On Sunday 24 July 2022 at 05:18:47, Olaf Meeuwissen via Dng wrote:

> Hi list,
>
> I lost the single SSD on my mini PC and am in the process of rethinking
> its storage. So far, I've got myself two brand new and identical PCIe
> NVMe SSDs (256GB) for use in a software RAID1 setup. I think I need to
> enable UEFI to get access to the BIOS from the GRUB menu.
>
> I want my /home directory on a partition of its own, at a minimum, and
> encrypt it. I don't see a need to encrypt much else as I am not after
> plausible deniability. It's mostly to be able to return a broken disk
> for a replacement and still sleep in relative peace of mind ;-)
>
> I haven't quite made up my mind as to a need for other partitions. I
> use containers and VMs quite a bit. Perhaps these are better stored
> some place other than the partitions for / or (an encrypted) /home.
>
> With 64GB of RAM, I don't see much need for swap. If needed, I could
> always add a swapfile instead of a partition.
>
> Given the above,
>
> - what are your expert(?) opinions on partitioning for this?

Use LVM on top of RAID - great flexibility, plus reliability.

> - how do I make (and keep) both disks bootable?

grub-install /dev/thing1
grub-install /dev/thing2

You can keep /boot as a separate RAID1 (separate from LVM, that is) if you
want to, or you can include it in LVM these days.

That means you have the grub loader itself, the grub.conf, and the initramfs
and kernel, all replicated on both disks.

The only part of this you need to remember to do manually is grub-install
/dev/thing2 if there's ever a new version of grub itself.

> - can I put the ESP on RAID1?

Er, what's ESP?

>    - if not, how do I keep the copies in sync?

> - do I need a separate partition for /boot?

You do not need one, but you can have one.

>    - if so, can it be put on RAID1?

Yes.

>      - if not, how do I keep the copies in sync?

n/a

> - should I use LVM?

Yes, IMHO.

>  - does randomizing the partition for /home make sense if on LVM and may
>    get resized sometime in the future?

What do you mean by randomizing?


Antony.

--
Too many people spend money they haven't earned
to buy things they don't want,
to impress people they don't like.

- Will Rogers

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