I faced an issue while storing large number of small files in the disk. In my linux machine, I was unable to store data because the inodes were getting filled before the storage reaches its maximum limit. This issue was annoying me and wasted a lot of storage. This happened to me several times. Initially I just did a temporary workaround for this issue by clearing old files. But since it became a frequent problem for me, I searched for the solution for this and finally I figured out a work around.

The workaround is by choosing a different type of file system while formatting the disk. I found an option to specify the number of inodes while formatting the disk, but I am not sure about the optimal number of inodes that I can specify. I saw some threads in some forums regarding the issues related to improper number of inodes.

/etc/mke2fs.conf file contains various file types with the various inode ratio. The lower the inode ratio, the more you can create files in your file system.

The syntax is given below

mkfs.ext4 -T usage-type /dev/something

The usage type which gives more number of inodes in news. I used news usage-type for my requirement. This gives more inodes as compared to ext4. After doing this, mount the drive and type df -i. This will give the inodes in the new disk.

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