[NTLUG:Discuss] ext3 waste disk spaces then Windows ME?

[Pat Regan]

m m wrote:
> All:
> 
> I just found this:
> 
> " ... Ext3 has the worst inital capacity (92.77%), while others FS preserve 
> almost full partition capacity (ReiserFS = 99.83%, JFS = 99.82%, XFS = 
> 99.95%). Interestingly, the residual capacity of Ext3 and ReiserFS was 
> identical to the initial, while JFS and XFS lost about 0.02% of their 
> partition capacity, suggesting that these FS can dynamically grow but do not 
> completely return to their inital state (and size) after file removal."
> 
> from
> 
> http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/6396
> 
> According to the article abovem it seems that the XFS is "better" than ext3.
> ext3 must be good at some points, otherwise why the most distro use it?
> Anyone have the idea?
> 

Somebody needs to tell the author of that article about the fact that
mke2fs reserves 5% of the filesystem for root by default.  That would
bring your number for ext2 up to almost 98%.

5% was a very reasonable amount of space to set aside 10+ year ago.
Today, it can be a huge waste of space.

Pat