How many plots fit on a 6Tb drive?

Chia Farming & Harvesting
1

I managed to have 55, with just 12MB left:

(venv) snef@plot:~/chiaplotgraph$ df /mnt/plot/a
Filesystem      1K-blocks       Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1      5858874808 5846129924  12728500 100% /mnt/plot/a
(venv) snef@plot:~/chiaplotgraph$ ls /mnt/plot/a/*plot | wc -l
55
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2

Try this
https://plot-plan.chia.foxypool.io/

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3

If I fill in 6000GB I get 60 plots.
I only manage 55 :frowning:

4

If you’re using ext4 file system take a look at this thread:

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5

Yes ext4, but formatted it without reserved space, and limited number of inodes (if I remember correctly).

6

That’s not what I get. Either 6000GB or 6TB gives me 55.
Screenshot 2021-05-26 150428

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7

That calculator has been correct for all sized drives for me. There is minor variation in plot size but it’s not enough to throw off that calculator.

8

I can confirm that you can only fit 55 k32 plots in 6TB :+1:

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9

With 6TB HDD (using ext4, already set Reserved block = 0), I only got 54 plots (k32), what did I miss in formatting/partitioning/plotting process?

Using df command it shows:

  • 1K-blocks: 5,813,266,968
  • Used: 5,739,565,696
  • Available: 73,684,888
10

I also reduced the number of inodes. (I think -n option)

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11

I also have a 6TB drive where I did not limit the numner of inodes and only get 54 plots :frowning:
Check my /dev/sdb1 (mounted on /mnt/dest/d) vs /dev/sdd1 (mounted on /mnt/dest/b)

snef@main:~$ sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sdd1 | grep "Inode count"
Inode count:              183144448
snef@main:~$ sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sdb1 | grep "Inode count"
Inode count:              715408

snef@main:~$ df /mnt/dest/d
Filesystem      1K-blocks       Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdd1      5813267548 5739504132  73747032  99% /mnt/dest/d
snef@main:~$ df /mnt/dest/b
Filesystem      1K-blocks       Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1      5858874808 5845938052  12920372 100% /mnt/dest/b
snef@main:~$ ls -l /mnt/dest/b/plo* | wc -l
55
snef@main:~$ ls -l /mnt/dest/d/plo* | wc -l
54
snef@main:~$
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12

Number of TBs x 9 = number of plots (generally)

13

Such a clear explanation, thank you very much, @snef.

Can you show me how to use -n option you mentioned?

Any command to change it in my existing HDD or I have to reformat it?

14

I am afraid a reformat is needed.
mkfs.ext4 -m 0 -N 100000 /dev/sd??
(capital N not n)

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15

Thanks @snef

I did some research and here is the recap for those who have similar questions as I did.

Useful info on this topic can be found in these links:

Summary:

  1. For Chia plot HDD, we don’t need such a high number inode, it is wasted HDD space, each inode occupies 256 bytes, so in case of snef’s 2 HDDs, the HDD with 715408 inodes save ~43.5GiB space compare to HDD with 183144448 inodes. This is align with the actual different available space.

  2. Once the partition is created, the number of inodes cannot be changed (reformat is required). We can decide the number of inode when we create a partition (e.g. using mkfs.ext4 command) by:

  • using –N option as snef suggested. This is to set a specific number of inodes regardless of HDD/partition size. I think this is the best option for Chia plot HDD.

  • using –i option (e.g. sudo mkfs.ext4 -i 196800 /dev/sd??) by specifying the bytes/inode ratio: the higher the value the smaller number of inode, it seems the default value is 16384 bytes per inode (vary depend on version/software used). The partitioning command/software will calculate the number of inode = partition size divided by bytes/inode ratio. For HDD only used to store Chia plots, this number should be high (> 4MiB)

  • using –T option (e.g. sudo mkfs.ext4 -m 0 -T largefile /dev/sd?? or sudo mkfs.ext4 -m 0 -T largefile4 /dev/sd??): largefile = i option of ratio 1 MiB every inode and largerfile4 = i option of ratio 4 MiB every inode

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