Non-OS Disk Format 1

[AIXtexas]

We have an AIX JFS FS mounted via NFS on a RedHat 9 server. We then have a USB drive direct connected to the Linux server. We are attempting to copy the contents of the NFS mounted FS to the USB drive. However, the USB drive was formatted using FAT32 and we quickly ran out of space. We would now like to reformat the USB drive using NTFS and restart the copy. Does anyone know how to format a non-OS disk in Linux?

Thanks,
Shane

 

[Annihilannic]

Why do you think switching to NTFS will give you more space?

Why not just 'tar' up the contents of the filesystem on to the USB drive to eliminate any possibility of wasted space due to the choice of filesystem?

It's been a while, but last time I checked you could only read NTFS filesystems under Linux, I don't remember ever seeing an mkfs.ntfs, although it might exist.

Annihilannic.

 

[AIXtexas]

We ran out of space on the Linux disk with 70 GB's left to copy. We have a 200 GB USB drive and we were trying to move 180 GB's from AIX.

Shane

 

[Annihilannic]

How much space does it show as being available on the USB drive when you type df -k in Linux?

Hard drive manufacturers are notorious for using different units of measure to make their drives sound bigger. They use powers of 1000 so a 200GB drive is actually 200,000,000,000 bytes, whereas systems use 1024 so that equates to 200/1024/1024/1024 = 186GB.

Throw into the equation the amount of space that you lose when you add a filesystem of any type plus any wasted space if there are lots of little files that don't occupy full blocks, and it could explain the deficit.

Annihilannic.

 

[Annihilannic]

Err, I meant 200,000,000,000/1024/1024/1024, of course.

Annihilannic.

 

[AIXtexas]

I think you may be right. There are millions of tiny files that we are trying to copy. Which could be using too many blocks.

Shane

 

[Annihilannic]

In that case, tar 'em up and it should solve your problem.

Annihilannic.

 

[AIXtexas]

Thanks.

Shane