[LBo] Drive capacity puzzler

[tim]

Kevin B. O'Brien wrote:
> This may be something simple, but I am new to this. I just got my second
> hard drive formatted and working with help from jisao on the IRC
> channel. But then I saw something that looked puzzling. I had just gone
> through the process from fdisk to create the process, through mkfs to
> install the file system, mkdir to create directory, adding a line in
> fstab, and finally mounting the drive. Yet when I opened it in Krusader,
> I saw that it said "217GB out of 229GB free". This is a nominal 250GB
> drive, so I know that it would come out as osmething like 229 after
> formatting, and allowing for decimal vs. binary counting of the bytes
> and all. But does anyone know what the heck is causing 12GB to disappear
> after all of that. 
> I mean, this drive was empty and virginal.;)
>
> Thank you,
>
>   
Just a shot in the dark here, but I seem to remember something about 
ext3 using 5% for various overhead purposes.  I'll poke around a little 
later for my own knowledge, but 5% is close to 12 gig.  Of course if you 
formatted to reiser or something else that wouldn't apply.