inodes problem, too much event files

[jasensio]

Hi,

In first time thanks for this support forum.

I have a ZoneMinder Server:

* Opteron Quad-Core
* 4 GB RAM
* 2 x Sata2 500GB filesystem ext3
* ZoneMinder v1.24.2
* Axis Video Server with 12 cameras

Cameras are record all time, and cameras store events in jpg and when filesystem is about 65% disk usage this not have more free inodes for storage. I can tune ext3 for more inodes, I can use other filesystem, but I think that it´s not the way because too much files are not fast. My question is how do you do for store events, may be a filter to convert jpg in avi and after delete jpg??

Thanks.

[cordel]

Use deep storage option to avoid the ext3 limits, Otherwise you will need to select another FS.

[th]

Alternately backup your content on that filesystem and start over. But create your filesystem with less bytes per inode (giving you more inodes).

For example,

Code: Select all

mkfs.ext3 -i 2048 /dev/sda2

I think the default is 8096 or higher. You can go down to as little as 512 byte inodes. And, I sort of recall, that the lower the bytes-per-inode, the more disk space is chewed up in inode overhead resulting in less storage.

[mastertheknife]

Deep storage won't help, he is not suffering from 32000 subfolders limitation. He ran out of inodes.

There isn't much you can do about it, default inode size nowdays is 256 bytes, and thats the minimum for ext4 (minimum for ext3 is 128 but not recommended).

Reducing FPS and deleting old events frequently will definitely help, and if not possible, then im afraid you need more storage.

[th]

Deep storage won't help, he is not suffering from 32000 subfolders limitation. He ran out of inodes.

There isn't much you can do about it, default inode size nowdays is 256 bytes, and thats the minimum for ext4 (minimum for ext3 is 128 but not recommended).

Reducing FPS and deleting old events frequently will definitely help, and if not possible, then im afraid you need more storage.

Although you are correct about the inode size, that's not what I am talking about.

I am talking about the bytes-per-inode. As in, the number of inodes allocated to the file system. The lower the number of bytes-per-inode, the higher the number of inodes available within that file system.

in the mkfs command, it is the difference of

mkfs.ext3 -i 4096 (lower case i)

vs

mkfs.ext3 -I 256 (capital i)

The later capital I option is not available in all linux mkfs.ext3 commands.

If he lowers his bytes-per-inode with the -i example I gave him, he will have more inodes available. I actually did this very thing today to fix a problem on a loopback device.

In regards to the size of the inode: The larger the inode-size the more space the inode table will consume. But it won't impact the number of inodes available (as far as I understand it).

[mastertheknife]

th,

Thats right, reducing the bytes per inode will increase the amount of inodes. He said he uses 256 byte inodes, so reducing to 128 will help him.

I use ext4, and for using some of the new ext4 features (extents etc), 256 bytes inodes are required, thats why i said i don't recommend going lower than 256. Another reason against going below 256 is the POSIX extended attributes, but if he using ext3 and doesn't use POSIX extended attributes, no problems reducing.