SAMBA(CIFS) and disk space reporting

[Dan Alexander]

Curious...
When I map a SAMBA share on my PC, and look at the disk space capacity/total/free, it is way off what the same server reports with bdf or df..etc...
In some instances, the differences are quite big...100MB or more!

Can anyone explain the big difference?

[harry d brown jr]

bdf is a modified df. Both show output in blocks of 512 or 1024 characters per. A Gigabyte is NOT 1,000,000,000 it is 1024*1024*1024 which is 2097152; 512 byte blocks.

M$ does the same.

live free or die
harry

[Dan Alexander]

Thanks Harry...
Would you mind elaborating a littte on your answer...still confused a bit..

[harry d brown jr · Accepted solution]

A GIGABYTE is 1,073,741,824 bytes (1024 times 1024 times 1024)
not ..........1,000,000,000 bytes (this is just a billion bytes)

blocks of disk data are stored in some multiple of 512 chracters.

Let's say a filesystem uses blocks of 512 bytes. When a file needs to store 513 bytes it will consue TWO (2) 512 byte blocks (1024 characters). If a file only needs 511 or 512 characters, then it will only consume ONE (1) 512 byte block.


live free or die
harry