Q. best file system types, partitions and hardware for compiling

[williwaw]

I have a hp 800 EliteDesk G1 TR desktop I want to set up for (among other things) compiling some apps.
intel I7 8gb ram currently on board and a number of HD to choose from.....
a 4" Hitachi 1TB sata3 7200 rpm circa 2009
two sandisk SSD plus 2.5" sata 3 , one at 1 TB and one 480GB

when reformatting a disk, are there any specific recommendations as to partitions. swap, ext2-3-4?

which disk would you choose. I believe the Hitachi was probably a higher quality product back in the day, as compared to the sandisk ssd ( inexpensive at the time for their capacity)

[Flash]

I'd go with one of the solid state drives. My luck with the spinning kind has been abysmal. Besides, the SSDs will probably boot much faster.

[artemis]

i agree with SSD for compiling. compilers like to have fast fast random file access to lots of tiny little files, and that's just what an SSD is great at! spinning disks are ok with few big files, but slow down trying to read and write lots of small files randomly.

ext4 is tried and true!

don't bother with swap for compiling unless you start getting out of memory errors. Even then, usually it is better to use less cores to fix the problem than to add swap. compilers HATE swap, only use it as a last ditch effort