Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive?

[Mick]

On Monday 05 Sep 2016 22:56:33 Hans wrote:
> On 05/09/16 15:31, Mick wrote:
> > On Monday 05 Sep 2016 10:42:34 Hans wrote:
> >> On 01/09/16 16:04, gevisz wrote:
> >>> I have bought an external 5TB Western Digital hard drive
> >>> that I am going to use mainly for backing up some files
> >>> in my home directory and carrying a very big files, for
> >>> example a virtual machine image file, from one computer
> >>> to another. This hard drive is preformatted with NTFS.
> >>> Now, I am going to format it with ext4 which probably
> >>> will take a lot of time taking into account that it is
> >>> going to be done via USB connection. So, before formatting
> >>> this hard drive I would like to know if it is still
> >>> advisable to partition big hard drives into smaller
> >>> logical ones.
> >>> 
> >>> For about 20 last years, following an advice of my older
> >>> colleague, I always partitioned all my hard drives into
> >>> the smaller logical ones and do very well know all
> >>> disadvantages of doing so. :)
> >>> 
> >>> But what are disadvantages of not partitioning a big
> >>> hard drive into smaller logical ones?
> >>> 
> >>> Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive
> >>> into smaller logical ones and why?
> >> 
> >> I use 2TB USB drive with one EXT4 partition. Took about 30 seconds to
> >> format connected to a USB2 port. Testing the drive with dd and copying
> >> files to the drive is very slow. Don't touch "Green Drives". They die
> >> like flies.
> > 
> > Did you get the logical and physical sector aligned when you partitioned
> > them? (if not sure, google for 4k sector drives).  All recent versions of
> > fdisk/gdisk/parted and friends will align them by default.
> > 
> > How did you test it with dd and how are you copying files?
> > 
> > How slow is slow in this case?
> 
> Can't remember. Much slower than copying 1TB Video files from and to
> SATA disks.

Ah, yes, it would be so because you would be copying over a USB 2.0, port 
which can read at around 30MB/s and write at about half that.  Had you used an 
e-sata interface instead of USB 2.0, the same drive would perform comparably 
to SATA disks/controllers.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive?

[Hans]

On 05/09/16 15:31, Mick wrote:

On Monday 05 Sep 2016 10:42:34 Hans wrote:

On 01/09/16 16:04, gevisz wrote:

I have bought an external 5TB Western Digital hard drive
that I am going to use mainly for backing up some files
in my home directory and carrying a very big files, for
example a virtual machine image file, from one computer
to another. This hard drive is preformatted with NTFS.
Now, I am going to format it with ext4 which probably
will take a lot of time taking into account that it is
going to be done via USB connection. So, before formatting
this hard drive I would like to know if it is still
advisable to partition big hard drives into smaller
logical ones.

For about 20 last years, following an advice of my older
colleague, I always partitioned all my hard drives into
the smaller logical ones and do very well know all
disadvantages of doing so. :)

But what are disadvantages of not partitioning a big
hard drive into smaller logical ones?

Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive
into smaller logical ones and why?


I use 2TB USB drive with one EXT4 partition. Took about 30 seconds to
format connected to a USB2 port. Testing the drive with dd and copying
files to the drive is very slow. Don't touch "Green Drives". They die
like flies.


Did you get the logical and physical sector aligned when you partitioned them?
(if not sure, google for 4k sector drives).  All recent versions of
fdisk/gdisk/parted and friends will align them by default.

How did you test it with dd and how are you copying files?

How slow is slow in this case?

Can't remember. Much slower than copying 1TB Video files from and to 
SATA disks.

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive?

[Hans]

On 05/09/16 17:22, gevisz wrote:

2016-09-05 3:42 GMT+03:00 Hans :

On 01/09/16 16:04, gevisz wrote:


I have bought an external 5TB Western Digital hard drive
that I am going to use mainly for backing up some files
in my home directory and carrying a very big files, for
example a virtual machine image file, from one computer
to another. This hard drive is preformatted with NTFS.
Now, I am going to format it with ext4 which probably
will take a lot of time taking into account that it is
going to be done via USB connection. So, before formatting
this hard drive I would like to know if it is still
advisable to partition big hard drives into smaller
logical ones.

For about 20 last years, following an advice of my older
colleague, I always partitioned all my hard drives into
the smaller logical ones and do very well know all
disadvantages of doing so. :)

But what are disadvantages of not partitioning a big
hard drive into smaller logical ones?

Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive
into smaller logical ones and why?



I use 2TB USB drive with one EXT4 partition.
Took about 30 seconds to format connected to a USB2 port.


May be. But I have just finished testing its first 41 GB with
# badblocks -sw -b4096

Three passes with different write patterns took about 2 hours 10 minutes,
that is about 33 minutes per pass.

So, the full one-pass write test with badblocks should take about 3 days,
if I do not err in my calculations.

The same amount of time should take formatting it with
# mke2fs -cc
But I have not tried that so far.


Testing the drive with dd and copying files to the
drive is very slow. Don't touch "Green Drives".
They die like flies.



What do you mean by this?

My WDC WD15EADS (it is Green) already works (hosting my /home)
for more than 10 years and the systems reports that it is still ok.
(I work at this computer from 6 to 8 hours daily.)


I look after 4 laptops. They came with "Green Drives". Had on all 4 
multiple drive failures during the first year. They could not stand 24/7 
use in mining equipment. Replaced them with HGST drives. No failure 
since 18 month.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive?

[gevisz]

2016-09-05 3:42 GMT+03:00 Hans :
> On 01/09/16 16:04, gevisz wrote:
>>
>> I have bought an external 5TB Western Digital hard drive
>> that I am going to use mainly for backing up some files
>> in my home directory and carrying a very big files, for
>> example a virtual machine image file, from one computer
>> to another. This hard drive is preformatted with NTFS.
>> Now, I am going to format it with ext4 which probably
>> will take a lot of time taking into account that it is
>> going to be done via USB connection. So, before formatting
>> this hard drive I would like to know if it is still
>> advisable to partition big hard drives into smaller
>> logical ones.
>>
>> For about 20 last years, following an advice of my older
>> colleague, I always partitioned all my hard drives into
>> the smaller logical ones and do very well know all
>> disadvantages of doing so. :)
>>
>> But what are disadvantages of not partitioning a big
>> hard drive into smaller logical ones?
>>
>> Is it still advisable to partition a big hard drive
>> into smaller logical ones and why?
>>
>>
> I use 2TB USB drive with one EXT4 partition.
> Took about 30 seconds to format connected to a USB2 port.

May be. But I have just finished testing its first 41 GB with
# badblocks -sw -b4096

Three passes with different write patterns took about 2 hours 10 minutes,
that is about 33 minutes per pass.

So, the full one-pass write test with badblocks should take about 3 days,
if I do not err in my calculations.

The same amount of time should take formatting it with
# mke2fs -cc
But I have not tried that so far.

> Testing the drive with dd and copying files to the
> drive is very slow. Don't touch "Green Drives".
> They die like flies.


What do you mean by this?

My WDC WD15EADS (it is Green) already works (hosting my /home)
for more than 10 years and the systems reports that it is still ok.
(I work at this computer from 6 to 8 hours daily.)