How to combine an SSD boot drive with a HDD data drive?

Question

I have an SSD with 64 GB and a 6 GB/s 1 Terabyte hard drive. I want to use the SSD only as a boot device and maybe for swap storage. On the 1 Terabyte hard drive, I want to have the main file system. As in Windows, I liked to have at least 2-3 Partitions example for music games programs and so on.

Which partition layout do you recommend to me?

Solution 1

64GB is more than enough for a root filesystem, a default installation will probably occupy about 3GB. When installing Ubuntu, choose for a custom partitioning scheme:

• Put a partition on your SSD with mount point /
• On your 1 TB data disk, create a partition with /home

Variations are possible. You can store all your settings and documents on the SSD and store large files like music and video on the 1TB disk:

• Install Ubuntu to /
• Create some partitions on your 1 TB disk, and mount those on /media/DESIRED-PARTITION-NAME.

Some folders in your home folder may become too large for the SSD, like ~/.wine. In that case, create a partition (or folder) on your 1 TB disk named "DATA" (with /media/DATA as mount point). Then, move the ~/.wine folder to the data partition:

mv ~/.wine /media/DATA/wine

If you've just installed the system and the folder did not exist yet, just create the empty folder:

mkdir /media/DATA/wine

Next, create a symbolic link from your home directory to the wine folder on the big disk:

ln -s /media/DATA/wine ~/.wine

The latter can also be performed after installation of Ubuntu to the SSD. Use GParted to create partitions on the 1 TB disk.

Related SSD questions:

• Is a 40GB SSD practical to use for ' / '
• What is the recommended way to empty a SSD?

Solution 2

Do not put swap on the ssd. Put it on the hdd. Some pointers about swap and ssd: Installing Ubuntu on a SSD

Do make sure you enable trim on the SSD: How to enable TRIM?

My personal layout that works best for me:

• / 20 Gb (sda1) (is on a 120 Gb ssd); gets formatted every time I re-install.
• swap 4 Gb (sdb1).
• /home 15 Gb. (sdb2) Holds only settings, no userfiles. I remove all directories after install and symlink them to /discword/; gets formatted every time I re-install. After format I recreate the symlinks and press F5 on my desktop to get all my video files back I had on my desktop.
• /discworld (sdb3) is my data partition. Has a /discword/Downloads/ and /discworld/Desktop/ etc. Never gets formatted.
• /disworld2/ (sda2) is the 100 Gb remainder of my SSD. Unused; never gets formatted.

You can set this up during installation with the something else option (i.e. manual partitioning).

Comments

[Lekensteyn]

Why is sda2 created but empty? If it's for wear levelling, why not omit the partition altogether?

[Alexander Marcev]

Thanks for your hints. But as i understand is that / is the root directory where all files and programs are installed right? I think 64 gigs are enough for programs and tools, but i am worried if i want to install some games. How can i example install wine and some games on my /home or maybe /games directory?

[poolie]

Also, I'd recommend installing using LVM, so that you can more easily move things around later on.

[Lekensteyn]

@AlexanderMarcev what games are you talking about (where do those games get installed to?)

[Lekensteyn]

@poolie I would recommend against using LVM for a SSD. If you combine the SSD and a HDD with LVM, you'll loose a lot of your performance.

[Rinzwind]

I have no use for it yet :+)

[poolie]

I'm not suggesting creating a single logical volume spanning the disks, which would likely perform poorly.

[Lekensteyn]

@AlexanderMarcev If using wine, the games will likely be installed to the "drives" in Wine which is located somewhere in the .wine folder in your home folder. In that case, putting /home on SSD is sufficient. I'll include an alternative in the answer.

[Alexander Marcev]

hi there, now i am ready to learn. i installed ubuntu on my ssd and my /home folder on the 1 TB Disc. Now i created a DATA Folder under /home/Username/Data. Than i made the /Data/wine Folder in /media. And finally the symbol link. BUT in my /home/username/data folder i cant see anything from wine!?

[Alexander Marcev]

just in /media/Data/wine i see the wine folder but if i click on this folder it show me another wine folder and so on....

[Lekensteyn]

Have you correctly created the symlink? It sounds you have put a symlink at /media/Data/wine/wine pointing to /media/Data/wine. The symlink should be created in /home/Username/.wine.

[Alexander Marcev]

can i delete the exisitng symlink in media? Why do i need /media/data ? and now i thought to do this: sudo ln -s /home/alexander/DATA/wine ~/.wine correct?

[Lekensteyn]

I assumed that you had an disk mounted at /media/Data, but it sounds like you have put it on /home/alexander/DATA. If ~/.wine already exists, you have to remove (or move) it first, otherwise the command creates ~/.wine/wine which is not what you intend to do.

[Alexander Marcev]

ok, so now i just delte /media/data right? Whats next? again, my / partition is on the ssd with wine on it, but i want to symbol link it to /home/data/wine, do i habe to go to this folder and create the symbol link? When yes, how?

[Lekensteyn]

What is not clear from my answer, where does the confusion arise?