Re: HELP: Free space zero no matter what
"Dwayne C . Litzenberger" wrote:
>
> Okay, I'm back and running, and I figured out my problem. ext2 filesystems
> have reserved blocks, though I don't know what they're for. It seems only
> root can access them, although I haven't really checked this. tune2fs can
> lower the number of reserved blocks, but here's my question:
>
> Why, on a 6.4 GB hard drive, were there 300MB or reserved blocks? What
> are they for, and do I really need them?
Some kilobytes of space is needed on the / and /var so that root can log in.
Free space of about this size was traditionally reserved for root so that
he/she could still log in to take corrective action even if the disk is
full. In the days when 50MB was a big disk, saving a few percent for this
requirement made sense. Applying these same old percentages - often 5% for
most kinds of unix, 10% on hpux, reserves an excessive amount of space;
often for no advantage. On /home and similar partitions it is my belief that
zero percent need be reserved. On / and if it is a separate partiton /var, a
few (<5) megabaytes reseved is plenty.
This is all purely subjective.
Andrew
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