s0c0 Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 My primary ext3 partition /dev/sda1 is about 56 GB and I have an additional 60 GB of unpartitioned space I would like added to it. Don't ask me why I didn't just add it in the beginning, but users are steadily eating up that 56 GB partition. How should I do this? I've looked into using cfdisk. I've selected the partition, then selected maximize, but to be honest I am way to afraid to click write changes lol. Anytime I see a warning stating data could be lost it freaks me out, especially with all the important stuff on this server. I am using debian sarge I think, its definitely not etch though. I'm sure I could figure this out on my own, but this is too important for me to screw it up. Your help is much appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedarkwinter Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Honestly, you tend to only lose data about 1% of the time. Get yourself a bunch of dvds an backup, then go for it! The other option is to create a new partition and then mount it as a subfolder under the old one, split the data between the partitions. /dev/sda1 mounted /home /dev/sda2 mounted /usr Or even use symlinks to the other partition: (especially if the data is all in home's) something like /dev/sda1 mounted /home /dev/sda2 mount /media/sda2 /home/john (on sda1) /home/peter => /media/sda2/peter (symlinked to sda2) In this case you would have to: mv /home/peter /media/sda2/ ln -s /home/peter /media/sda2/peter This way is potentially more confusing, and probably not ideal - but less chance of losing data! Also, talking personally, i have had much success using PartionMagic to resize partitions - but its not OSS. Good luck, tdw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_oliver Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Small Point: You normaly cannot extend an existing partition. You can change the size of the partition, but the file system on it will remain the same size. You can use some fancy tools but ive not done enough with them to advise. I would dissagree with the thedarkwinter. I think that ajusting the size of your current partition is very risky. (take a backup whatever you say). His seccond point of creating a new partionon would be far better. Then you could move some of your larger users accross to that and use a symlink. Also if your not to confident in partitioning then it gives you a charnce to play around with it. If you do go down the route of changing the current partition then make sure no one is trying to right to it at the time (if it on network). Also you could consider setting it to expand as it need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s0c0 Posted May 12, 2007 Author Share Posted May 12, 2007 Hmm well this kind of sucks. Even the linux sys admin at work wasn't to keen on any of my options. It looks like symbolic links will have to do when the time comes, hopefully I can afford a new server by then and won't even have to go down that route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamLiu Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 It is definately not risky. I do it all the time... Gparted. Download the live CD and boot up. As long as you're not resizing a Vista partition, you can do everything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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