Today i have been partitioning a 1TB hard disk where i want to install tomorrow Centos 5.4 x64 for use for 3D modelling,with Maya 2011.
I created a 10 GB swap ( 8GB ran + 2) a 620 gb partition for lvm , with one volume group , and two logical partitions one of 43 GB for CentOS root partition and one lv for home with 430 GB,rest until 620 GB free space inside lvm.
Also after the lvm partition i created a 100 GB partition for Photoshop scratch ( i will put Windows 7 in a ocz vertex SSD for use Photoshop and zbrush)
the last partition is a extended one with the centos /boot partition ,a ext4 partition for installing ubuntu 10.10 (grub2 in mbr and chainload to centos /boot and once installed win 7 chainload to sdb mbr with win bootloader), and a 180 GB ntfs for sabe win data, also of 400 mb free space in extended for more partitions. The lvm partitions ,I didn't formated them yet, because i am trying to decide if use default option (mkfs.ext3 -L label /dev/HD/...) or add something like '-T largefile4' or/and use extents ('-O extent').
Man says that use extents improve performance of large files also of the filesystem in general, but I don't know if worth use other options as -T or just stick with default + extents.
I am starting to learning 3d so I don't think I will have much 1-4 GB Maya binary files (but perhaps some textures or like yes , don't know) at least until i learn maya. But is wise to take precautions.
Any sugestion about if stick to default or default + extent or add moré options like -T largefile / largefile4 ?
I would say that 3D modeling involves big files > 1GB many times, but i don't know if optimize ext3 for large files would resul in a poorer small files performance (300 or like).
Perhaps would worth also to convert ext3 to ext4 or xfs. Xfs is not in centos 5 but usin rsync is possible to migrate to xfs using a live-cd installing in centos xfsprogs and a new kernel i think. I have done it in centos one time and iknow how to do it.
If ext4 is better than ext3 would be a raseonable option.
When converting to ext4 would have any influence the) mkfs.ext3 options in the new ext4 features ? ( like what avariable or something