"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
