5.5.3. Directory Structure

Many system administrators give little thought to how the storage they make available to users today is actually going to be used tomorrow. However, a bit of thought spent on this matter before handing over the storage to users can save a great deal of unnecessary effort later on.

The main thing that system administrators can do is to use directories and subdirectories to structure the storage available in an understandable way. There are several benefits to this approach:

By enforcing some level of structure on your storage, it can be more easily understood. For example, consider a large mult-user system. Instead of placing all user directories in one large directory, it might make sense to use subdirectories that mirror your organization's structure. In this way, people that work in accounting have their directories under a directory named accounting, people that work in engineering would have their directories under engineering, and so on.

The benefits of such an approach are that it would be easier on a day-to-day basis to keep track of the storage needs (and usage) for each part of your organization. Obtaining a listing of the files used by everyone in human resources is straightforward. Backing up all the files used by the legal department is easy.

With the appropriate structure, flexibility is increased. To continue using the previous example, assume for a moment that the engineering department is due to take on several large new projects. Because of this, many new engineers are to be hired in the near future. However, there is currently not enough free storage available to support the expected additions to engineering.

However, since every person in engineering has their files stored under the engineering directory, it would be a straightforward process to:

Of course, such an approach does have its shortcomings. For example, if people frequently move between departments, you must have a way of being informed of such transfers, and you must modify the directory structure appropriately. Otherwise, the structure no longer reflects reality, which makes more work -- not less -- for you in the long run.