent Tenney wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> I'm a newbie.
>
> I am installing potato on a box to use for a photo stock
> house/ web / graphic design operation.
>
> I will be maintaining a fairly large and constantly increasing
> collection of image files, as well as accounting stuff, metadata on
> image files, directories for client projects etc.
>
> I've had a look at some FHS info and am still unclear where
> the preferred location for my data is, and what the implications
> are for partitioning disks.
>
> I prefer not to restructure later on.
>
> I would appreciate any help on how to set up for flexibility
> in backing up, upgrading hard drives etc.
>
I think you should regard your image and accounting data as user data. Hence,
the only guidance that FSH provides for this is that it goes somewhere under
/home/joeuser/.
Your image data will probably be the most valuable and space consuming data
on your system. Plan your backup stratagy around that. Ideally, you should
be able to backup your largest partition to one tape. You dont have to do
this, but it makes things easier. Since 650 MB is prolly too small, you
cant use cdrw, you need to spring for a tape drive.
Big tape drives cost much more than big hard drives these days. Worse, tape
drives are usually promoted using their "compressed" capacity, which is
generally 2X their native capacity. Most of your data will be image files,
which (I assume) is already compressed. In this case, the tape drive's
hardware compression could actually make the backup file *bigger*.
Make your purchase decison based on native capacity.
I suggest you proceed as follows:
- Decide on a tape drive.
- Partition your system as follows:
one partition to be mounted as /home, sized according to the native
capacity of your backup drive.
one swap partition
a partition for everything else
Well this is how I would do it. I am sure that there are plenty of other
opinions and philosophies around. I hope this helps.
Mike
