Disk & Filesystem Management (Du/Df/Lsblk/Fstrim)

Spot the partition layout before you wreck your mount points

🧩 The Challenge

Trying to figure out where your physical disks map to your logical mount points using fdisk or mount is a total headache. You end up scrolling through pages of noise just to see which partition belongs to which disk.

💡 The Fix

Use lsblk with specific columns to get a clean tree view that actually shows you the dependencies and device types. It saves you from accidentally wiping the wrong partition during a maintenance window.

lsblk -o NAME,MAJ:MIN,RM,SIZE,RO,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT,FSTYPE

⚙️ Why It Works

By defining the output columns, you strip away all the kernel-level garbage you don’t care about and focus on the relationship between your block devices. It maps the parent-child relationships perfectly, so you aren’t guessing if a partition belongs to a RAID array or a raw disk.

🚀 Pro-Tip: Pipe it to sort if you’re dealing with a SAN box that has hundreds of paths.

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 9/13/2026