[RESOLVED] Unexpected folder appears on reformatted backup drive

[Joel64]

I successfully reformatted a 2TB external drive to ext4. However, there is now a locked folder on the drive, that I did not put there (see screenshot).
It is taking up 5% of my free space.
Is it necessary to have? Can I get rid of it? If so, how?

[Snowhog]

It’s normal. Created by the system. Don’t be worried.

[jlittle]

lost+found is a standard part of ext file systems; IIRC if file system repair tools find files that are in no directories they're put in lost+found. On a new file system it shouldn't have anything in it. If you really want to, you could, in a konsole, run sudo ls on it.

Why do you think it is taking up 5% of the space? I suspect you see 5% missing, and think it must be in the only directory. In a new ext4 partition, IIRC 5% of the space is reserved for inodes by default. This allows for millions of small files, as is typical for a file system with an OS in it. If you begrudge the space, you can set a larger bytes-per-inode ratio when creating the file system; I have no experience with that.

[jlittle]

BTW, something about the name "lost+found" jarred a little. It's an American usage, corresponding to "lost property" in British English; I wonder what is used in Canada.

[Joel64]

lost+found is a standard part of ext file systems; IIRC if file system repair tools find files that are in no directories they're put in lost+found. On a new file system it shouldn't have anything in it. If you really want to, you could, in a konsole, run sudo ls on it.

Why do you think it is taking up 5% of the space? I suspect you see 5% missing, and think it must be in the only directory. In a new ext4 partition, IIRC 5% of the space is reserved for inodes by default. This allows for millions of small files, as is typical for a file system with an OS in it. If you begrudge the space, you can set a larger bytes-per-inode ratio when creating the file system; I have no experience with that.

When I clicked Properties in the context menu of the folder, it indicated that it was using 5% of the free space.
Usually, on a 2TB drive, drive usage will say 1.8 free of 1.8 TB (because the rest is used by the system). Now, with the lost+found folder, it says 1.7 free of 1.8. So there's part of the normal 1.8 being used up. But if that's how it is, there's not much I can do. just glad to be using ext4 now.

And to answer your question, we say lost & found in Canada. In recent years, Canada has started using a lot more Americanized language, including spelling, which irks me.