On the install of Ubuntu this evening, instead of letting Ubuntu partition the drive, I decided to do it manually.
To do this I needed to learn enough about the partitioning process to be able to do it myself.

I found one really good article on the subject here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1986743

The basic premise of the above article is to use LVM, and create lots of separate partitions, using LVM (Logical Volume Manager). The instructions on this page outline using LVM to partition the drive. In another article, I will show another method, which does NOT use LVM (ie a less complex approach).

The author of that article was gearing his server for a slightly different application, so I came up with my own plan for how the hard drive on my server was going to be laid out. Note: I am using quantity 2 - 2 2TB drives, setup in a hardware RAID configuration (mirrored for auto backup). Here's the basic layout of the partitions in this design:

Outside the LVM (Logical Volume Manager):

boot - 200 MB - This will remain static in size. It is also the only space residing outside the Logical Volume Manager (LVM)

Inside the LVM I have:

root - 20 GB - Operating system and everything else which should remain fairly static.
swap - 8G (2 * amount of RAM) - This will most likely remain static in size. However, if amount of RAM is adjusted, this can be adjusted as well.
var - 500GB - This is the website/database/log storage and will continue to grow over time.

These are the step by step instructions for the settings I entered:

  1. Select Manual {ENTER}
  2. Select SCSI3 (0,0,0) (sda) - 8.6 GB VMware Virtual disk {ENTER}
  3. Select Yes to create new empty partition table, {ENTER}
  4. Select pri/log FREE SPACE {ENTER}
  5. Select Create a new partition {ENTER}
  6. Type 200 MB, {ENTER} (NOTE: This will be the /boot partition)
  7. Select Primary {ENTER}
  8. Select Beginning {ENTER}
  9. Select Use as: Ext4 journaling file system {ENTER}
  10. Select Ext2 file system {ENTER}
  11. Select Mount point: / {ENTER}
  12. Select /boot - static files of the boot loader {ENTER}
  13. Select Bootable flag: off {ENTER} (NOTE: This toggles it on)
  14. Select Done setting up the partition {ENTER}
  15. Select Configure the Logical Volume Manager {ENTER}
  16. Select Yes to write change to disks and configure LVM, {ENTER}
  17. Select Create volume group {ENTER}
  18. Type LVG {ENTER}
  19. Select /dev/sda FREE SPACE, {SPACEBAR}, {ENTER}
  20. Select Yes to write change to disks and configure LVM, {ENTER}
  21. Select Create logical volume {ENTER}
  22. Select LVG (8384MB) {ENTER}
  23. Type swap {ENTER}
  24. Type 8G {ENTER} (NOTE: This is double the amount of RAM)
  25. Select Create logical volume {ENTER}
  26. Select LVG (6387MB) {ENTER}
  27. Type root {ENTER}
  28. Type 20G {ENTER}
  29. Select Create logical volume {ENTER}
  30. Select LVG (6387MB) {ENTER}
  31. Type var {ENTER}
  32. Type 500G {ENTER}
  33. Select Finish {ENTER}

Now that we've created the Volume Groups, we need to go back in and tell the installer which Linux partitions will be associated/mounted under the VGs created above:

  1. Select #1 2.0 GB directly under LVM VG LVG, LV swap, {ENTER}
  2. Select Use as: do not use {ENTER}
  3. Select swap area {ENTER}
  4. Select Done setting up the partition {ENTER}
  5. Select #1 20.0 GB directly under LVM VG LVG, LV root, {ENTER}
  6. Select Use as: do not use {ENTER}
  7. Select Ext4 journaling file system {ENTER}
  8. Select Mount point: none {ENTER}
  9. Select / - the root file system {ENTER}
  10. Select Done setting up the partition {ENTER}
  11. Select #1 directly under LVM VG LVG, LV var, {ENTER}
  12. Select Use as: do not use {ENTER}
  13. Select Ext4 journaling file system {ENTER}
  14. Select Mount point: none {ENTER}
  15. Select /var {ENTER}
  16. Select Label: none {ENTER}
  17. Type var {ENTER}
  18. Select Done setting up the partition {ENTER}
  19. Select Finish partitioning and write changes to disk {ENTER}
  20. Select Yes to write changes to disk, {ENTER}