# error message

**URL:** <https://community.unix.com/t/error-message/140849>\
**Category:** UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers\
**Created:** [January 8, 2002, 2:46am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/error-message/140849 "2002-01-08T02:46:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alisev](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/alisev/32/6_449c533f586939b6e5f246632a46421f.png) [@alisev](https://community.unix.com/u/alisev)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2002, 2:46am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/error-message/140849/1 "2002-01-08T02:46:11Z")

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Hi All,

occasionally my server gives this error messages

"NOTICE:HTFS Out of inodes on HTFS dev hd (1/42)"

why ??

Alice.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://community.unix.com/uploads/default/original/2X/c/c7e9e16a595259edafe88615719d5c5dcda035c2.png) [@system](https://community.unix.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2002, 3:21am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/error-message/140849/2 "2002-01-08T03:21:57Z")

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What does df -i read?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alisev](https://community.unix.com/letter_avatar/alisev/32/6_449c533f586939b6e5f246632a46421f.png) [@alisev](https://community.unix.com/u/alisev)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2002, 3:55am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/error-message/140849/3 "2002-01-08T03:55:51Z")

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Mount Dir Filesystem iused ifree itotal %iused  
/ /dev/root 89827 7453 97280 93%  
/stand /dev/boot 15 3825 3840 1%  
/u /dev/u 25462 869002 894464 3%  
/a /dev/a 26260 2190716 2216976 2%  
/b /dev/b 10250 2206726 2216976 1%

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LivinFree](https://community.unix.com/user_avatar/community.unix.com/livinfree/32/20_2.png) [@LivinFree](https://community.unix.com/u/LivinFree)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2002, 4:01am UTC](https://community.unix.com/t/error-message/140849/4 "2002-01-08T04:01:59Z")

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A very simplistic explanation of an i-node is like sectors in a Windows FAT filesystem. You may have 2000 megabytes available on a disk (or partition). You have 1000 i-nodes (or sectors) on that disk. Thats means that the smallest chunk of data on your disk would take up 2 megabytes. So, if you have 1000 files, each one megabyte in size, even though your disk is technically only half-full, you've used all 1000 i-nodes. This is what has happened to you, at least on that filesystem (partition). Normally you should find a good balance of i-nodes to space, but you can't have TOO many i-nodes without a large performance problem - that's why there's a limit.

Look for lots of small files on your root filesystem ("/") - that'll will probably be your problem. You can see that it's 93% used.