Is the sysdump partition *really* needed on a 3B2/600?

[Steven Hagar]

In article <1068 at vsi.COM> friedl at vsi.COM (Stephen J. Friedl) writes:
>     Does anybody out there know if dropping the sysdump partition
>on a 3B2/600 is A Bad Thing?  

If you execute sysdump from firmware, you will be given the option 
of dumping to the sysdump partition (partition 3 on disk 0),
not just the floppy disk, as sysadm(8) describes.  
More importantly, the 3B2/600 automatically dumps a core image 
to this disk partition after each panic, so even if you don't want 
to make your own dump files, you would want this partition available.  
However, you may be able to recover some space depending on how much
memory your 3B2 has.  The default partitioning allocates 32768 blocks
for sysdump (i.e. enough for 16MB).  If you have less memory, you can
make the partition smaller (e.g. 16384 blocks for a 3B2 with 8MB RAM). 
Keep in mind, though, if you add more memory, you will have to go to
firmware and repartition your disk again for a larger sysdump partition.

-- 

  Steven Hagar             .
  AT&T Canada Inc.         .  ATTMAIL: !shagar
  (416) 756-5061           .  UUCP: uunet!attcan!shagar