HDD free space

spiderbait

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Hi new to Linux and want to know why when i format my 2 To HDD in ext4 that i loose 100 Gigs that seem to be reversed for the system?
As you can see on the images it say available 252 GB and free 352 GB.
I use it only for storage is it possible to take back this 100 GB ?
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02.png
 


Gparted should be able to delete unwanted partitions and re-format the drive.It is in the Mint software manager.If there is any data on the drive you want to keep,copy it to another drive first.
 
Hi and thanks for the quick reply!
Gparted show me only one partition that's why i am confuse about this.
And the fact is that I format this drive with Gparted in the first place any idea?
03.png
 
Sorry,I guess you will have to wait for someone more knowlegable than me to read your post,All I can suggest is to try different programs.They don't all handle external drives the same way.Is it possible that one or more partitions is encrypted?
 
No partition are encrypted but thanks anyway I will test some more and see what append.
 
I see your concern, but the fact is that the filesystem - any filesystem actually - does reserve some space for its own purposes. Especially if the FS creates journals. But just creating the means to properly track files and organize the system, and just plain old overhead takes space. So some space becomes unusable.
Just for curiosity, @spiderbait what distro are you using, and what tools are you showing in your examples?
 
@jglen490 I'm with Fedora 33 and the pictures you see are with Gparted and Disks.Just don't understand why in a HDD for storage that I'm loosing 100 GB of data doesn't make sense to me but want to know the reason why.
Started with Linux Mint then with Ubuntu then tried debian and find my home with Fedora.
I love my Fedora 33 by the way!
 
Last edited:
A disk is not just empty space. It's organized space. Here are my filesystems:
Code:
john@john-Desktop:~/Downloads$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /dev
tmpfs           1.6G  1.7M  1.6G   1% /run
/dev/sda2        32G  8.9G   22G  30% /
tmpfs           7.8G   55M  7.8G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sdb1       458G  194G  241G  45% /home
/dev/sda1       476M  7.8M  468M   2% /boot/efi
/dev/sda3       172G   61M  163G   1% /home/extra
tmpfs           1.6G   16K  1.6G   1% /run/user/1000

Look at the line for /dev/sdb1. It is a single SSD with an advertised size of 500GB, and it was every bit of that. The actual size, once the filesystem was written shows as 458GB. 194GB is used, and 241GB is listed as remaining. 194 plus 241 is 435. 435GB < 458GB. Using an organized disk to store data has overhead costs. It's not a rip-off, it's not a conspiracy, it is a fact of life, and that fact is based on the need to take space to provide that organized structure.

Now if you look at the same drive with a query that is based on the number of 1-k blocks, you get something that's a bit different, but still shows that some space is used up, again, as the organizing structure:
Code:
john@john-Desktop:~/Downloads$ df
Filesystem     1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev             8125668         0   8125668   0% /dev
tmpfs            1633852      1652   1632200   1% /run
/dev/sda2       33381048   9249904  22405756  30% /
tmpfs            8169252     33716   8135536   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs               5120         4      5116   1% /run/lock
tmpfs            8169252         0   8169252   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sdb1      479668904 202792752 252440544  45% /home
/dev/sda1         486456      7984    478472   2% /boot/efi
/dev/sda3      179663572     61468 170406024   1% /home/extra
tmpfs            1633848        16   1633832   1% /run/user/1000

What you are seeing in Gparted and Disks is that same type of information, and showing what is taken to support an organized structure on disk.
 
Thank you for the info!
The culprit is the file system,depending what file system you use will result in some sort of loss of space.
I did some test with an external 1 TB usb 3 HDD and format it in fat32,Ext4,NTFS,Btrfs and XFS and the result are very different from one and other.
I am able to use 100% of storage with fat and NTFS,lost some from Btrfs and XFS but lost the most from Ext4,50 GB actually vs only 7 GB from XFS...interesting!
So for me if it is for storage only everything but Ext4,not because it is a bad choice but prefer to loose 7-14GB than 100 GB from Ext4.
So I'm gonna ask you what is your advice about those choice and the actual one that come with my Fedora 33 that is Btrfs?
 
Each filesystem has it's own benefits, strengths, weaknesses, and complications.

In my opinion, with Linux, and considering the relatively low price of storage, I would use ext4 or BTRFS. BTRFS brings in some extra management activity that can be useful, but is more complex than anything I have a need for. I use ext4 almost exclusively for my needs, including my data backup solution. The stability of ext4 is well worth the overhead hit.

You have to decide for yourself, but my choice would not be based on maximizing space usage.
 

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