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I moved from windows to Linux(Ubuntu). I struggled the installation. I have 2 drives. A 128 SSD and a 2TB HDD. In windows while installing I used the SSD for windows and the other drive for everything else( games, documents, projects). Windows itself fills my SSD with updates. Anyway, I used Ubuntu for a month and before installing I read a lot of articles.

SSD:

/ - root (20GB)
/Swap - 2GB, I have 16GB of RAM
EFI system Partition - 500MB
/Boot -500MB

HDD: /Home - for HDD

Am I wrong? I want to use hdd for apps and files. Ssd for libraries and system only. Thanks

Edit:

Can I do like that enter image description here

c4m3lion
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    Your SSD is 128GB so why do you only have 20GB for your root partition? 25GB is the minimum recommendation for Ubuntu Desktop. It's generally better to allocate more than the minimum. You also don't need a swap partition because Ubuntu will use a swap file without one. Especially if you are new to Ubuntu you should not manually partition. If I were you, I would have installed using the "Erase Disk and Install..." option. In this case you would not have to ask if it's right, the installer would choose appropriate partition sizes for EFI and use the whole disk for the OS itself – Nmath Nov 22 '21 at 19:41
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    Neither wrong nor right. Partitioning most of the times boils down to personal preferences. I would do it differently. I would do it exactly as suggested above. Then use the HDD exclusively for storage of personal files in a single partition. – ChanganAuto Nov 22 '21 at 19:42
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    Does this answer your question? Installing Ubuntu on a single partition – karel Nov 22 '21 at 19:50
  • Yes i used erase disk but when installing softwares my ssd is filling up. I want use ssd only for libraries and system. – c4m3lion Nov 22 '21 at 19:51
  • And thanks for advice i will reinstall ubuntu with 30 gb root – c4m3lion Nov 22 '21 at 19:57
  • 30 GB is a bit cramped for some use cases which may scale up to ~50 GB. – karel Nov 22 '21 at 19:59
  • 50 gb for / only is it high? – c4m3lion Nov 22 '21 at 20:00
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    In Linux you're supposed to allow software to install under your root file system. Linux/Ubuntu is not Windows. If you are trying to relocate where your software is installed, you are going to have a very bad experience being new to Linux. Don't swim against the current. FYI: you did not choose the "Erase Disk.." option according to the problem you are describing. It's clear that you did not choose that guided option because you manually partitioned. 30GB is also a bad idea. Just use the whole disk. No good reason not to do that. – Nmath Nov 22 '21 at 20:59
  • I agree with @nmath :D But he REALLY should have made it an answer :=D – Rinzwind Nov 22 '21 at 20:59

2 Answers2

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Personal opinion:

  • use the full ssd for your system
  • no swap partition; we use a dynamic swapfile nowadays
  • no /home/
  • mount the hdd on a personal mountpoint

and after install

  • move the directories in /home/$USER/ to the personal partition.
  • edit ./config/user-dirs.dirs to point to the new setup and keep a copy on your hdd.

Pro's:

  • the / and the config files in /home/$USER/ benefit from the speed of the sdd.
  • the files on the hdd do not need the speed and can benefit from the longer life and durability of the hdd.
  • reinstall is formatting / and mounting the hdd.
  • you only need to backup the hdd.
  • when the hdd errors out your system can still boot.
  • if the sdd errors out you can reinstall or even replace the sdd and mount the hdd.
Rinzwind
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  • https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/installing-ubuntu-two-hard-drives can I do like that – c4m3lion Nov 23 '21 at 00:19
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    "you only need to backup the hdd." -- I'd still backup the full home directory, so you also keep your settings, browser bookmarks, etc. – luator Nov 23 '21 at 08:32
  • @luator is an option but avoid restoring those when installing a new release; you never know what got changed in settings :) – Rinzwind Nov 23 '21 at 11:08
  • True, some care should be taken in this case (if only to avoid accumulating obsolete, unused config files over the years). I usually back up everything and after reinstalling the system selectively restore only settings of applications where I explicitly want to keep them. – luator Nov 23 '21 at 12:38
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SSD fast & small, HDD slow & big. So if you have efi, boot, system, programs and home configuration on SSD, your pc is ready for use in a few seconds, so will be also all your applications. Then one (or two) partition on HDD for all the rest.

This is what I do on my pc. I find it useful to have a /home partition, but I use it only for personal configuration just in case I have to reinstall linux and I don't want to lose my configs which took me days to fine tune up. And I put all the rest (documents, photos, videos, music, etc.) in additional partitions which I call /data on the HDD.

My choice. I have /efi 256mb, / (root) 80gb, /home 40gb -ish on SSD. Then /data0 and /data1 on my 2tb HDD. All of them but efi formatted with btrfs which helps to get back to previous situations using an app called timeshift. I hope it helps.

Anitya2020
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