Re: shrink ext3 filesystem using e2fsprogs and fdisk

[Darac Marjal <mailinglist@darac.org.uk>]

On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 10:50:27PM +0000, Martin T wrote:
> I have a 500GB((131072000*4096)/1024^3) ext3 filesystem:
> 
[cut]
> 
> Is it possible to make partition smaller starting from the beginning?
> If yes, do I need to somehow start file system from the end of the
> partition?

Not directly. Try installing gparted (package: gparted). This will give
you a graphical interface which will allow you to resize the partition
as you're wanting. You will probably become aware that, no, taking space
off the beginning of the partition is not possible, but it IS possible
to take space off the END of the partition and then "slide" the
partition towards the end of the space.

The same is possible (I think) using the CLI parted, if you don't have
X. Note also that ext3 does NOT support online shrinking (you can make
it larger, but to make it smaller you MUST umount it).


-- 
Darac Marjal