[solved]How much can you fill a harddrive

[wyrdoak]

The rule of thumb so as not for loose performance in Windows usually runs 50% for you system partition and 75% for a data partition.
Is there anything like this in Linux? Or can you just cram it full?

[xenopeek]

You can cram it full, but note that /tmp and /var both need disk space for your operating system to function properly. Usually on a server setup you would have these directories on separate partitions. If you have these lumped together with / (which is recommended for desktop use), just be aware that you need some free space for temporary files, log files, and other such things.

If you are using default ext4 file system, no need to worry By default 5% of the file system is reserved for the operating system to use. So you can fill your file system up to 95%, and the operating system can continue to work because it has this reserved disk space where it can put any temporary files, log files, and such.

If you have separate data partitions (for /home for example), you can use tune2fs to decrease or remove the reserved block count. Because on a data partition you generally don't need disk space reserved for the operating system to use. It needs disk space on /tmp and /var.

You can view the settings of your ext4 file system with (here as example for /dev/sdb1 partition):

Code: Select all

sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sdb1

Or just the reserved block count:

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sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sdb1 | grep 'Reserved block count'

To remove the 5% reserved blocks for a data partition, do:

Code: Select all

sudo tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sdb1

[wyrdoak]

Thanks for the info I've been bleeding off data from my home partition to keep it under 75%, although I back up data anyway, [learned when floppy's were the size of the laptop or larger ] now I don't have to watch space as close as I have.