We have multiple Oracle Databases of different sizes. However, most of our databases are around 20 - 30 gigs.
You might want to consider having each database be in its own 20 - 30GB qtree within a single volume. [...]
Of course, one just begs to ask: WHY is it that we continue this absurd notion that bigger is always better? Who the hell needs a 72GB BOOT DISK? Sure, maybe when Windows(tm) 2004 comes out... :-)
Yes, it is a fundamental law of computing that files and databases will always expand to fill the available disk space, but why is it that you can't even buy a 9GB drive anymore? A 20-30GB database, even if you double or triple it in size, is still going to fit on *one* shelf with 9- or 18GB drives.
If I had a 30GB database, I'm sure my DBA would agree - striping 5-6 9's together makes way, way more sense than throwing piles of higher-cost 36's or 72's at it, only to waste massive amounts of space in an effort to keep performance up. Of course, our database grows at over 30 million rows per week, so adding 36's makes sense for us. :-) Still! I echo the call for using appropriately-sized drives where it makes sense. :-)
All of my production servers have ridiculously huge boot drives because that's the only way Sun (or anyone else) sells them these days. So I mirror / & /var, interleave swap, and even after sizing things to some absurd degree, there's usually a chunk of 8-10GB of free space - 'cuz all the good stuff lives on the filers. Having that local disk space there just means that someone is going to want to USE it, and that's bad - it means I'd have to actually back up those machines, and I *hate* backups. (In the exceedingly rare case where both drives of a mirrored boot volume are corrupted or destroyed, it's always going to be faster to re-Jumpstart and cfengine the machine from scratch than to restore from tape anyway. Local data just messes up all that beautiful automation. :-)
A long time ago I was going to recommend that filers come with a pair of internal boot drives - like a mirrored pair of 4GB or 9GB drives _strictly_ for use as the boot volume, with some space for logs, etc. There's plenty of room inside the big filer heads for a pair of drives. But the move to Flash RAM cards in the newest machines is even better - fewer moving parts. :-)
Just my $0.02,
-- Chris
-- Chris Lamb, ("Old school") Unix Guy MeasureCast, Inc. 503-241-1469 x247 skeezics@measurecast.com