Re: disk space (when i use cp)
On Fri, 2006-03-31 at 22:51 +0100, Wackojacko wrote:
> jlmb wrote:
> > Pol Hallen wrote:
> >> Hi all :-)
> >>
> >> i have 1Gb free on my debian,
> >> when i cp from ftp server to usb hd the space on my system decrease.. a lot..
> >> and often is zero..
> >>
> >> it's correct?! i copy to usb hd not system hd :-(
> >>
> >> tnks :-)
> >>
> > I see no reason why your system hd is being filled when copying data
> > from an external server to your USB hd. Recheck that you're really
> > copying to your external USB hd.
> >
> >
> > jorge
>
> I had this happen when the external device was not mounted (DVD-RAM in
> my case). As I understood it, if you copy to the mount point and the
> device is not mounted the data will be copied to the local hdd.
>
> HTH
>
> Wackojacko
>
That's a possible explanation, but your description is not very
accurate :)
A mount point is basically a directory. You can put stuff in that
directory and just use it as a directory. If you want to mount a drive,
you need to select a directory where the drive will be mounted. Again,
this can be any directory, even one that you use as a normal directory.
The moment you mount the drive, the directory contents will still exist,
but are unreachable in the filesystem. The content of the directory
however has become the content of the mounted media. The moment you
unmount this media, your previous content stored in the directory will
appear again.
Now, after this explanation, it should be clear why data copied to a
mount point where nothing is mounted can be copied locally. If you have
a mount point in a mount point for instance
(/mnt/usbdisk1/somedir/usbdisk2 where usbdisk* are both mountpoints) and
you copy something to usbdisk2 (which is not mounted) your data will be
copied to usbdisk1, since the mount point is located on that disk.
Philippe De Ryck
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