External HDD Capacity...

[speedwell68]

OK I have done a quick search for the answer to this question, but alas I don't seem to be able to find the answer. I have a 250GB Freecom external HDD and it is currently formatted as a FAT32 drive, giving me 232GB of available space. Would I gain more free space on the drive if I reformatted it to EXT4?

[JC Cheloven]

Usually the OS reserves some 5% of the volume fot its own use (so that it can write to disk even if the user populates it). This is not really needed for a data volume (with no os). If you format in ext, you'll be able to free that percentage thru the tune2fs command. Please see the manpages for details.


As a hint/example:

sudo tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sda3

will free for you the aforementioned space in sda3.

Regards
JC
EDIT: BTW, a question for a support forum, not the cafe

[speedwell68]

Usually the OS reserves some 5% of the volume fot its own use (so that it can write to disk even if the user populates it). This is not really needed for a data volume (with no os). If you format in ext, you'll be able to free that percentage thru the tune2fs command. Please see the manpages for details.


As a hint/example:

sudo tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sda3

will free for you the aforementioned space in sda3.

Regards
JC
EDIT: BTW, a question for a support forum, not the cafe

Thanks for that.

[scouser73]

OK I have done a quick search for the answer to this question, but alas I don't seem to be able to find the answer. I have a 250GB Freecom external HDD and it is currently formatted as a FAT32 drive, giving me 232GB of available space. Would I gain more free space on the drive if I reformatted it to EXT4?

You'd get more space if you reformatted it to NTFS, I know that sounds silly as NTFS is a native filesystem of Windows but it's true.

[CharlesA]

You'd get more space if you reformatted it to NTFS, I know that sounds silly as NTFS is a native filesystem of Windows but it's true.

What's the reason for that?

[scouser73]

The reason I format to NTFS rather than EXT4 or any other notable Linux filesystem is that less space is taken up.

If you see the screen shots, I've got two external 500GB HD's.

One is formatted to EXT4 & the other is formatted to NTFS

EXT4 says that the total capacity is 458.4GB, whereas NTFS is showing 465.8GB.

Drive formatted to EXT4



Drive formatted to NTFS

[CharlesA]

Thanks. I'm guessing the other 7 gigs is taken up by the Journal.

[speedwell68]

I have just formatted to EXT4 and starting restoring the data on it now.

I will try it under NTFS again another time. I just want to maximise the free space available really and be able to write files that are in excess of 4GB in size.

[CharlesA]

I must be a huge space hog, since my monthly backup from my server takes up just under 2TB. That drive is formatted as EXT3.

Media server, so take it with a grain of salt. I think documents and whatnot take up around 200GB.

[speedwell68]

I must be a huge space hog, since my monthly backup from my server takes up just under 2TB. That drive is formatted as EXT3.

Media server, so take it with a grain of salt. I think documents and whatnot take up around 200GB.

Hell, my total backup is only 86GB.