My primary, active (vs. backup) local disk space is ...

Sorry -- the polling system is a bit clunky, and doesn't get the love we would like sometimes ;) There are 8 options, max, so we'll never get really smooth curves without a complete overhaul ;)

Tim

You'll find plenty with *fewer* than 8, but (so far as I know, and barring warps in the space-time continuum) none with more.

And by-the-by, polls (prompt question only, or prompt question and response choices) are always welcome!

timothy

Why? Speed.

- Most filesystems will slow down as they approach a full status. This is particularly true for write speed.

- Rotational disks are faster near the outer rim (start of the disk) and slower near the hub. A 2TB WDC drive I have here does 150 MB/s near the beginning, and only 70 MB/s near the end. That's typical figures. By only partitioning the first 60% of the disk, I get 120-150 MB/s speeds. (This is not to be confused with short stroking, which reduces the access time by reducing reading arm movement.)

- For mechanical drives, disk fragmentation also becomes more of a problem the fuller the disk is. (And yes, fragmentation also affects Linux file systems.)

- SSDs need to spend a disproportionally larger time doing garbage collection and clearing up sectors as a disk approaches full (yes, even with TRIM, unless you always delete entire sectors).
For a near full disk, it's not uncommon to have 1 second or more hiccoughs because the drive firmware hasn't been able to prepare sectors for writing.