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I have maybe a theoretical question about file systems or how gParted works.

After when I deleted some patritions and then format into some file systems(ntfs, fat32, ex4). I noticed that some spaces are still in used on a different file system. Please take a look:

gParted did formatation on disks

For example:

  • 30GB ext4 is showing at 653.94MB used up - without anything just to format
  • 50GB ntfs is showing 66.01MB
  • However 175GB ntfs is showing only 69.91MB

If you have explaining video or wiki page about this and its background or you know could you please describe it below - then I may adjust the title of the question to later if somebody is curious about this.

The answer can be found here - not duplicated - but this is the explanation of this: Possible clue of what gParted is doing

Linus Linux
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2 Answers2

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ext4 has overhead for newly created partitions. Answers here suggest reserved space (overhead) of 1.5% is great and it can be as high as 5%. In your case it appears to be 2.17% if my math-challenged mind has calculated it correctly.

The reasons for overhead are to address the infamous defrag hard disk problem in Windows which doesn't exist in Linux. Other reasons are to improve fsck.

WinEunuuchs2Unix
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The answer can be found in this thread:

New ext4 partition and used space

It gives a preventive solution for defragmentation and it can use up 5% of your storage as a price for it.

In the old systems as FAT they can use even more - 30% - from the storage.

In the ext4 fs it is completely solved with this.

Linus Linux
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