Grant writes: > >> > Can I reserve 0% for root on my USB hard drive which is only > >> > used for backups and does not contain an OS? > >> > >> Yes: > >> > >> mke2fs -m 0 /dev/usb-drive > > > > Although a value > 0 helps against fragmentation. And when > > rdiff-backup has failed because it ran out of space, regressing to > > the previous sane state will need a little free space. > > Good points. Should 10GB (1% of 1TB) do it?
This I don't know. I use this value for large partitions of multimedia data, because I do not want to waste space (no matter how big the drives are, mine are always quite full), and performance should not be a big issue here. I keep the 5% default other partitions, like /home. BTW, you can also specify fractions like 0.5% if you like. Another thing: Be sure to have enough inodes on the file system, I have run out of them in the past. Not only once. Other than the percentage of reserved blocks, which can be changed with tune2fs -m, this value is fixed. If you have too few, you need to re-create the file system. Wonko