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Switching Windows & Ubuntu Partitions

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#1

Hey guys.

In my computer I have a 120 GB Samsung Evo SSD and a 2 TB hard drive. Currently, they are set up like this:

The SSD has one big partition, containing my Win 8 and some programs.
I divided the 2 TB hard drive into a shared partition for both of the OSes (also containing Windows programs) of about 1.7 TB and another one which is the home of my Trusty Tahr.

The decision to do it like that was based on my intention to only TRY a Linux environment, but today I rarely even use Windows any more. So I’m thinking about switching Ubuntu to the SSD and letting Windows have a smaller disk space on the HDD (maybe 200 GB, I’ll probably never use all of the 2 TB anyway). It’s just a thought yet, I’m not even sure I’ll do that in the closer future. Any thoughts, good ideas, hints on how to do this the easiest way?

I might also start working with Fairphone OS (have no clue of that stuff yet) so it might make sense to include in partitioning plans :stuck_out_tongue:?

Thanks for your answers :smile:

#2

Hi huskers,

If I were you I would start with a fresh install of both OS (Windows doesn’t support changing its location, and with Linux it’s possible but it will probably be complicated depending on your current setup and you might want to change your partitioning plan if you are moving on a 128GB (only) SSD). You could also decide to use your SSD as a fast hard drive for fairphoneOS development but I don’t think that would speed-up the build.

I suggest you do this :

SSD
|----> A few gigabites (or even less) for your Ubuntu /boot partition.
|----> The rest for your Ubuntu / partition (or you could use the entire SSD for / and not separate /boot).

HDD
|----> One partition for Windows depending on your needs (if you don't play games you might be good with a fiew hundred gigabites just in case).
|----> One partition for your Ubuntu /home partition (so that you can have a lot of disk space, most notably to build fairphoneOS, which on my computer once built takes several dozens of GB).
|----> If you need swap space, I would put it here (don't put swap on your SSD).

Once you’ve setup your configuration, you might want to look at how to optimize Ubuntu on SSD (there are options to limit io operations on the SSD, There are lots of resources I’ve used when I moved to a SSD, happy installing ! :smile:

#3

If I may give everyone comming from Windows a recommendatio: do not install Ubuntu, bur Mint Linux.
Basically Mint Linux is Ubuntu, so you are not missing out anyrhing. But it comes with some valueable enhancements and a nice Desktop (Cinnamon), easy to be applied by Windows users.

If you want to repartition your HD, you can do that easily using GParted, a tool you can start straight from the Mint Live DVD / Stick.

However, in the end it’s probably a matter of personal liking which System you prefer…

#4

Just curious: Why put the swap on the HD? Because it’s often written there or another reason? Wouldn’t it speed up the system nicely if put on SSD?

@USB-2: As far as I understand huskers, he is already using his Ubuntu as his main system, and not starting new from windows, which is the reason he wants to switch it to the SSD. So he’s already decided which Unix to use :smile:

#5

I forgot to add a link to the guide I usually use, here it is :smile:

Yes, it would speed up paging a lot, that said computers nowadays usually have enough RAM to work well without having to rely too much on paging (which is why you can usually reduce the swappiness of your computer without any issue). There’s controversy over that (some people argue it’s not really impacting SSD life expectancy) and recent generations of SSDs are less impacted, but SSDs have limited writes before wearing out, and paging (along with not buffering your disk writes) does a lot of them so you might wear out your SSD prematurely.

#6

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, the physical RAM is a good point, I think I never use up mine (using Win, but still…). It’s not very expensive anymore, so swap most likely is not so important … didn’t think about this, the last time I set up a Linux it still was :smile:

#7

Thanks so far :smile:
Ubuntu is the only distro I have tried so far, but right now I’m installing Mint on my old laptop which is kind of my guinea pig for linux experiments. There are so many discussions about the right distro on the web, let’s not start another one in here :smiley:

I don’t believe I need much swap space. My RAM (8 GB) never got used up so far… Currently I have a ridiculously overdimensioned Swap of 12 GB :sweat_smile:

Thanks for this link, I put that to my bookmarks and will come back to that once I decide to migrate. :slight_smile:

#8