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From: bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: why separate filesystems?
Message-ID: <2970@uakari.primate.wisc.edu>
Date: 22 Aug 90 17:41:29 GMT
References: <377@icjapan.uucp>
Sender: bin@primate.wisc.edu
Reply-To: bin@primate.wisc.edu
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You can have an alternate root fs, at least on some Unixes.  If one
gets trashed you can boot off the alternate.  Otherwise you have to rebuild
from scratch.  Not fun.

You don't have to dump/restore as much at one time.  Particularly if you
have to dump/restore and entire fs, not just an incremental.  You can
sometimes get away with dumping less-active fs's less frequently than
more-actives fs's.  If you have only one fs, you can't do this.

Sometimes a disk will start to go bad on just one section.  If that's
localized to one fs, you can move the critical stuff off to still-working
fs's while you decide what to do.  WIth a single fs, you may be crippled
to where you can no longer work.

Summary: having one file system is putting all your eggs in one basket.
There's no way I would do it.

Paul DuBois
dubois@primate.wisc.edu