Subject: Re: "no inodes free", but still 40% (73MB) left on disk
To: henry nelson <netb@irm.nara.kindai.ac.jp>
From: Michael G. Schabert <mikeride@mac.com>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 11/10/2003 12:18:09
>Now my question: Any gurus out there who know the rationale for the <20MB,
><1024MB, >=1024MB data size space cutoff points for determining the default
>block size and inode density?

Hi Harry,
I don't fall under the "guru" category, but I'll give this a shot :)

>I'm about as stingy as they come when it comes to hdd space, but even I don't
>use any disk with less than 512MB on a halfway serious install.  The smallest
>partition I do is 51MB (10%).  So my question is, isn't <20MB some remnant of
>ancient times when workstations still had 200MB hdds?  I could see the sizes
>go up to <96MB and <1024MB, and another default cutoff point added at <4096.
>(Of course now that I've studied up on newfs a little, the defaults aren't so
>important anymore, except for sysinstall, which uses them.)

Yes, but you're only dealing with "normal" desktop situations. There 
are a few situations which defy those rules. Some are:

1) Install floppies & CDs, which create a RAMDisk filesystem of only 
a couple MB

2) Embedded systems, and others that run off CompactFlash or similar 
smaller-capacity drives

3) Old-school unix admins who still believe in the tiny /, separate 
/usr, /home, /tmp, and /EverythingElse

Just my thoughts,
Mike
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