5.5. Space Indicated as Used in Empty File System

If you have an empty GFS2 file system, the df command will show that there is space being taken up. This is because GFS2 file system journals consume space (number of journals * journal size) on disk. If you created a GFS2 file system with a large number of journals or specified a large journal size then you will be see (number of journals * journal size) as already in use when you execute the df. Even if you did not specify a large number of journals or large journals, small GFS2 file systems (in the 1GB or less range) will show a large amount of space as being in use with the default GFS2 journal size.