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

[David Stanaway]

Pat Regan wrote:
> Kipton Moravec wrote:
>> Sometimes it depends on the definition of 1Mbyte. Is it 1,000,000 bytes
>> or 1K (1024 bytes) * 1K (1024 bytes) = 1,048,576 bytes?
>>
>> Disk drive manufacturers use 1M = 1,000,000. Some operating systems tend
>> to use 1M = 1,048,576.
>>
>> Kip
> 
> The difference between real megabytes and metric megabytes (I don't
> believe in mibibytes) is about 5%.  5% for the rounding plus 5% reserved
> blocks probably makes up the missing 8%.
> 
> I know Chris mentioned using a reserved percent of 1 or 0.  I am not
> sure if it is well known that you can use fractions of a percent.  The
> reserved blocks also help prevent fragmentation by keeping large chunks
> of space free.  I would imagine in most cases you wouldn't need more
> than a half gig or so of reserved space for that purpose.
> 
> Pat

You may also want to tweak the blocksize. I gues it depends what the 
average file size will be on your filesystem, if the average size is 
10Mb maybe you want a much larger blocksize so you have smaller fs node 
header overhead.