In this post we are taking a look at some commands that can be used to check up the partitions on your system. The commands would check what partitions there are on each disk and other details like the total size, used up space and file system etc.
Commands like fdisk, sfdisk and cfdisk are general partitioning tools that can not only display the partition information, but also modify them.
### 1. fdisk ###
Fdisk is the most commonly used command to check the partitions on a disk. The fdisk command can display the partitions and details like file system type. However it does not report the size of each partitions.
$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
/dev/sda6 171686+ 271693- 100007- 102406311 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 271694 273645 1952 1998848 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 273647 476938 203292 208171008 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 1020 cylinders, 125 heads, 62 sectors/track
Warning: The partition table looks like it was made
for C/H/S=*/54/9 (instead of 1020/125/62).
For this listing I'll assume that geometry.
Units = mebibytes of 1048576 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0
Device Boot Start End MiB #blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 3860 3860 3952640 b W95 FAT32
start: (c,h,s) expected (4,11,6) found (0,32,33)
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,53,9) found (492,53,9)
/dev/sdb2 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/sdb3 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/sdb4 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
### 3. cfdisk ###
Cfdisk is a linux partition editor with an interactive user interface based on ncurses. It can be used to list out the existing partitions as well as create or modify them.
Here is an example of how to use cfdisk to list the partitions.
Cfdisk works with one partition at a time. So if you need to see the details of a particular disk, then pass the device name to cfdisk.
$ sudo cfdisk /dev/sdb
### 4. parted ###
Parted is yet another command line utility to list out partitions and modify them if needed.
Here is an example that lists out the partition details.
$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA ST3500418AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 75.2GB 75.2GB primary ntfs boot
2 75.2GB 500GB 425GB extended lba
5 75.2GB 180GB 105GB logical ntfs
6 180GB 285GB 105GB logical ext4
7 285GB 287GB 2047MB logical linux-swap(v1)
8 287GB 500GB 213GB logical ext4
Model: Sony Storage Media (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 4049MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 4049MB 4048MB primary fat32 boot
### 5. df ###
Df is not a partitioning utility, but prints out details about only mounted file systems. The list generated by df even includes file systems that are not real disk partitions.
Again, pydf is limited to showing only the mounted file systems.
### 7. lsblk ###
Lists out all the storage blocks, which includes disk partitions and optical drives. Details include the total size of the partition/block and the mount point if any.
Does not report the used/free disk space on the partitions.
$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 70G 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 1K 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 97.7G 0 part /media/4668484A68483B47
├─sda6 8:6 0 97.7G 0 part /
├─sda7 8:7 0 1.9G 0 part [SWAP]
└─sda8 8:8 0 198.5G 0 part /media/13f35f59-f023-4d98-b06f-9dfaebefd6c1
sdb 8:16 1 3.8G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 1 3.8G 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
If there is no MOUNTPOINT, then it means that the file system is not yet mounted. For cd/dvd this means that there is no disk.
Lsblk is capbale of displaying more information about each device like the label and model. Check out the man page for more information
### 8. blkid ###
Prints the block device (partitions and storage media) attributes like uuid and file system type. Does not report the space on the partitions.
The hwinfo is a general purpose hardware information tool and can be used to print out the disk and partition list. The output however does not print details about each partition like the above commands.
$ hwinfo --block --short
disk:
/dev/sda ST3500418AS
/dev/sdb Sony Storage Media
partition:
/dev/sda1 Partition
/dev/sda2 Partition
/dev/sda5 Partition
/dev/sda6 Partition
/dev/sda7 Partition
/dev/sda8 Partition
/dev/sdb1 Partition
cdrom:
/dev/sr0 SONY DVD RW DRU-190A
### Summary ###
The output of parted is concise and complete to get an overview of different partitions, file system on them and the total space. Pydf and df are limited to showing only mounted file systems and the same on them.
Fdisk and Sfdisk show a whole lot of information that can take sometime to interpret whereas, Cfdisk is an interactive partitioning tool that display a single device at a time.
So try them out, and do not forget to comment below.
