Questions with Ext3 File system [Now Ext2 and still puzzled]

TheWhiteKnight

I finally decided to clear out my 120 GB Drives. They are / were NTFS :: gag ::. So I was able to move 90% of the data onto my /root directory (since there was only about 40GB of data. So I formatted the drive, ran into a few small snags during the boot up. I thought I fixed them until I was mounting the FS (new EXT3) when I saw this message.. :Saving 5.00% for root partition (or user): 5%.. THAT'S 6GB.... I was like F That. I wwant that space, but more importantly, I NEED that space.

Normally I would not have a problem.... but here is the situation. My OTHER 120GB drive, also NTFS, has 1.22MB free on it. It is completely filled up with important data. Is there anyway that I can override it when I set up this drive so I can use all 120 GB? It stands now that I am out of room to move the remaining data. Am I going to have to reformat the drive that I already re-setup? If so, that is no problem, but it took almost 10 hours to transfer all 111GB of data on the drive.

I thought that EIDE drives had a higher transfer rate than 3.5MB. If someone can enlighten me on this situation, I would really appreciate it. I know that most E & U IDE drives are measured at "burst" transmissions so that is how they get the "Up to 200MB/sec transfer rate"

Thanks in advance!

- Josh
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yabbadabbadont · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:57 am Post subject:

Your first problem can be resolved by passing "-m 0" to mke2fs when you create your ext3 filesystems. (reserve 0% for root) Just don't do that when creating the root filesystem. That space is reserved for root for a reason. It lets root login and fix things when a user fills up the disk. At least that is what I remember it being for. For a really large root filesystem, you could just use that same option to reserve a smaller percentage.
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TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:12 am Post subject:

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:09 am Post subject:

1) Look at /var/log/emerge.log for you emerge history. Don't ever delete that file though.

2) Not sure. Read up on the tune2fs command to see if you can change the reserved blocks percentage of an existing filesystem.

Edit: Yep, just call "tune2fs -m 0 <insert device here>" to set the reserved blocks to zero.
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TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:24 pm Post subject:

Ok well I seemed to have run into something interesting then. It must be that NTFS is a better overall FS than ext3. I tried to copy everything over that is from NTFS to my EXT3 fs and I get almost all the way through and I get "Disk Full" and I haven't moved everything over. I even tuned the FS to -m 0 and tried using the df -h and I still have the same amount of space that I had before I started.

I just don't get how I can format a 120GB HDD and only end up with 111GB usable. I know how, I just don't get it. What a waste. 9 GB is a lot of room.
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It's interesting how much you learn, you really DON'T know about computers, when you don't have an operating system that configures everything for you.

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:34 pm Post subject:

You are probably running out of inodes (think FAT entries) and not really disk space. You need to look into allocating more than the default number of inodes when you create the filesystem. I'll have to read through the man pages for mke2fs to find the correct command. There is a way to display the number of free inodes on a filesystem, but I don't remember it right now. I'll have to search for it too. (man df probably)

Edit: df -i will show the number of free inodes by the way.
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i92guboj · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:35 pm Post subject:

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:40 pm Post subject:

Mathematically, 120GB is exactly what the drive manufacturer says it is. It is only the computer industry that insists on counting in powers of 2. Of course, this is computer equipment so .....
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TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:42 pm Post subject:

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject:

Did you check to see if the problem was running out of inodes using "df -i"? If so, that can be fixed, but only by recreating the filesystem.
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i92guboj · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:51 pm Post subject:

TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:54 pm Post subject:

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:00 pm Post subject:

What does "fdisk -l" and just plane "df" show? This is very curious.
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TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:06 pm Post subject:

TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:19 pm Post subject:

djdunn · l33t Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 810

not so much that it should be hdc1 its that its not seeing the 1st partition of it

so hdd1 is your ntfs and hdc is the drive with your ext3 on it because if that is it its not seeing the ext3 partition correctly.
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Genone · Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:29 am Post subject:

Or rather you just forgot to create a partition table on it, but hey, that gains you another 512 bytes :wink:

Just don't bring that disk near a windows system or windows might decide the disk is empty and format it for you.
As for your space problem, it's very well possible that ntfs is a bit more efficient in space usage than ext3, and if your safety limit is only about one megabyte I wouldn't be surprised if the copy fails. Playing around with the filesystem paramters (blocksize, inode count) may or may not help you, but requires you to recreate the filesystem each time you change them.

djdunn · l33t Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 810

didnt think about the partition table, hard to say tho
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“Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good and just and beautiful.”

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TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:11 pm Post subject:

linuxtuxhellsinki · l33t Joined: 15 Nov 2004 Posts: 700 Location: Hellsinki

I don't know where are those 3GB of your space, but I do know that your terrible performance is because you've those drives (hdc & hdd) attached to same IDE channel, so they can only work one at the time :!:

If you still need to copy the data 'again' to that another drive, you'd consider to attach it (hdc) to the slave of your primary IDE channel (=hdb) for a while :roll:

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TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:42 pm Post subject:

linuxtuxhellsinki · l33t Joined: 15 Nov 2004 Posts: 700 Location: Hellsinki

wrc1944 · Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 10:46 am Post subject:

WhiteKnight,
Unless I'm mistaken, reiserfs doesn't consider a 4.5mb file a "small" file. From what I've read over the years, it's more like under 10kb or so.

I'm a recent ext3 "tuned" convert from reiserfs (used reiserfs for years), but in your case I would consider trying reiserfs, WITHOUT the fstab notail mount option usually recommended for reiserfs.

Below is a quote from a web page I ran across, but in my experience when I converted all my systems to ext3 from reiserfs, the ext3 partitions required much more than the 5% extra space mentioned here to transfer the same data from a reiserfs partition. In other words, when transfering your data, you would probably save more than 5% disk space using reiserfs as opposed to ext3.

I'd also consider that having a disk crammed completely full is not generally a good idea. You might consider getting larger drives, and then selling your old 120GB drives when the data was transferred.

TheWhiteKnight · Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:42 pm Post subject: