Optimum free space for a file system

[rana786]

Hi all,

/opt file system has become 87% full in one of my HP-UX system. I am not sure whether I am in danger or not. Can anyone tell me how much free space do I need in a file system (/, /boot, /var, /usr, /opt etc) to have an optimum performance?

[RAC_1 · Accepted solution]

The answer is it depends. there is no hard and fast rule for that. /opt is used for optional products that you want to install. So it depends on what you will be installing.
87% should be ok, if you will not be installing many new apps. Even if it starts growing (when you install new apps/softwares), you can extend it.
File systems /, /boot /usr should not grow. those are static file systems and system related, so they should not grow. /var is used by many apps/processes to log data here.
So keep a watch here. Again, it is a good practice to have seperate FS for /var/adm/crash, /var/adm/sw. That we managing it becomes easy.

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

The contents of /opt are static and do not grow by themselves like log files in /var. So this should be OK unless you install some optional softwares and during installation of those products you should closely monitor the utilization after installation.

The size for other file systems actually depends on the type of OS you are instaling, applications to be deployed, optional products to be installed etc.

Still one/two disks shall be left only for OS and swap and should not be used for any sort of heavily used application data. This will also give you options to increase file systems whenever required. Also as nowdays the systems come with 146 GB drives, only one -third of them shall be enough for the whole OS with enough flexibility.

More free space should be given to file systems which grows by themselves like /var , /tmp and others like /usr , /opt will depends upon applications, addons.

HTH,
Devender

[rana786]

got the point.