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All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

brianschrader.com

651–660 of 715 posts

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#651
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that you do not need 100% of your budget every year, but getting it back when you do need it is much harder than keeping it in the first place. Definite case of misaligned incentives.

Yep! The problem happens when you divide the safety buffer up in the first place. Safety buffers demand to be shared, when one part does not use all of its safety margin you want to transfer that to another system. Another surprising place where this happens is project scheduling. We budget time for each individual step of a project based on our guess of a 90% or 95% success rate, then our "old-timers' experience" ki…

Did you notice how your budgeting / estimation guideline converges to "multiply the estimate by Pi" advice?

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#652

Ah, the classic 'speed-up loop' approach: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Speedup-Loop About the blogpost itself: The disk filled up, and that's one thing you don't want on a Linux server—or a Mac for that matter. When the disk is full nothing good happens. I had this happen few times on a Mac and every time I was shocked that if disk gets full you cannot even delete a file and the only option is to do a full sy…

I had this happen few times on a Mac and every time I was shocked that if disk gets full you cannot even delete a file and the only option is to do a full system reboot. I was also unable to save any open file, even to external disk and suffered minor data loss every time due to that. This just happened to me. I got the best error message I've ever seen. Something akin to "Can not remove file because the disk is full…

I'm guessing that rm is trying to update the metadata for the file which is what is actually failing because of a lack of disk space.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend had a truck with a reserve tank, but it was the same size as the main tank, so he would just flip the switch at every fill up to make sure they both got used.

This is typically used for agricultural/off-road fuel which is not priced with road taxes and as a result much cheaper. Off road fuel is dyed red in the US. If you get caught running dyed diesel on road you will be fined. Thus the switch on the dash, when you leave the highway to drive on your farm you flip over to dyed fuel to save $$.

You don't have farmers filtering the red out and selling it - its also whey a lot of UK farmers love Diesel Landy's

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the reserve tank toggle on some motorcycles. When you run out of gas, you switch the toggle and drive directly to a gas station.

In the Honda CBF125 group on Facebook, a fellow Indian shared a photo of his bike. A British guy asked what's the switch, he's never seen one before. Same bike, same country of origin, but only certain markets get the switch and the recessed panel.

The UK version of Indian bikes have deluxe items added like disk breaks.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#655
In the days of minicomputers, Data General's first 16-bit operating system, RDOS, required that the main file be "contiguous". Not only that, there was some model of disk they sold where the OS file had to be close to the edge for speed in loading. Prudent sysadms would create empty contiguous files in the favored space against the next upgrade.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! The problem happens when you divide the safety buffer up in the first place. Safety buffers demand to be shared, when one part does not use all of its safety margin you want to transfer that to another system. Another surprising place where this happens is project scheduling. We budget time for each individual step of a project based on our guess of a 90% or 95% success rate, then our "old-timers' experience" ki…

Have you ever thought of just accepting that you can't predict how long a project will take to complete? It's a revelation. You get to have some hard conversations with other managers. But in the end everyone finds it easier to deal with "it'll be ready when it's ready" rather than endless missed deadlines and overruns.

This never worked in 15+ years I've been working. The people who did try that went out the door very soon once management realised some other person could tell them a date and they could plan their business around that date even though that date half of the time got missed anyhow.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just libertarians. I’m sure that even communists accept the premise of human self interest, but instead of private property their solution is for one all powerful government to own everything

glance over a stirner summary i beg you

you mean Max Stirner?

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#659
post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever thought of just accepting that you can't predict how long a project will take to complete? It's a revelation. You get to have some hard conversations with other managers. But in the end everyone finds it easier to deal with "it'll be ready when it's ready" rather than endless missed deadlines and overruns.

In my experience people vastly prefer their fantasies to reality.

In my experience people demand fantasies, and will fight tooth and nail any encroachment on them by the reality that things never happen as they are planned. Although when I say this, I am thinking of one year and above kind of estimates.

When people who are experts on the topic evaluate the work needed over a period of say 3 months, even in something as notoriously hard to plan as video game production, it can hold. This entails being willing to adjust scope and resources though, when planning, in order to ensure the objectives are likely to be met.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

buying a translucent gas tank has been one of the best investments I've made into my bike.

I bet that gets fun in a hurry in the event of a collision.

It is extremely thick plastic. I wouldn't be surprised if it dislodged from the frame before it burst. In any event, in any collision violent enough to rupture the tank, the rider will have already been thrown a hundred feet away (and be dead...)
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