I recently won a UK Premium Bond Prize Draw and added another 50% towards a brand new Seagate 2-TB harddrive
Previous to the new 2-TB hardrive, my system was 124 Gig SDD and numerous other small harddrives that are only connected singly to prevent frying the power supply.
To overcome Windows inablility to read and write Linux Mint’s EXT4 configuration I opted for the following SDD configuration.
Three partitions
EXT4 - 15 Gig - Linux Mint 17.1 (I think EXT4 is the formatted type)
NTFS - 80 Gig - Windows 7
NTFS - 20 Gig - Shared Common Drive
The 2-TB drive is temporarily partitioned into two 1-TB NTFS partitions and is able to be read and written by both operating systems.
Windows is very seldom used and Linux Mint is frequently running short of diskspace. I think a Linux re-installation is required.
I am open to suggestions as to the best way to utilise the 2-TB harddrive.
Which folders utilize the most space on your mint Linux setup? /home and /var? If so format a partition or two on your 2 tb drive as ext4 and move those folders to the new drive.
You will have to copy them, update your /etc/fstab, rename the old locations, create empty folders for the new mounts and then reboot. After that is done you can safely delete their old locations. I usually do those steps using a live cd so nothing is active during the move process.
Isolate the OS on its own drive and generously partition the remaining. I have only Windows XP, and it’s on Drive “Y” quite deliberately because the OS is subservient to my files, not the other way around. I do a lot of graphics work, so the following are admittedly design focused.
C . . . Cache
D . . . DVD
E . . . Easel
G . . . Graphics
H . . . HTML
J . . . Journal
K . . . Knowledge
L . . . Ledger
M . . . Movies O . . . Operations P . . . Programs Q . . . Que
R . . . Recovery
T . . . Text
V . . . Vault
W . . . Website
Y . . . Windows
What’s been most interesting (to me) are the 3 Drives that I have disciplined myself to use for the non-OS programs I have installed — Operations, Programs and Que (which Is everything internet-focused, eg. Dreamweaver, AV, Email). I probably have hundreds of apps on my computer, and separating them into these 3 partitions has been the best thing I could have ever done. You’ll no doubt find what will work for you!
Both folders were taking just over 3 gigs. I managed to find Linux gpart and shuffled the partition folders so that there is now a lot of free space on the Linux partition. I prefer having the operating system self-contained and not spread over two drives.
I’ve found more times than naught, having /home on a separate drive is better in the long run, but that is purely my experience, as it lets me run all critical things on an SSD and then store all of the data I have on a typical drive. My /home partition is massive! I’d hate to buy an SSD of that size for my personal data.
What’s been most interesting (to me) are the 3 Drives that I have disciplined myself to use for the non-OS programs I have installed — Operations, Programs and Que (which Is everything internet-focused, eg. Dreamweaver, AV, Email). I probably have hundreds of apps on my computer, and separating them into these 3 partitions has been the best thing I could have ever done. You’ll no doubt find what will work for you!
The complication with Windows is that it cannot access Linux partitions but Linux can access and modify Windows NTFS partitions.
I have installed both Linux and Windows on the 2TB drive and will upgrade the latter to Win 10 in the near future.
I do a lot of graphics work, so the following are admittedly design focused.
O . . . Operations