Why is my resized volume smaller than I expected?

If you resize a volume and the reported size or available space is smaller than expected, this is usually due to how filesystems allocate and report disk space.

Some common reasons include:

• Filesystem metadata overhead: Filesystems reserve space for metadata, which reduces usable space. For example, a 500 GiB volume may appear slightly smaller in df output because some space is used internally by the filesystem.

• Reserved space for the root user: Many filesystems (such as ext4) reserve a portion of disk space for the root user by default (typically 5%), which is not counted as available by df. For example, on a 500 GiB ext4 volume, about 25 GiB may be reserved, making the available space appear lower.

  You can modify reserved blocks and other filesystem parameters using tune2fs for ext4 filesystems or xfs_io for XFS filesystems.

• Differences in size units: Some tools report sizes in gibibytes (GiB, base-1024) while others use gigabytes (GB, base-1000). For example, a 500 GiB volume is approximately 536 GB, so tools using decimal units may show a larger number. We display volume sizes in GiB. For consistency, use df -h, which also reports sizes in GiB.

Before and after resizing, check the following:

• Confirm the resize in the control panel. Go to the control panel, click Volumes Block Storage in the left menu, and find the volume’s new size under its name.
• Verify the filesystem was expanded. Use df -h to compare reported and available space.
• Account for filesystem overhead and reserved space when evaluating available space.

Related Topics

Why does my Droplet show almost 100% disk usage even after attaching a new volume?

Attaching a volume adds separate storage and does not increase a Droplet’s root disk size.

Why is my snapshot's size different from reported disk usage?

Snapshots of Droplets are a best estimate based on the disk usage. Snapshots of volumes operate at the block storage level, so the snapshot size may not match what the filesystem reports.

How do I fix disk space issues on my Droplet?

You can review disk usage on your Droplet and then remove unnecessary files.