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Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD

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  Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD  or Mechanical HD list@contacte.xyz - 2019-08-25 01:20 +0200
    Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose -  SSD or Mechanical HD Rick Thomas <rbthomas@pobox.com> - 2019-08-25 02:40 +0200
      Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose -  SSD or Mechanical HD Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2019-08-25 10:50 +0200
      You may need more inodes if you store lots of emails locally in maildir format (was: Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD rhkramer@gmail.com - 2019-08-25 14:20 +0200
        Re: You may need more inodes if you store lots of emails locally in  maildir format Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2019-08-25 14:50 +0200
        Re: You may need more inodes if you store lots of emails locally in  maildir format (was: Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode  option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2019-08-25 21:30 +0200
          Re: You may need more inodes if you store lots of emails locally in maildir format (was: Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD rhkramer@gmail.com - 2019-08-25 22:00 +0200
    Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose -  SSD or Mechanical HD list@contacte.xyz - 2019-08-25 22:50 +0200

#213208 — Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD

Hello All.

Thank you for any help, advises, explanation one's can provide.

When installing a Debian - Buster here.
When it's time to partition/format the drive one can choose the  «usage» 
of the partition which affect the Inodes.
There is :

-Typical usage” (which is “standard” by default)
- "News” (lots of inodes),
- “largefile” (fewer inodes),
- “largefile4” (even fewer inodes)

What would be the «best» to choose for an SSD in an usual desktop 
environment ?
What would be the «best» to choose for an mechanical HD in an usual 
desktop environment ?

Files system is EXT4.

If you have any link/url to read about an learn more to make the best 
choice for any circumstance it would be great.

Regards.

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#213214 — Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD

> On Aug 24, 2019, at 4:18 PM, list@contacte.xyz wrote:
> 
> What would be the «best» to choose for an SSD in an usual desktop environment ?
> What would be the «best» to choose for an mechanical HD in an usual desktop environment ?

I don’t think there’s any difference between SSD and spinning disk (for the particular question of how many inodes are needed).

If your planned usage is “typical” then, for either type of hardware, “typical usage” is the right choice.  If you have a particular use in mind that is known to involve lots of small files, then “news” might be more appropriate.

As a real-world example, here’s a system I set up a couple of years ago (so it’s had enough time to reach an equilibrium state) with “typical usage” (the default).


rbthomas@monk:~$ df -ih | grep -v tmpfs
Filesystem                Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
udev                        3.0M   580  3.0M    1% /dev
/dev/mapper/monk--vg-root   1.8M  258K  1.5M   15% /
/dev/sda1                    61K   337   61K    1% /boot
/dev/mapper/monk--vg-home   5.3M   43K  5.2M    1% /home
/dev/mapper/monk-download    50M   374   50M    1% /download
/dev/mapper/monk-export      25M    18   25M    1% /export


Enjoy!
Rick

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#213240 — Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD

Le 25/08/2019 à 02:33, Rick Thomas a écrit :
>> On Aug 24, 2019, at 4:18 PM, list@contacte.xyz wrote:
>>
>> What would be the «best» to choose for an SSD in an usual desktop environment ?
>> What would be the «best» to choose for an mechanical HD in an usual desktop environment ?
> 
> I don’t think there’s any difference between SSD and spinning disk (for the particular question of how many inodes are needed).

Indeed inodes have nothing to do with the storage technology but with 
filesystem contents type. Each file and directory requires one inode, 
and the available inode count is fixed when the filesystem is created.
If you are going to fill a filesystem with small files, you need a lot 
of inodes. If you are going to fill a filesystem with big files, you 
need fewer inodes.

man mke2fs for details.

> As a real-world example, here’s a system I set up a couple of years ago (so it’s had enough time to reach an equilibrium state) with “typical usage” (the default).
> 
> 
> rbthomas@monk:~$ df -ih | grep -v tmpfs
> Filesystem                Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
> udev                        3.0M   580  3.0M    1% /dev
> /dev/mapper/monk--vg-root   1.8M  258K  1.5M   15% /
> /dev/sda1                    61K   337   61K    1% /boot
> /dev/mapper/monk--vg-home   5.3M   43K  5.2M    1% /home
> /dev/mapper/monk-download    50M   374   50M    1% /download
> /dev/mapper/monk-export      25M    18   25M    1% /export

So you could have selected "largefile" for all filesystems but / to save 
some space. Unused inodes consume space.

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#213247 — You may need more inodes if you store lots of emails locally in maildir format (was: Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD

On Saturday, August 24, 2019 08:33:30 PM Rick Thomas wrote:
> > On Aug 24, 2019, at 4:18 PM, list@contacte.xyz wrote:
> > 
> > What would be the «best» to choose for an SSD in an usual desktop
> > environment ? What would be the «best» to choose for an mechanical HD in
> > an usual desktop environment ?
> 
> I don’t think there’s any difference between SSD and spinning disk (for the
> particular question of how many inodes are needed).
> 
> If your planned usage is “typical” then, for either type of hardware,
> “typical usage” is the right choice.  If you have a particular use in mind
> that is known to involve lots of small files, then “news” might be more
> appropriate.

Hmm, this raised a question in my mind (not for myself so much) -- I use mbox 
(vs. maildir) as much as possible to store emails.  

(kmail (the older version I use (on Wheezy) uses maildir for the inbox and 
maybe some other "kmail system" "folders", e.g., sent-mail (yes, just 
checked).  For all the folders I set up, I set them up as mbox, but, it seems 
that kmail sometimes decides to convert them to maildir for some reason (maybe 
if the mbox file gets too big, for some definition of too big?)  (Far aside: and 
for other reasons, I want to keep my "folders" in mbox format (for 
compatibility with some other applications.)

Anyway, as many of us know, mbox keeps all the emails in a given folder in one 
file, while maildir stores each email in a separate file.

I suppose that, for someone who was going to archive a lot of mail and store 
it in maildir format, they might have to consider more inodes (i.e., the news 
option).

(Even further aside: I am worried that when I upgrade to Buster or such, the 
kmail included might no longer support mbox -- I got that impression 
somewhere, and I tried asking the question on a(n "official") kmail list, but 
did not get a clear answer (or I didn't really understand the answer -- I'll 
have to go back and look for that answer again and re-read it.)



> 
> As a real-world example, here’s a system I set up a couple of years ago (so
> it’s had enough time to reach an equilibrium state) with “typical usage”
> (the default).
> 
> 
> rbthomas@monk:~$ df -ih | grep -v tmpfs
> Filesystem                Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
> udev                        3.0M   580  3.0M    1% /dev
> /dev/mapper/monk--vg-root   1.8M  258K  1.5M   15% /
> /dev/sda1                    61K   337   61K    1% /boot
> /dev/mapper/monk--vg-home   5.3M   43K  5.2M    1% /home
> /dev/mapper/monk-download    50M   374   50M    1% /download
> /dev/mapper/monk-export      25M    18   25M    1% /export
> 
> 
> Enjoy!
> Rick

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#213253 — Re: You may need more inodes if you store lots of emails locally in maildir format

Le 25/08/2019 à 14:10, rhkramer@gmail.com a écrit :
> 
> I suppose that, for someone who was going to archive a lot of mail and store
> it in maildir format, they might have to consider more inodes (i.e., the news
> option).

Probably. Or use a filesystem type such as Btrfs or XFS which, unlike 
ext*, does not have a fixed number of available inodes.

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#213270 — Re: You may need more inodes if you store lots of emails locally in maildir format (was: Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD

On Sun 25 Aug 2019 at 08:10:07 (-0400), rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:

> Hmm, this raised a question in my mind (not for myself so much) -- I use mbox 
> (vs. maildir) as much as possible to store emails.  
> 
> (kmail (the older version I use (on Wheezy) uses maildir for the inbox and 
> maybe some other "kmail system" "folders", e.g., sent-mail (yes, just 
> checked).  For all the folders I set up, I set them up as mbox, but, it seems 
> that kmail sometimes decides to convert them to maildir for some reason (maybe 
> if the mbox file gets too big, for some definition of too big?)  (Far aside: and 
> for other reasons, I want to keep my "folders" in mbox format (for 
> compatibility with some other applications.)
> 
> Anyway, as many of us know, mbox keeps all the emails in a given folder in one 
> file, while maildir stores each email in a separate file.
> 
> I suppose that, for someone who was going to archive a lot of mail and store 
> it in maildir format, they might have to consider more inodes (i.e., the news 
> option).
> 
> (Even further aside: I am worried that when I upgrade to Buster or such, the 
> kmail included might no longer support mbox -- I got that impression 
> somewhere, and I tried asking the question on a(n "official") kmail list, but 
> did not get a clear answer (or I didn't really understand the answer -- I'll 
> have to go back and look for that answer again and re-read it.)

  grep -a '^From ' DIRECTORY/* | less

where DIRECTORY is wherever you keep your mail, will give an indication
of how many emails you have stored. Then add your INBOX. My own totals
around 70,000. My 40GB root filesystem has 2½million inodes (13% used),
and /home (180GB) has 11½million (3%). So I'm not too apprehensive
about any future demise of mbox format. (Obviously, running a mailing
list or news server would be a different matter.)

Cheers,
David.

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#213271 — Re: You may need more inodes if you store lots of emails locally in maildir format (was: Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD

On Sunday, August 25, 2019 03:25:09 PM David Wright wrote:
>   grep -a '^From ' DIRECTORY/* | less
> 
> where DIRECTORY is wherever you keep your mail, will give an indication
> of how many emails you have stored. Then add your INBOX. My own totals
> around 70,000. My 40GB root filesystem has 2½million inodes (13% used),
> and /home (180GB) has 11½million (3%). So I'm not too apprehensive
> about any future demise of mbox format. (Obviously, running a mailing
> list or news server would be a different matter.)

Thanks for the information, but, darn, I wish you hadn't "inspired" me to 
check how many emails I have stored.  I used a different approach (adding up 
the quantities shown in kmail for each folder) -- looks like I have something 
like 450,000 stored online since about 2005, and some number more stored offline 
before 2005.

Still, I'm probably good on inodes.

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#213273 — Re: Buster Installation - Partition phase - Inode option to choose - SSD or Mechanical HD

Hello All.

I want to thank you all for your help, feedback, link, command line and 
experience you shared here after my noob question.
I get better understanding now, thanks to you.

Godspeed !

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