streaming writes we are much more likely to get large preallocations exactly when we need it to reduce fragementation. For default settings, the size of the initial extents is determined by the number of parallel writers and the amount of memory in the machine. For 4GB RAM and 4 concurrent 32GB file writes: EXT: FILE-OFFSET BLOCK-RANGE AG AG-OFFSET TOTAL 0: [0..1048575]: 1048672..2097247 0 (1048672..2097247) 1048576 1: [1048576..2097151]: 5242976..6291551 0 (5242976..6291551) 1048576 2: [2097152..4194303]: 12583008..14680159 0 (12583008..14680159) 2097152 3: [4194304..8388607]: 25165920..29360223 0 (25165920..29360223) 4194304 4: [8388608..16777215]: 58720352..67108959 0 (58720352..67108959) 8388608 5: [16777216..33554423]: 117440584..134217791 0 (117440584..134217791) 16777208 6: [33554424..50331511]: 184549056..201326143 0 (184549056..201326143) 16777088 7: [50331512..67108599]: 251657408..268434495 0 (251657408..268434495) 16777088 and for 16 concurrent 16GB file writes: EXT: FILE-OFFSET BLOCK-RANGE AG AG-OFFSET TOTAL 0: [0..262143]: 2490472..2752615 0 (2490472..2752615) 262144 1: [262144..524287]: 6291560..6553703 0 (6291560..6553703) 262144 2: [524288..1048575]: 13631592..14155879 0 (13631592..14155879) 524288 3: [1048576..2097151]: 30408808..31457383 0 (30408808..31457383) 1048576 4: [2097152..4194303]: 52428904..54526055 0 (52428904..54526055) 2097152 5: [4194304..8388607]: 104857704..109052007 0 (104857704..109052007) 4194304 6: [8388608..16777215]: 209715304..218103911 0 (209715304..218103911) 8388608 7: [16777216..33554423]: 452984848..469762055 0 (452984848..469762055) 16777208 Because it is hard to take back specualtive preallocation, cases where there are large slow growing log files on a nearly full filesystem may cause premature ENOSPC. Hence as the filesystem nears full, the maximum dynamic prealloc size іs reduced according to this table (based on 4k block size): freespace max prealloc size >5% full extent (8GB) 4-5% 2GB (8GB >> 2) 3-4% 1GB (8GB >> 3) 2-3% 512MB (8GB >> 4) 1-2% 256MB (8GB >> 5) <1% 128MB (8GB >> 6) This should reduce the amount of space held in speculative preallocation for such cases. The allocsize mount option turns off the dynamic behaviour and fixes the prealloc size to whatever the mount option specifies. i.e. the behaviour is unchanged. Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner