[ale] 1/3 full disk, but it is full?

[Wandered Inn]

Mel Burslan wrote:
> 
> In the light of this message, one thing comes to mind: How fragmented
> your LARGE files are. Because, if my old knowledge of inodes and linked
> list structures are still serving me good, you are using one inode per
> fragment. And by my gut feeling, large, but really large files, are the
> files accessed and written over many many times by different
> users/processes, which can get badly fragmented. If this is the case,
> you may run out of inodes even with few large files. Just a thought, not
> even worth 2 cents ;-)

I don't think this is correct, but someone else slap me in the head if
they know different.  I believe you get one inode per file, regardless
of size.  There is a link list of sorts that provides linkage between
'file fragments', but that's not the inode.  To test this, I did the
following:

df /home -i
cp VERY_LARGE_FILE foo
df /home -i

The available inodes was reduced by 1.

> 
> Wandered Inn wrote:
> >
> > hirsch at zapmedia.com wrote:
> > >
> > > Wandered Inn writes:
> > >  > hirsch at zapmedia.com wrote:
> > >  > >
> > >  > > I wouldn't expect to be out of inodes.  Most of my files are over 3
> > >  > > megabytes and I thought the out of inode problem is usually caused by
> > >  > > small files.
> > >  >
> > >  > Not small files, lots of files.  One inode for each file entry in the
> > >  > file system.
> > >
> > > Yes, but there are usually enough inodes for a reasonable number of
> > > files.  If your files are big then you can't run out of inodes.  Only
> > > with small files can you run out.  Or so I thought.
> >
> > The point is, you're allocated so many inodes for the file system.  The
> > size of the files is not an issue, unless of course you use up all your
> > disk space.  You run out of inodes when you have too many files.  Inode
> > to file relationship has nothing to do with the file size.  You can run
> > out of inodes even with large files, depending on how many inodes you
> > allocated for the file system.
> >
> > mkfs.ext2 -N NUMBER_OF_INODES
> >
> > Now if you set NUMBER_OF_INODES too small, it doesn't matter how large
> > your files are, you'll run out of inodes, when you run out of inodes.
> >
> > Most folks I'm sure use the default number, which I do not know what
> > that is.
> >
> > >
> > > Later,
> > >
> > > Michael
> >
> > --
> > Until later: Geoffrey           esoteric at denali.atlnet.com
> >
> > "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds.
> > The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit
> > to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his
> > intelligence." - Albert Einstein
> > --
> > To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.
> 
> --
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--
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at denali.atlnet.com

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds.
The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit
to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his
intelligence." - Albert Einstein
--
To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.