[ILUG] Inodes maxing out

[Robert Sweetnam]

Walter Faleiro wrote:
> Hi,
> I have a disk partition on which the inodes get totally used up. There is
> around 50% of the disk space free, but no more files can be created.
> If a few files are deleted, then the new files can be created.
> 
> Is there any way to increase the number of inodes a disk partition can use,
> after its been formatted?
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> --W

Yes, no and maybe but it will involve pain.

A quick google came up with the following from a BSD mailing list.
Different OS but similar principle:

<From BSD mail list>
Yes.    Delete some files.

Then, when you have it cleared up temporarily (deleting files is
only a brief temporary fix), back the file system up somewhere and
remake it.   In the newfs command, use bytes, block-size and frag-size
arguments to force it to create more inodes in the filesystem and
then restore the backup.   Possibly just setting bytes=2 will be
enough to cover it, but you may also need to set block-size=8192
and frag-size=1024 (which is kind of small).

If you run out of inodes, it tends to mean you are creating a lot
of small files.    This can happen with some utilities that create
a new file for each piece of data.    But, the default values for
bytes, block-size and frag-size usually provide plenty of inodes
for most things.   So, maybe some job you are running is overdoing
creating small files for some reason or you have a database designed
less efficiently or something.

By using a smaller block and fragment size, you get more inodes, but
you make reading and writing large files less efficient.  Of course,
if you have a hoard of small files, that isn't important.   In fact,
if the file system if full of small files, then it is less efficient
to have large block and fragment sizes.

</From BSD mail list>

Here be the link:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2006-September/131962.html

Cheers
Robert