Inodes vs Blocks

[JohnKeck]

Our system is on HP-UX v10.2. When I do a df -v, my /apps drive shows as 84% full; when I do a bdf, it shows as 94% full. I'm not too concerned because from what I can gather, the bdf command doesn't include free inodes; however, I'd like to make sure that I understand exactly what inodes are before I dismiss it altogether. (I realize that 84% is still high, but we're planning on replacing the file server in 3-6 months anyway). Thanks!!

 

[jamesh]

inodes (identification nodes) are a method by which the filesystem keeps tabs on blocks and their content. In effect, they are entities of a table that contains a list of filenames and their associated starting block location. <br>
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Inodes are more important then, than blocks as if you run out of inodes before you run out of blocks (chunks of disk) you can't use the rest of those blocks, as the filesystem has no way of referencing them.

 

[slars]

John,<br>
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The other gotcha may be if /apps is a JFS formatted file system. I've found that JFS is flakey when reporting free space in a bdf. We had 2gb Oracle data files (which hadn't been filled up in Oracle yet) and a JFS bdf reported that the 2 gb file system still had free space.<br>
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I don't know of workarounds short of doing rough calculations by hand with something like du.<br>
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slars