Chuck Yerkes wrote:

> 
> Need smaller words?
> / is full!  Oh no!  It's at 110% at 90MB.  What shall I do?
> Oh, I'll look in the 10 directories.
> Hey, there's a couple big ol coredumps in /etc/.  There, problem gone.
> 
> Compare with:  
> Huh, my 8GB disk is at 45% not 44%.  I wonder what is amiss?
> Oh, there at many core files in / and /etc/ and there's a /dev/rts0
> file that's a dump to the mis-typed /dev/rst0.
> 

Can't you just 'du' all the small directories and look for problems? du shouldn't take too long on small directories, and if it does take a while, then you have found the problem. This way you can have a monolithic filesystem, and still spot big trouble in small places.