Re: Trouble copying a large number of files to last ext2 partition

[Andrew Sharp <andy@netfall.com>]

Laurent de Segur wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I run into this bizarre problem trying to copy a large amount of files to
> the last partition on my disk. The disk is 10GB and the last partition
> occupies the last 1GB of the disk (minus a few extra spare sectors.)
> 
> I did an fschk on the partition and no problem is reported.
> 
> I've got a compressed zip file with about 30000 files I want to uncompress.
> I know that the uncompressed size will end up filling the 1GB partition to
> about 90%.
> 
> If I unzip the file located on the same partition I get an error message
> (can't create the file on device) for a few dozens files then the copy will
> stop. At that point the disk is full at about 87%.

You can make the filesystem with a set percentage set aside for root
so that the filesystem doesn't get all screwed up when it gets
full-ish.  Actually getting completely full is a bad thing.  So set
the percentage to 1 thusly:

mkfs -m 1 /dev/<slice>

Remember that other things consume space on the slice: inodes,
directories, directory entries, block indirects, and so on.  So just
'cuz the slice is 1GB and the uncompressed size of the files is 90%
of that is no guarantee that they will fit.  You could also mess
with the number of bytes per inode to get the number of inodes to be
very close to what you want, thus saving space by not having a large
number of inodes unused.

a