Take the 2-minute tour ×

I use linux VMs for tons of things these days and for the very most part I usually avoid LLvm and set them up with a single disk partition with everything in it. Granted, if I need a special type of file system I will create a partition for it, possibly even creating a separate virtual disk, but for the most part I create a single partition for everything.

I've not really has a problem with this method, but the standanrd installs often advise partitons for /tmp /var/ /opt /usr and /home etc. and so I'm wondering if i'm missing something. I typically have tools that will tell me if I'm running out of space so I'm not worried about one partition filling up the whole disk. What need is there for all this extra partitioning or LLVM for that matter in a VM?



share|improve this question
add comment

1 Answer

There are really no standard answer to this. But there are 2 reason I can think of:

  1. Preventing the whole drive being filled up in certain condition.

  2. Regarding LVM, other than resizing, it allow snap-shot, which is a very handy feature for backup.

share|improve this answer
Thanks John. Say I relied on the snapshot mechanism of my vm provider, could you see any other benefit of llvm? –  sgargan Nov 11 '12 at 1:09
Actually, in that case, the resizing become a bigger benefit. As VM provider can increase your VM disk size, but I don't think they will re-size the partition for you. –  John Siu Nov 11 '12 at 1:20
add comment

Your Answer


