Hello, I just got a new 750gb hd. My old hd is 170gb or so. I would like to do 2 things. First and foremost, I would like to move my home dir to the new drive.

The new drive is now partitioned with a 8gb swap and then a 3ext section. I would also like to make a small partition for doing things like installing 8.10 for testing out the new kde 4, so some sort of duel boot but only with linux. I don't use windows at all save for a bit of wine.


I used gparted to get this far and I see how I could mount it but how do you copy and move the home partition??

Also I welcome any advice about how to set this up so my computer runs faster by having the right partitions on the right drives!


BTW it is all sata II

Thanks for any help!
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Knapp wrote:
> Hello, I just got a new 750gb hd. My old hd is 170gb or so. I would like to
> do 2 things. First and foremost, I would like to move my home dir to the new
> drive.
>
> The new drive is now partitioned with a 8gb swap and then a 3ext section. I
> would also like to make a small partition for doing things like installing
> 8.10 for testing out the new kde 4, so some sort of duel boot but only with
> linux. I don't use windows at all save for a bit of wine.
>
> I used gparted to get this far and I see how I could mount it but how do you
> copy and move the home partition??
>
> Also I welcome any advice about how to set this up so my computer runs
> faster by having the right partitions on the right drives!

I personally would be tempted to try using something like partimage or
another clone program (I think gparted can copy partitions too) to clone
your current non-swap partitions to the new hard drive then use gparted
to expand the partition sizes as necessary to fill the new drive, see if
that works.

If the names of partitions change you might have to tell it to mount
things a little differently, but it might save some copying effort.

Just make sure there are backups first!

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Knapp wrote:
> Hello, I just got a new 750gb hd. My old hd is 170gb or so. I would like to
> do 2 things. First and foremost, I would like to move my home dir to the new
> drive.
>
> The new drive is now partitioned with a 8gb swap and then a 3ext section. I
> would also like to make a small partition for doing things like installing
> 8.10 for testing out the new kde 4, so some sort of duel boot but only with
> linux. I don't use windows at all save for a bit of wine.
>
> I used gparted to get this far and I see how I could mount it but how do you
> copy and move the home partition??
>
> Also I welcome any advice about how to set this up so my computer runs
> faster by having the right partitions on the right drives!
>
> BTW it is all sata II
>
> Thanks for any help!
>
>

Copying of your home partition should be done in single user / rescue
mode. (You should be able to access this mode by Pressing ESC during
grub start sequence to see menu.)

Then you mount your new partition, ex:

mkdir /mnt/target

mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb2 /mnt/target (making sure that sdb2 is indeed
the correct partition for your new drive.)

cp -a /home/. /mnt/target/

When the copy is done, you can edit fstab to mount the new partition as
home.


As far as organizing your hard drives for performance, I'm not sure if
there are absolute rules, but here are some things to keep in mind as
you are experimenting.

The new hard drive will most certainly be faster than the old one. So
stuff you want to work faster should be ported to the new drive.

you can test this yourself with hdparm

hdparm -tT /dev/sda
hdparm -tT /dev/sdb

The other point to keep in mind is that the start of the drive will be
much much faster than the end of the hard drive. That is, a small 20GB
partition at the start of your old 170GB drive is probably much faster
than a small 20GB partition at the end of your new drive, even though
the new drive is faster overall.

Personally, I like to keep my swap partitions at the start of the drive,
since I find a swap storm to be the most performance killing IO
operation that affects interactivity. (ie, unlike loading programs or
copying large files, Swap I/O will cause my already running programs to
stutter and be unresponsive). The other school of thought I've heard is
to keep swap partitions in the middle of your drive, that way, IO
operations that need to read/write to both swap and filesystem on the
same drive will only need to move the hard drive head, at most, half
stroke across the platter, whereas if the swap is at either end of the
platter, the potential distance between File system IO and Swap IO is
the entire drive (and keeping in mind that seek time for the hard drive
head is the largest performance bottleneck of any modern computer)

If you have swap space on both hard drives, edit your fstab file so each
swap partition has the pri=0 option.

Ex:

UUID=61c46e3e-a646-4750-9729-e08212371a6f none swap pri=0 0 0


If both Swaps are given the same priority, Linux will balance the load
between them evenly.

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On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 5:09 PM, Rashkae <ubuntu@tigershaunt.com> wrote:

Knapp wrote:

> Hello, I just got a new 750gb hd. My old hd is 170gb or so. I would like to

> do 2 things. First and foremost, I would like to move my home dir to the new

> drive.

>

> The new drive is now partitioned with a 8gb swap and then a 3ext section. I

> would also like to make a small partition for doing things like installing

> 8.10 for testing out the new kde 4, so some sort of duel boot but only with

> linux. I don't use windows at all save for a bit of wine.

>

> I used gparted to get this far and I see how I could mount it but how do you

> copy and move the home partition??

>

> Also I welcome any advice about how to set this up so my computer runs

> faster by having the right partitions on the right drives!

>

> BTW it is all sata II

>

> Thanks for any help!

>

>



Copying of your home partition should be done in single user / rescue

mode. *(You should be able to access this mode by Pressing ESC during

grub start sequence to see menu.)



Then you mount your new partition, ex:



mkdir /mnt/target



mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb2 /mnt/target *(making sure that sdb2 is indeed

the correct partition for your new drive.)



cp -a /home/. /mnt/target/



When the copy is done, you can edit fstab to mount the new partition as

home.





As far as organizing your hard drives for performance, I'm not sure if

there are absolute rules, but here are some things to keep in mind as

you are experimenting.



The new hard drive will most certainly be faster than the old one. *So

stuff you want to work faster should be ported to the new drive.



you can test this yourself with hdparm



hdparm -tT /dev/sda

hdparm -tT /dev/sdb



The other point to keep in mind is that the start of the drive will be

much much faster than the end of the hard drive. *That is, a small 20GB

partition at the start of your old 170GB drive is probably much faster

than a small 20GB partition at the end of your new drive, even though

the new drive is faster overall.



Personally, I like to keep my swap partitions at the start of the drive,

since I find a swap storm to be the most performance killing IO

operation that affects interactivity. (ie, unlike loading programs or

copying large files, Swap I/O will cause my already running programs to

stutter and be unresponsive). *The other school of thought I've heard is

to keep swap partitions in the middle of your drive, that way, IO

operations that need to read/write to both swap and filesystem on the

same drive will only need to move the hard drive head, at most, half

stroke across the platter, whereas if the swap is at either end of the

platter, the potential distance between File system IO and Swap IO is

the entire drive *(and keeping in mind that seek time for the hard drive

head is the largest performance bottleneck of any modern computer)



If you have swap space on both hard drives, edit your fstab file so each

swap partition has the pri=0 option.



Ex:



UUID=61c46e3e-a646-4750-9729-e08212371a6f none *swap * pri=0 * 0 *0





If both Swaps are given the same priority, Linux will balance the load

between them evenly.*Thanks, I was just about to burn a partition magic CD so I could do partition copying!
Thanks to the first poster too!
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you can test this yourself with hdparm



hdparm -tT /dev/sda

hdparm -tT /dev/sdb



/dev/sda:
*Timing cached reads:** 1284 MB in* 2.00 seconds = 642.47 MB/sec
*Timing buffered disk reads:* 184 MB in* 3.01 seconds =* 61.04 MB/sec
douglas@frog:~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdb


/dev/sdb:
*Timing cached reads:** 1870 MB in* 2.00 seconds = 935.13 MB/sec
*Timing buffered disk reads:* 258 MB in* 3.02 seconds =* 85.39 MB/sec
douglas@frog:~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
*Timing cached reads:** 1568 MB in* 2.00 seconds = 784.56 MB/sec

*Timing buffered disk reads:* 186 MB in* 3.02 seconds =* 61.60 MB/sec
douglas@frog:~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
*Timing cached reads:** 1504 MB in* 2.00 seconds = 752.03 MB/sec
*Timing buffered disk reads:* 258 MB in* 3.02 seconds =* 85.31 MB/sec



So what should I make of that??

BTW it is a home system. Mostly email, and music running or maybe a movie. When it gets hardcore I am running gimp, digicam, Blender3d and I always have an Apache server running in the background but it only gets about 2 hits a week!


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On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 11:27 AM, Knapp <magick.crow@gmail.com> wrote:
>> you can test this yourself with hdparm
> So what should I make of that??

The second drive is faster :-) The buffered figure is more real
world than the cached one. The new drive is somewhat faster. On a
home box, I bet you don't notice the difference. Unless you enjoy
that sort of thing, just set it up the way that's convenient and makes
sense, and don't worry much about which way might be faster. Make a
swap partition on the new drive and mount it as well as the old one as
the previous poster suggested.

Brian

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On 12/17/2008 01:42 PM, Brian McKee wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 11:27 AM, Knapp <magick.crow@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> you can test this yourself with hdparm
>> So what should I make of that??
>
> The second drive is faster :-) The buffered figure is more real
> world than the cached one. The new drive is somewhat faster. On a
> home box, I bet you don't notice the difference. Unless you enjoy
> that sort of thing, just set it up the way that's convenient and makes
> sense, and don't worry much about which way might be faster. Make a
> swap partition on the new drive and mount it as well as the old one as
> the previous poster suggested.
>
> Brian
>

I wonder... I get different readings on different partitions and file
type even though the hard drives are identical. They are jumper
configured for primary and slave:

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 1034 MB in 2.00 seconds = 516.60 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 84 MB in 3.06 seconds = 27.49 MB/sec

/dev/sdb:
Timing cached reads: 1062 MB in 2.00 seconds = 530.69 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 144 MB in 3.02 seconds = 47.69 MB/sec

sdb is a Windows drive. I find that if you do the same with each
partition on the same hard drive you will get different readings as well.

/dev/sda1:
Timing cached reads: 1044 MB in 2.00 seconds = 522.09 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 84 MB in 3.05 seconds = 27.50 MB/sec

/dev/sda5:
Timing cached reads: 1014 MB in 2.00 seconds = 506.46 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 58 MB in 3.08 seconds = 18.84 MB/sec

/dev/sdb1:
Timing cached reads: 1070 MB in 2.00 seconds = 534.98 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 156 MB in 3.01 seconds = 51.85 MB/sec

/dev/sdb2:
Timing cached reads: 1050 MB in 2.00 seconds = 524.59 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 96 MB in 3.02 seconds = 31.82 MB/sec


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OK, I am a bit lost.
I have 2 copies of my partitions one on drive sda (old one) and one on sdb the new one. I want to change my root partition to be the one on the new drive but both must be labeled / right? Also there is no uuid for the new partition, as best as I can tell because it is not mounted, so how do I get the id? I could use a label / but then how would it know which one to use? Anyway, as I said, I am lost!

Thanks for all the help so far.

sba7 is the old one

sdb6 is the new one, if that helps any.

Thanks all!
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NoOp wrote:

> I wonder... I get different readings on different partitions and file
> type even though the hard drives are identical. They are jumper
> configured for primary and slave:
>
> /dev/sda:
> Timing cached reads: 1034 MB in 2.00 seconds = 516.60 MB/sec
> Timing buffered disk reads: 84 MB in 3.06 seconds = 27.49 MB/sec
>
> /dev/sdb:
> Timing cached reads: 1062 MB in 2.00 seconds = 530.69 MB/sec
> Timing buffered disk reads: 144 MB in 3.02 seconds = 47.69 MB/sec
>
> sdb is a Windows drive. I find that if you do the same with each
> partition on the same hard drive you will get different readings as well.
>
> /dev/sda1:
> Timing cached reads: 1044 MB in 2.00 seconds = 522.09 MB/sec
> Timing buffered disk reads: 84 MB in 3.05 seconds = 27.50 MB/sec
>
> /dev/sda5:
> Timing cached reads: 1014 MB in 2.00 seconds = 506.46 MB/sec
> Timing buffered disk reads: 58 MB in 3.08 seconds = 18.84 MB/sec
>
> /dev/sdb1:
> Timing cached reads: 1070 MB in 2.00 seconds = 534.98 MB/sec
> Timing buffered disk reads: 156 MB in 3.01 seconds = 51.85 MB/sec
>
> /dev/sdb2:
> Timing cached reads: 1050 MB in 2.00 seconds = 524.59 MB/sec
> Timing buffered disk reads: 96 MB in 3.02 seconds = 31.82 MB/sec
>
>

Like I said, the partitions at the start of the drive are faster than
those at the end of the drive.

think of it like a gear ratio. Track 0, (the start of the drive) is at
the outer edge of the hard drive platter. Therefore, one rotation (at
7500 RPM) has the entire circumference of the drive to store data.
(actually, it's divided in sectors, and so some space is not used, but
the same principle applies.) By the time you get to the end of the
drive, at the center of the platter, 1 rotation only has a very small
length of track, therefore stores less data.


Something is a little odd about the second identical drive being nearly
twice as fast as your first hard drive however... really odd. Was your
system under some of kind of file IO load when you made that test?

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Knapp wrote:
> OK, I am a bit lost.
> I have 2 copies of my partitions one on drive sda (old one) and one on sdb
> the new one. I want to change my root partition to be the one on the new
> drive but both must be labeled / right? Also there is no uuid for the new
> partition, as best as I can tell because it is not mounted, so how do I get
> the id? I could use a label / but then how would it know which one to use?
> Anyway, as I said, I am lost!
> Thanks for all the help so far.
>

blkid command will display the UUID of all your partitions.

You have to edit the /etc fstab file on your new partition, not the old .

You also have to fix /boot/grub/menu.lst (because you are changing the
root drive)

And finally, you will then have to run grub-install on your new drive,
then you should be ready to remove the old hard drive and verify that
your system can boot with the new one by itself.

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