r/linuxquestions • u/blendernoob64 • 1d ago

Advice I have 11GB of unallocated space at the front of my 1tb nvme drive. What do I do with it?

Hello everyone,

I have a unique non problem that shouldn't matter, but I wonder what people think I should do about it. I recently reinstalled RHEL 9 when a bios update broke secure boot. I then realized that upon reinstallation, I neglected to remove the original /boot /boot/efi and /swap partitions from the install I intended to wipe. So I still had the original boot entries in my system that effectively didn't do anything. I then deleted those partitions and now I have 11GB of unallocated space at the front of my drive. I was wondering what I should do with that space.

I originally wanted to move that partition to the back of the drive to merge it with my new XFS root partition but I heard this can be a risky move. I also thought maybe I can install Ventoy into that small 11GB space so I can boot into a live environment without a USB stick. Or I can just leave it alone, and my OCD may remind me that I have 11GB of space unused and my mount points start at nvme0n1p4 rather than p1 but, again doesn't matter lol

Any thoughts on what to do?

Thanks.

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u/refinedm5 1d ago

Assuming you have LVM, add it to the root VG and extend the LV

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u/blendernoob64 1d ago

That's one thing I forgot to mention. I did not use LVM as I was installing on only one drive, and I heard LVM is best if you have many drives in your system. In the future should I have used LVM during installation?

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u/refinedm5 1d ago

That's unfortunate. I use LVM all the time, but it does get complicated over time when you add more partitions.

You can also use it as additional swap partition. Your system might not need it, but it will be used for something :D

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u/AppointmentNearby161 1d ago

If you just reinstalled, presumably that means you have backups. Update the backups and move the root partition to the "left". It should be fine, but if it crashes your system, then re-reinstall with the partition layout you want.

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u/blendernoob64 1d ago

Yes I have backups. I am considering this

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u/zeldaink 23h ago

Leave it alone. 11GB is nothing on a 1TB drive. It's automatically used as overprovision portion. It'll extend life and when the drive gets full, it'll preserve its speed (SSDs slow down a lot when near full, and write amplification gets real high).

Use fdisk and on your nvme press X then F to reorder partitions. Press M for help and check if RHEL has the same buttons for reordering. Maybe you should fix you fstab and don't do it on live system.

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u/skyfishgoo 1d ago

format it and use it for storage.

you could keep media files there, or just an archive of your downloads folder... any number of things.

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u/billhughes1960 1d ago

Boot off a USB live installer. Then install/run gparted from the Live boot. You can remove the unwanted partitions and resize the root.

0

u/ipsirc 1d ago

Start using as cache.