Managing Disk Space with NFS

Managing Disk Space with NFS

If your system is running the optional Network File System (NFS) software, you can use this product to reduce disk consumption on your workstations by exporting commonly used directories. When a system exports a directory, it makes that directory available to all systems running the NFS software. For example, if you have 10 workstations on your network and each workstation is storing 5 MB of online reference pages and release notes, you can eliminate 45 MB of wasted disk space by designating one workstation to be the reference page server and exporting the /usr/man and /usr/catman directories. All other workstations can remove those files and mount them remotely from the server. Since NFS mounts take up no disk space on the client workstation, that disk space is available for other uses.

Another option is to mount free disk space from another system. This option works best when there is an uneven load across several systems. For example, if one workstation is using only 25% of its available space and other workstations are above 90%, it may be useful to mount a file system to even out the load.

Used wisely, your network can save a tremendous amount of disk space through this strategy. Be aware, though, that the drawback to this strategy is that if your server must be rebooted or serviced, no one will be able to access the files and programs that are mounted from that server while it is off-line.