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Re: WD Passport 2T hard drive formating question.



> $ man mkfs.ext4
> 
> Look for "-m" argument.

"-m" option default value is 5% (!) =  50 GB space. No minimal reserved 
space is specified/recommended in man pages.

GParted allocated to file system 1.616% = 29.42GB (quite generous against 
default 5%).

For NTFS, on the other hand, only 0.0067% were allocated = 122.66 MB.

I do understand that some space must be reserved for the super-user to 
allow avoiding fragmentation + journal, etc. However the amount of space 
reserved seems to me unreasonably high - 29 GB vs. 123 MB.

Yes, I can tinker the situation to some extent with other mkfs.ext4 
options. But I do not know if the gain is worth of efforts. 

Besides, since the drive will be used for backup, I do not want to 
sacrifice the stability of the file system in order to preserve space 
either.

So, the question is, to which extent and with what result can I tinker 
with mkfs.ext4 options.

Thanks.




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