How much free space does reiserfs require?

[Devnn]

http://www.namesys.com/faq.html#full-disk says that reiser partitions shouldn't be filled more than 85%.

Does that really apply to a 500G partition?
I understand there should be some space available for keeping files defragged, but souldn't the space required to do that be related to the size of the files you have and not as a percentage of the whole disk? Else I have 70 worthless GB.

[eccerr0r]

Technically it could be filled to the gills but you'll suffer fragmentation and slowdown due to it. With free space the filesystem merely has more flexibility to resist fragmentation. But you may not actually get fragmentation if you write to the disk "carefully".

"Shouldn't" and not "Can't" ... All filesystems should realize the situation and still provide you with storage, though not optimal.

It sure is related to the size of files that you write and how often/what method you write to it, not percentage.

In my opinion, if it really needed 15% of the disk to be free, it should have marked that space unusable to begin with.
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[RangerDude]

I would expect reiserfs to require the same amount of free space on a 50G disk as on a 500G disk. That would make sense. Someone must know the actual truth. I suppose you could just check disk fragmentation and see how your disk is doing, then it should be obvious if yuo're using too much or not. But how do you check that and what value should it be? I know there is some 'background' fragmentation, so how much before it's too much? And how do you check it?

[Napalm Llama]

I'm guessing the percentage thing is because if you have more data on there (and hence more files) that's more opportunity for fragmentation to happen. But once your disk is at about 85% full, you should be thinking about buying more storage anyway - so if you ask me, it doesn't really matter.

...unless you plan to fill it with files, and then leave those files there without modifying or deleting them (for instance, a music or video library). If you do that (ie. treat it as effectively "write once") then you shouldn't get any fragmentation in the first place and this problem doesn't even apply, and it still doesn't matter
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[drescherjm]