58.66GB used on newly formatted external disc? - SORTED

[Lilliburlero]

Hi All,
Hope someone can help.
I have reformatted a 4TB external disc as Ext4 and made a new partition.
This is all using GParted.
But there is only 3,64 available, with 58.66GB used.
I don't understand this.
What's it being used by?
And why?

[Pierre]

that is quite possible:

one explanation is just how the HDD manufacturer states the size of their new drive,
and the difference between that and the given size after formatting that hdd . . .
- there is actually a difference

EG: a 2TB is 2TB RAW / Unformatted drive,, and 1,86TB after formatting that drive.
so there is a 14GB difference, right there
& doubling that to a 4TB drive, could give a 28Gb difference in the disk size(s
but, that's only 50% of what you are losing, so there may also be a better explanation.

and if your drive has only 3,64 TB available, then that would indicate a loss of 36GB rather than your 58.66GB . .
so, there is something else going on, instead.

[Lilliburlero]

Thanks Pierre,
There appears to be some conflicting informatio.
The disc properties says: Total Capacity 3.9TB, 200.1 GB Used, 3.7TB Free.
GParted says: Size 3.65TB, Used 58.66GB, Unused 3.58TB.

So one thinks there's 200 GB used and the other thinks it's 58.66GB used.
Very strange.

[chrisuk]

Ext4 reserves a percentage of the partition when formatted so, for example, root could sort out a partition than ran out of space.

Assuming your partition is sdb1 (which it may not be) - type sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sdb1 | grep 'Reserved block count' into the terminal to see how much is being reserved. Anything reserved won't show up in standard file managers etc.

Oh, if you know what you're doing, and feel you need the space rather than a "safety net" typing sudo tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sdb1 will reclaim the reserved space.

[Lilliburlero]

Reserved block count: 48837708

Yes that make more sense.
Thanks Chris.