From: BitTwister@mouse-potato.com   
      
   On Sat, 16 Jun 2012 14:46:29 -0400, Adam wrote:   
   > Bit Twister wrote:   
      
   > have to repartition later.  I'm also switching from a 32-bit OS and apps   
   > to 64-bit, which I gather take up slightly more disk space.   
      
   Mine is a 64 bit install. About a gig of what I have is games and some   
   large databases they need. Flightgear eats a pretty good amount of space.   
      
   >   
   > Would you recommend putting swap on the HD or on /dev/shm?   
      
   As I misunderstand it, shm has a finite number of write cycles. With   
   my luck, it could burn out and system would not boot.   
      
   >  The new box has 8 GB RAM.   
      
   I would go with disk swap by guessing you would hardly ever get into   
   it with that much ram. Unless you are setting system to be able to   
   suspend/resume operation. If so, you need swap to be size of ram + 1gig.   
      
      
      
   > This (old) one only has 1 GB, and within an hour after   
   > booting it's usually using a little of swap.  That's usually only for   
   > short durations,   
      
      
   That sounds about right for a 1 gig system. I can get into swap a   
   little bit on my 4GB system. That is with MSEC hourly jobs, email user   
   account cron jobs checking for email, slrn, browser accounts, watching   
   recorded tv shows via MythTV. Then there is the occasional VirtualBox   
   guest activition with it's 1 gig+ ram/video usage.   
      
   >   
   >> I have a /hotbu partition for a hot backup of the "Production" install   
   >> for just in case I screw up as root.   
   >   
   > Sounds like a good idea, but how often do you do that, and when?   
      
   Before I install some updates which might clobber the system like new   
   video drivers. Rest of the time is after 20 or so updates.   
      
   > Does physical position on the HD affect performance much?   
      
   It can. Newer drives are faster with larger caches to smooth that out.   
      
   >  For example,   
   > if / is toward the start (outside) of the disk, how much difference   
   > would it make whether /accounts is adjacent to it, or all the way at the   
   > end (inside) of the disk?  I come from an era when minimizing seek time   
   > and saving bytes mattered. :-)   
      
   I hear that. When was the last time you ran SpingRight.  :)   
      
   You would have to know the physical setup on your drive. How many   
   heads/platters. Personally I placed my big partitions on the end/back   
   of the drive and OSs in the front and left unsed space in the   
   middle. Only reason for the above was old boot loader could not reach   
   OS for booting unless towards front of drive address space.   
      
   Trying to get that last bit of performance is not worth it for me.   
   Keep in mind, I always do clean installs and I am cycling through   
   releases with last install, Production, new install partitions.   
   Once I am satisfied new install is ok, it becomes Production, and last   
   install partition will become the next new install partition.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)