Magical disappearing disk space?!

[DOlson]

Okay, if I run the command df -h then I see this output:

 

/dev/hda4 37G 28G 7.8G 78% /usr/local/games

 

Yes, that is a 37GB games partition, yes, with 28GB used. The problem is that 37 - 28 <> 7.8. I checked it exactly, and this is the output of the df command:

 

/dev/hda4 38474484 28369340 8150736 78% /usr/local/games

 

Again, the problem is that 38474484 - 28369340 <> 8150736. There should be 10105144 instead of 8150736. I am unsure where this space went.

 

I did some searching, and I checked the output of lsof | grep games and found that a few files were open, yet deleted. I had some windows open so I closed them and unmounted the partition. I then ran fsck.ext3 -f /dev/hda4 on it. When it was done, the same output was shown.

 

Now, the question here is, did this free space magically disappear, or is it hidden somewhere? I got to thinking, and I figure it's in the journal, but that's pretty dumb to let yourself think you have more space than you actually do like that. I am thinking it's time to backup my partitions and start them over as reiserfs, since that's the partition type I prefer anyhow... And actually, I was sorta surprised that I am still on ext3 for my games and home directories... I forgot, since it's been a long long time simce I had to reformat and reinstall Debian, and I don't even remember using ext3 in the first place, lol. I use reiser for my root and backup partitions... I don't get it.

 

Anyhow, if anyone can confirm or deny that it's the ext3 journal's fault, please let me know.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Edit: moved from Software by spinynorman

[Guest iphoting]

Okay, if I run the command df -h then I see this output:

 

/dev/hda4 37G 28G 7.8G 78% /usr/local/games

 

Yes, that is a 37GB games partition, yes, with 28GB used. The problem is that 37 - 28 <> 7.8. I checked it exactly, and this is the output of the df command:

 

/dev/hda4 38474484 28369340 8150736 78% /usr/local/games

 

Again, the problem is that 38474484 - 28369340 <> 8150736. There should be 10105144 instead of 8150736. I am unsure where this space went.

 

I did some searching, and I checked the output of lsof | grep games and found that a few files were open, yet deleted. I had some windows open so I closed them and unmounted the partition. I then ran fsck.ext3 -f /dev/hda4 on it. When it was done, the same output was shown.

 

Now, the question here is, did this free space magically disappear, or is it hidden somewhere? I got to thinking, and I figure it's in the journal, but that's pretty dumb to let yourself think you have more space than you actually do like that. I am thinking it's time to backup my partitions and start them over as reiserfs, since that's the partition type I prefer anyhow... And actually, I was sorta surprised that I am still on ext3 for my games and home directories... I forgot, since it's been a long long time simce I had to reformat and reinstall Debian, and I don't even remember using ext3 in the first place, lol. I use reiser for my root and backup partitions... I don't get it.

 

Anyhow, if anyone can confirm or deny that it's the ext3 journal's fault, please let me know.

 

Thanks!

Could it be the reserved root blocks being hidden from df view?

 

You might wanna reduce the allocation for super users in that fs.

[Gowator]

The default mk3fs reserves 5% for root.

 

None else seems to mind but me and dOlsen.... however he's one person I thought would know this....

 

or did ya forget !!!!

[bvc]

run

parted -i /dev/hd? (hda, hdb etc....)

and see if it finds any problems like overlapping partitions? If it does, my own experience has been 100% with it fixing the overlaping partitions.

Edited May 15, 2004 by bvc

[DOlson]

The default mk3fs reserves 5% for root.

 

None else seems to mind but me and dOlsen.... however he's one person I thought would know this....

 

or did ya forget !!!!

I don't know why I should know this, but I hate ext3 as I stated above, and since I don't reboot very often, I don't ever see the stupid fsck crap that it runs and so on. I'm just going to backup these two partitions and reformat them as reiserfs.

 

I am curious as to why this post was moved to a forum about shell commands and programming when it's really nothing to do with that.

[DOlson]

run

parted -i /dev/hd? (hda, hdb etc....)

and see if it finds any problems like overlapping partitions? If it does, my own experience has been 100% with it fixing the overlaping partitions.

bvc, I tried it, and this is what it says:

 

Using /dev/hda

Information: The operating system thinks the geometry on /dev/hda is 155061/16/63. Therefore,

cylinder 1024 ends at 503.999M.

(parted)

[bvc]

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?sho...wtopic=3133&hl=

I d/k if it'll help, but at the link above/6th post you can see how I used parted's rescue option. Hope it helps!

[Gowator]

The default mk3fs reserves 5% for root. 

 

None else seems to mind but me and dOlsen....  however he's one person I thought would know this....

 

or did ya forget !!!!

I don't know why I should know this, but I hate ext3 as I stated above, and since I don't reboot very often, I don't ever see the stupid fsck crap that it runs and so on. I'm just going to backup these two partitions and reformat them as reiserfs.

 

I am curious as to why this post was moved to a forum about shell commands and programming when it's really nothing to do with that.

Yep but its the same for any filesytem called from mkfs.

 

If you dont specifiy the root space its 5%.

Non of the graphical apps seem to give you the option (perhaps qtparted) but if you recreate it or use the tunefs you can change reserved space.

 

If its a 20MB disk then 5% is reasonable but for more mdern disks with GB even the 5% default is wasteful.

[spinynorman]

I am curious as to why this post was moved to a forum about shell commands and programming when it's really nothing to do with that.

Sorry, I've now moved it to Hardware.