Partitioning Your Linux Drives: Does It Provide Any Benefits?

A lot of the reasons for disk partition are pretty legacy.

/boot was/is often a separate partition because the boot loaders may not support all filesystems. So if you wanted to use LVM, reiserfs, zfs, etc. for your root directory or have a RAID root then you may have a separate partition for /boot. Especially on older systems where grub/lilo only supported ext file systems. On modern systems there is likely to be a /boot/efi partition for UEFI (it only supports vfat I think?).

/home is often handy to keep separate since you can more easily re-format everything except your home drive. Make distro-hopping a bit easier.

The other reasons are more focused on server-usage rather than home-usage. Things like mounting /tmp on a separate FS so that users couldn't fill up disk space that would block other users from working in their home directory. Or /usr/local being an NFS mount to provide centralized applications.

These days the actual on-disk partitions don't matter as much due to LVM, ZFS and BTRFS. You can now slice and dice your disks however you like and even change things on the fly. I only ever create 1 disk partition anymore (2 if I need a separate /boot or /boot/efi) and then handle the rest in the filesystems or LVM.

With these higher-level partitioning the benefits are more around snapshotting and backups. You can snapshot your /home partition easily with btrfs before making major changes. Or you can copy a zfs partition to a remote server for backup. Things like the immutable distros and proxmox use this functionality a lot since a) partitions in these tools are cheap and b) it's easier to do these things at the partition-level.

Edit: Fun fact: Linux ext* filesystems have the capability to reserve a certain percentage of disk space only for the root user. Useful on a multi-user system where you don't want users filling up all the disk space and blocking the root user from logging in to clean it all up. It used to save something like 5-10% by default but I don't know if that's the case anymore. You can see if it's being done with tune2fs -l <device>.

45

some partitions are useful. Keeping /var and /tmp separate can stop DoS attacks by now allowing logs to fill the entire drive /home means you can wipe the / partition and keep user data.

34

I've had a full /var partition cause all sorts of problems using the system. But I still think it's good to have four partitions /, /var, /tmp, and /home. At least split out /home so you can format / without losing your stuff in /home.

12
- I think it is better to partition /usr (and /usr/local) too, for stability and security
  
  2
Damn I've always wanted Windows to have that. Being able to put user folders on another partition, or even another drive, at install time. And being able to use "dynamic disk" (aka software raid) to expand partitions across disks as storage requirements grow. I know it is possible to setup, but with a lot of workarounds and annoying problems.

7
- Windows user folders are nearly unusable in my opinion, too many programs throw in random folders and files everywhere. Especially the Documents folder, too many games putting incoherent stuff in there
  
  20
- I'm pretty sure you can just mount a volume to C:\Users.
  
  I definitely wouldn't recommend changing the userdir paths in the system. Many of the office computers I work with are set up that way and it's always a pain in the ass when an application expects the home path to be located on C:.
  
  8
- I remember doing this in macOS, when I got my first SSD. I installed it and kept the os on the SSD and mapped my user directory to my hdd. It made upgrades and re-installs much easier, which was a plus because it was actually a hackintosh.
  
  3
- It isn't possible :)
  
  Windows' filesystem is different to unix, and it is much flawed.
  
  2

A separate /home can save you hours or even days in several occasions however don't try crazy things like trying to have KDE of Ubuntu share same theme/settings with KDE6. A /var on a fast drive can create wonders too.

19

I'm trying out something mildly nutty by putting .steam in /home/steam, then making user-neon, and symlinking so that I can try kde without reinstalling steam games. If I succeed I might try it with other files.

3
- First of all you can check distrobox.it which can basically run Neon inside your distribution however you better set a different virtual home for neon in that case.
  
  I would first tar the .steam to be on the safe side but steam is different, it is some kind of Ubuntu stable itself residing in that directory. Not a big time gamer but people laughed at Ubuntu for shipping its snap because of it.
  
  Long story short I don't think steam would have issues. I meant not to expect KDE guys to revert upgraded preferences back to KDE5 etc. You know they do such things and blame Linux/KDE etc.
  
  3
- I've created a specific partition for steam games so I can use games across distro without reinstalling them. You can tell Steam to go look in your partition for your games
  
  2

I installed Arch on a disk without erasing the /home partition that cames from a previous distro. It saves me some config work, and a bit of disk life expectancy I guess.

17

At least have a dedicated /home partition. This way if you want to upgrade the OS, change distribution, heck even migrate to a totally different OS your actual data is safe. Also if you need to do a backup, "just" backup /home which is probably going to be significantly faster and convenient than the entire OS. It also avoid using e.g dd and get a rather opaque file.

TL;DR: yes /home keeps your data safe

13

What's the benefit of dd-ing a home partition over rsync-a-ing a home directory's contents?

4
- Well it'd result in a single file which if you have to copy on a microSD or USD stick might be easier. To also counter my own argument the result of dd can be mounted thus getting a rather useful directory quickly
  
  But anyway my point was rather the opposite, that indeed in most cases rsync, rdiff-backup, even scp (whatever one is most familiar with) to a local NAS, remote server, etc is usually better, at least more understandable for somebody who isn't used to the process.
  
  2
- You cannot forget some rsync flag and lose part of metadata about files.
  
  1

Partitioning does have benefits especially for enterprise scenarios. It allows you to specify different policies per mount point (i.e. no executables on /tmp, etc.). It prevents a runaway process from filling your hard disk with logs. It lets you keep your data separated from your OS, or have multiple OSs with the same home partition.

For home use you'll probably go with something simpler, like separated home, root and games partitions, for instance.

Nowadays you should opt for LVM volumes or BTRFS subvolumes instead of partitions as these are way more flexible should you change your mind in the future about the sizes you allocated.

12

Yeah, I really like the archinstall default btrfs layout, 1 subvolume for each of these

└─root 254:0 0 1.8T 0 crypt /var/log /var/cache/pacman/pkg /home /.snapshots /
2
Partitioning have benefits. It is quite easy to set up "modern gnu/linux" since they all use a graphical installer. For sizes you can refer to openbsd's disklabel(8) man page.

It increase stability and security. Not only for enterprise.

0

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the security implications. Mounting with nosuid and nodev options can undermine rootkit or privileged escalation exploits.

10

/ and /boot are (arguably) all you need on a single disk system

6

But why /boot?

I would much rather split out /home if I'm going to split anything, so it can go through a future reinstall more smoothly. With /var being a more distant second candidate, because I've been burnt on several occasions by various programs eating up all disk space somewhere under it.

4
- If you want to be compliant to the UEFI spec, the partition holding your EFI binaries must be formatted as a file system related to FAT (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition). This is not something you want for you system drive, so a separate partition makes sense.
  
  6
- For EFI probably.
  
  3
- I keep / and /home on a btrfs subvolumes, so I do not have to think about their sizes and also can do snapshots.
  
  1
Unless you need to dual-boot.

2

Why not put everything in one big partition

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=154054091026039&w=3

A comment: The guy who make that video might be a troll, I reviewed his videos' titles.

And such bullshit is much more accessible in plain text form.

5

Partitioning (beyond what's needed to boot)? No. Logical volumes or datasets? Perhaps, but probably not for most trivial setups. Even swap is fine on a file if you need it and it simplifies disk encryption. Most of my machines run an EFI and an LVM partition. If I need a separate volume for something, I can always create it in LVM.

3

This is mostly a worthless discussion. A computer / device should be considerable disposable as well as all the data on it. Just sync everything real time to a local "server" with something like Syncthing and if something goes wrong with your machines resync it back. Done.

-22

Not everyone is rich. I sure wish I was, but we can't all do that.

11
- Why do you say you've to be rich in order to do that?
  
  -6
Oh yeah, but did you know your server is a computer/device and therefore should be considered disposable, too? Checkmate, atheists! ^\s

Honestly, though, you're not wrong about how always having multiple copies of your data on separate devices is essential. (You do however also need backups, not just synchronized copies, because data-destroying fuck-ups can get sync'd too.)

I'm not sure what your comment has to do with partitioning, though.

4
- Ahahaha nice comment. I never said I didn't have backups, the thing is that once you get your data across multiple machines with something like Synching your life becomes way better and things are easier to deal with. Even if my "server" dies I still have three more real time copies of the data (or at least one actually real time and two others a bit behind because those machines aren't always turned on) and the "server" backups to another local drive a long term offsite backup that gets updated from time to time.
  
  I’m not sure what your comment has to do with partitioning, though.
  
  People usually go about and suggest partitioning their disks because they might require to reinstall the system and that way your home directory "will be safe" from whatever mess forced them into a reinstall. In reality this will just introduce unnecessary complexity and it is as likely to fail as single partition system. To be fair I would rather consider a BRTFS sub-volume for home with regular snapshots is way more interesting and manageable than just dumb partitions.
  
  -2
When the only tool you have is a hammer...

Will syncthing help me dual boot then? Our setup EFI? Or boot into a system that uses LVM for a root mount point even if the boot loader doesn't support LVM?

3
- People usually go about and suggest partitioning their disks because they might require to reinstall the system and that way your home directory “will be safe” from whatever mess forced them into a reinstall. In reality this will just introduce unnecessary complexity and it is as likely to fail as single partition system. I would rather consider a BRTFS sub-volume for home with regular snapshots is way more interesting and manageable than just dumb partitions.
  
  -1
Oh, good idea, should I use partitions on my 'server' though?

2
- I guess it depends on how you're running things... and you should have backups anyways.
  
  My previous point was that once you get your data across multiple machines your life becomes way better and things are easier to deal with. Even your “server” dies you'll still have more real time copies of the data in your laptop, desktop etc. and eventually a long term offsite backup that gets updated from time to time. Having backups is important as real time sync won't save you from you deleting files by mistake.
  
  A quick way to do things would be to have an SSD drive (so no noise) on the "server" for your real time sync and OS and a mechanical hard drive (usually spin down) that gets a copy of the data via rsync every day. Then you do a monthly or weekly backup of the data to a remote location ove the internet or some USB hard drive that you physically move to other site.
  
  If you're using on an SBC you may run your OS on a SD card + 2.5" SSD drive for real time data + 3.5" for daily backup. And some other remote / offsite backup solution.
  
  -1