For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate
spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk failed, and I could
not recover any files from it using various linux utilities

Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
move home, just personal documents etc

I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so I
was stuffed.

So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents etc.

Just for information, the failed spinning disk was a WD Blue 2Tb , about
7 years old, and I never though it would fail.

On 21-04-2022 10:09, Rob H wrote:
> For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate
> spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk failed, and I could
> not recover any files from it using various linux utilities
>
> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
> moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
> I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
> move home, just personal documents etc
>
> I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
> spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so I
> was stuffed.
>
> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents etc.
>
> Just for information, the failed spinning disk was a WD Blue 2Tb , about
> 7 years old, and I never though it would fail.
>
As someone who managed large systems in a corporate environment, I know
that ANY disk fails. The question is just: when? Relative high risk
periods are the start and end of the lifetime, with lower, but never
zero, risk in between.
Even now, just having three machines for my personal use to be concerned
with, ALL my production machines make a full backup every day.
It saved my bacon more than once.

Am Donnerstag, 21. April 2022, um 09:09:37 Uhr schrieb Rob H:

> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal
> documents etc.

Normally, I only move personal files and specific (but not all)
configuration files/directories, so only the stuff I want is being
transferred. This ensures configuration files from software you don't
even have will not be copied (--purge does not delete them in your
home).

> Just for information, the failed spinning disk was a WD Blue 2Tb ,
> about 7 years old, and I never though it would fail.

Any disk will fail in the future, the question is not whether it fails,
the question is when will it fail and how much damage it creates.
So I recommend creating a backup for the files you need (only them, no
..cache etc.) once a day.

On 21/04/2022 09:34, jjb wrote:
> On 21-04-2022 10:09, Rob H wrote:
>> For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate
>> spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk failed, and I could
>> not recover any files from it using various linux utilities
>>
>> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
>> moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
>> I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
>> move home, just personal documents etc
>>
>> I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
>> spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so I
>> was stuffed.
>>
>> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents etc.
>>
>> Just for information, the failed spinning disk was a WD Blue 2Tb , about
>> 7 years old, and I never though it would fail.
>>
> As someone who managed large systems in a corporate environment, I know
> that ANY disk fails. The question is just: when? Relative high risk
> periods are the start and end of the lifetime, with lower, but never
> zero, risk in between.
> Even now, just having three machines for my personal use to be concerned
> with, ALL my production machines make a full backup every day.
> It saved my bacon more than once.
>

When I said 'I never thought it would fail' I meant more as I assumed
,wrongly, that it would go on working. You could say I was complacent
about it.

But yes, I know all disks will fail at some point, even ssd's

Rob H <rob@despammer.com> writes:
>Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
>moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
>I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
>move home, just personal documents etc
>
>I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
>spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so I
>was stuffed.
>
>So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents etc.

What would be the advantage of only moving personal documents?

I recomment regular backups. Do it now! Using mirroring (RAID 1) in
addition, (not as a replacement for backups) can reduce the damage in
case of a disk failure even more. It's not clear to me whether you
are thinking of RAID 1 when you write "mirrored setup".

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

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Rob H wrote:
> For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate
> spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk failed, and I could
> not recover any files from it using various linux utilities

Yeah, dead drives tend to be problematic.

>
> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
> moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
> I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
> move home, just personal documents etc

Without context, it sounds like they're suggesting a Backup Strategy,
not "day-to-day-use".

>
> I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
> spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so I
> was stuffed.

That's why you're supposed to have backups of important data.

>
> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents
> etc.

No reason to not just mount the RAID array to /home. Just backup
whatever you deem important to other media.

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On 21/04/2022 11:09, Rob H wrote:
> For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk
> failed, and I could not recover any files from it using various linux utilities
>
> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of moving /home again to there. But after googling
> around on this subject, I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't move home, just personal
> documents etc
>
> I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to
> my /home files, so I was stuffed.
>
> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents etc.
>
> Just for information, the failed spinning disk was a WD Blue 2Tb , about 7 years old, and I never though it would fail.
>
Start by building a backup protocol!
Raid would probably help protect you from most/not all HW failures,
but a corrupt file, block or inode would probably propagate across the RAID, and by Murphy's law would always bork the
file you desperately need once a week/month/year.

Figure out how long a time you can afford to lose in recovering, rebuilding or recreating your personal files, How long
it would take to rebuild your system from scratch (Figure on being struck by lightening, for instance) and save your
personal files on write-once media. CD/DVDs are cheap enough both financially and space-wise. Keep more than one backup
copies in separate locations. Of course if you are really careful, you'll never need your backus (The obverse side to
Murphy's law...)

--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

Rob H wrote:
> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
> moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
> I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
> move home, just personal documents etc

Firstly, there is no advantage to move just personal documents over
/home... you can mount any path to a different physical you wish in
Linux easy-peasy. /home/rob/Pictures could mount to some other drive if
you wish. The decision as to what path to mount should be determined by
space and performance requirements. But as others have said, that is not
a solution to the issue that you faced. You need a backup plan.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Rob H <rob@despammer.com> writes:
> For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate
> spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk failed, and I
> could not recover any files from it using various linux utilities
>
> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention
> of moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this
> subject, I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people
> said: don't move home, just personal documents etc
>
> I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
> spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so
> I was stuffed.
>
> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents
> etc.

What are you trying to achieve with any potential changes?

If you want to improve resilience against another disk failure then the
answer is backups, not rearranging where things are stored.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

On 21.04.2022 10:09, Rob H wrote:
> For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate
> spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk failed, and I could
> not recover any files from it using various linux utilities
>
> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
> moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
> I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
> move home, just personal documents etc
>
> I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
> spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so I
> was stuffed.
>
> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents etc.
>
> Just for information, the failed spinning disk was a WD Blue 2Tb , about
> 7 years old, and I never though it would fail.
>
A while back I had the same problem as you with a similar setup. Luckily
I caught it in time because the disk started showing SMART errors, and I
was able to copy everything off the disk without problems.

Of course this will not help if the disk is gone, so I also run
scheduled backups.

Ubuntu 20.04 with / (root) and /home on physically different disks. The
disk showing signs of failing was a WD Black 3Tb disk.

I booted the PC to a live version of Ubuntu 20.04 on a USB stick.

I have an external USB 3.0 disk that I copied the whole /home partition
to, using rsync with appropriate switches for preserving permissions,
links and other attributes.
I then used blkid to get the UUID of the USB disk, and edited /etc/fstab
(on the root disk) to point to this UUID as the new /home disk.

I then rebooted the PC to the Ubuntu version on the root disk (not the
live version on the stick), and everything was running as normal. A
little slower because running on an USB disk, but not too bad.

A few days later my new SSD arrived and I did the same thing again,
moving /home to the new SSD.

HTH

Peter

Rob H <rob@despammer.com> wrote:
> For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate
> spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk failed, and I could
> not recover any files from it using various linux utilities
>
> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
> moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
> I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
> move home, just personal documents etc
>
> I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
> spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so I
> was stuffed.
>
> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents etc.
>
> Just for information, the failed spinning disk was a WD Blue 2Tb , about
> 7 years old, and I never though it would fail.

Where /home is really doesn't matter in terms of disk failure. Disks will
fail so you need to manage that eventuality.

Get a backup system and use it. Simple as that.

On 21.04.2022 10:09, Rob H wrote:
> For about 4 years or so, I have had my /home folder on a separate
> spinning disk. Then very recently the spinning disk failed, and I could
> not recover any files from it using various linux utilities
>
> Anyway, now I have a 2 spinning disk mirrored setup for the intention of
> moving /home again to there. But after googling around on this subject,
> I came a cross a forum somewhere , where a couple of people said: don't
> move home, just personal documents etc
>
> I can see the advantages of that as when I had all /home files on the
> spinning disk which failed, I couldn't get back to my /home files, so I
> was stuffed.
>
> So now I am debating what to do; move /home or just personal documents etc.
>
> Just for information, the failed spinning disk was a WD Blue 2Tb , about
> 7 years old, and I never though it would fail.
>

You may want safety on various levels.

I started with using a ZFS file-system that doesn't mind if any
of the running disks gives up. In case of a fault just replace
that defunct disk, issue the "resilvering", and continue with a
complete set of disks. Even with a faulty disk you can continue
working on your system (but risk is increased, a second disk may
fail, etc.), so replace it as soon as detected.

On top you can run backups (daily, weekly, monthly, as desired),
that copies your files to a separate, external device. Myself I
decided to not backup things I can recover from scratch (like
the OS environment, or large packages I installed system-locally
like /usr/local/...). I configured my file-system so that I have
all /home directories located on a ZFS file-system. And I backup
contents of just these directories.

More sophisticated backup processes can support links for files
already backed up on previous days/weeks/months, so that the
performance won't suffer (e.g. with your family picture archives,
which are voluminous but don't change regularly). Typically you
don't need physical copies every day. With such an organization
you need not handle your "personal documents" separately from
the rest in your /home directories, just backup all; recovering
is then also easier.

Janis