Why my home folder has little space even though the disk mounted has plenty of it?

I have installed ubuntu 20.04 on an 120GB SSD then I mounted my home folder on a larger disk as /etc/fstab says the (/home/pc_magas is my home folder):

# /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> # / was on /dev/sda1 during installation UUID=7bbdd0c0-a528-4144-b05e-10319a15be39 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 /swapfile none swap sw 0 0 UUID=419d21fa-f1e1-4bca-bbc7-fa71eb3882a1 /mnt ext4 defaults 0 0 /home/pc_magas /mnt/pc_magas none bind /mnt/var /var none bind 

The disks I have are (as sudo dlkid says):

/dev/sda1: UUID="7bbdd0c0-a528-4144-b05e-10319a15be39" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="50b1776c-781e-4a90-af3e-f1af03c714d8" /dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop1: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop2: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop3: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop4: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop5: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop6: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop7: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/sdb1: UUID="419d21fa-f1e1-4bca-bbc7-fa71eb3882a1" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="000332e6-01" /dev/loop8: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop9: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop10: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop11: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop12: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop13: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop14: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop15: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/loop16: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/sdg1: UUID="B5F4-61B7" TYPE="vfat" 

The hard disk is the /dev/sdb1 having this size:

$ df -h /dev/sdb1 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sdb1 458G 3,1G 432G 1% /mnt 

And the home folder has this size:

$ df -h /home/pc_magas/ Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 110G 103G 1,9G 99% / 

So why the mounted home folder has little space even though it is mounted on a different disk?

Also why /home/pc_magas is mounted on /dev/sda1 as well?

1 Answer

Assumming that /dev/sda1 is the smallest disk and runs out of space ,you mismounted the /home/pc_magasas you mentioned on /etc/fstab. Also I assume that the OS is installed on /dev/sda1

/home/pc_magas /mnt/pc_magas none bind 

To solve this boot from a live usb. Then mount your disks:

mkdir /mnt/sda1 mkdir /mnt/sdb1 sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1 

Copy the files from /mnt/sda1 into /mnt/sdb1

sudo rsync -ravp /mnt/sda1/home/pc_magas /mnt/sdb1/pc_magas 

Notice the -p option that preserves any file ownership and permissions

And then fix the /etc/fstab by:

1. sudo nano /mnt/sda1/etc/fstab

2. Set:

   /mnt/pc_magas /home/pc_magas none bind 0 0

   Instead of:

   /home/pc_magas /mnt/pc_magas none bind

3. Save and exit

Then the only thing to do it to empty out the /dev/sda1/home/pc_magas, keep in mind this is also important because once booted into a normal OS, you will still have lack of space and you cannot release space in /dev/sda1. The command to do that is:

rm -rf /mnt/sda1/home/pc_magas/* 

Then boot normally to your host OS anbd enjoy the ubuntu 20.04