Sample Partitioning Schemata

To illustrate possible arrangements for an efficient data storage schema utilizing symbolic links, separating the OS, the /home and data storage into different partitions.

With one HDD:

Sample Partition table for 80GB HDD [76.69 GB formatted]

sda1     12.00 GB  primary partition ntfs     Windows installation. The only partition Windows can read/write
sda2      8.00 GB  primary partition ext3     Linux OS #1 call it “Ubuntu”
sda3      1.00 GB  primary partition linux-swap
sda4     55.69 GB  extended partition ----------
   sda5      8.00 GB  logical partition ext3   Linux OS #2 call it “Vector”
   sda6     10.00 GB  logical partition ext3   /home for Ubuntu
   sda7     10.00 GB  logical partition ext3   /home for Vector
   sda8     15.00 GB  logical partition ext3   data storage arranged in directories.
   sda9     12.69 GB  logical partition ext3   separate data partition for DL/UL torrents & data
                                               fromother peer-to-peer clients.

The directories on sda8 and sda9 can be accessible from both Ubuntu & Vector Linux, or whatever Linux OS's you have installed. Simply make a symlink from sda8 to your user directory and call it 01-files [or whatever]. Click it in your home directory and everything on sda8 will appear. Do the same for sda9 and call the symlink 02-downloads.

With two HDDs:

Here we use two HDDs:
sda for booting Operating Systems and holding separate partitions for /home
sdb for storing the data, accessible to any of the OS's on sda via symlinks

Sample Partition table for 80GB HDD [76.69 GB formatted]: Multi boot OSs only

sda1      8.00 GB  primary partition ntfs     Linux OS #1
sda2      8.00 GB  primary partition ext3     Linux OS #2
sda3      8.00 GB  primary partition ext3     Linux OS #3
sda4     52.69 GB  extended partition ----------
   sda5      1.00 GB  logical partition ext3  linux-swap
   sda6      8.00 GB  logical partition ext3     Linux OS #4
   sda7     10.00 GB  logical partition ext3     /home for Linux OS #1
   sda8     10.00 GB  logical partition ext3     /home for Linux OS #2
   sda9     10.00 GB  logical partition ext3     /home for Linux OS #3
   sda10    10.00 GB  logical partition ext3     /home for Linux OS #4
   sda11     3.69 GB  logical partition ext3       extra data storage --ebooks? mp3s? website design?

Sample partition table for 250GB HDD [232.88 GB formatted]: data storage only

sda1      40.00 GB  primary partition ext3     put misc files in subdirectories [link to /home/user/documents in every OS] 
sda2      40.00 GB  primary partition ext3     put all music [link to /home/user/music in every OS]
sda3      40.00 GB  primary partition ext3     put all pix [link to /home/user/pix in every OS]
sda4     112.88 GB  extended partition ----------
   sda5     40.00 GB  logical partition ext3   put all vids [link to /home/user/multimedia in every OS]
   sda6     40.00 GB  logical partition ext3   whatever you store here, link to /home/user/whatever in every OS!
   sda7     32.88 GB  logical partition ext3   torrent, FTP and P2P downloads-uploads [link to /home/user/dl in every OS]

• back to page: “Safe and East Data storage Outside the /home”