man7.org > Linux > man-pages

Linux/UNIX system programming training

blkdiscard(8) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | REPORTING BUGS | AVAILABILITY 

BLKDISCARD(8)             System Administration            BLKDISCARD(8)

NAME         top

       blkdiscard - discard sectors on a device

SYNOPSIS         top

       blkdiscard [options] [-o offset] [-l length] device

DESCRIPTION         top

       blkdiscard is used to discard device sectors. This is useful for
       solid-state drivers (SSDs) and thinly-provisioned storage. Unlike
       fstrim(8), this command is used directly on the block device.

       By default, blkdiscard will discard all blocks on the device.
       Options may be used to modify this behavior based on range or
       size, as explained below.

       The device argument is the pathname of the block device.

       WARNING: All data in the discarded region on the device will be
       lost!

       Since util-linux v2.41, fdisk has the ability to discard sectors
       on both partitions and unpartitioned areas using the 'T' command.

OPTIONS         top

       The offset and length arguments may be followed by the
       multiplicative suffixes KiB (=1024), MiB (=1024*1024), and so on
       for GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g.,
       "K" has the same meaning as "KiB") or the suffixes KB (=1000), MB
       (=1000*1000), and so on for GB, TB, PB, EB, ZB and YB.

       -f, --force
           Disable all checking. Since v2.36 the block device is open in
           exclusive mode (O_EXCL) by default to avoid collision with
           mounted filesystem or another kernel subsystem. The --force
           option disables the exclusive access mode.

       -o, --offset offset
           Byte offset into the device from which to start discarding.
           The provided value must be aligned to the device sector size.
           The default value is zero.

       -l, --length length
           The number of bytes to discard (counting from the starting
           point). The provided value must be aligned to the device
           sector size. If the specified value extends past the end of
           the device, blkdiscard will stop at the device size boundary.
           The default value extends to the end of the device.

       -p, --step length
           The number of bytes to discard within one iteration. The
           default is to discard all by one ioctl call.

       -q, --quiet
           Suppress warning messages.

       -s, --secure
           Perform a secure discard. A secure discard is the same as a
           regular discard except that all copies of the discarded
           blocks that were possibly created by garbage collection must
           also be erased. This requires support from the device.

       -z, --zeroout
           Zero-fill rather than discard.

       -v, --verbose
           Display the aligned values of offset and length. If the
           --step option is specified, it prints the discard progress
           every second.

       -h, --help
           Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
           Print version and exit.

EXIT STATUS         top

       blkdiscard has the following exit status values:

       0
           success

       1
           failure; incorrect invocation, permissions or any other
           generic error

       2
           failure; since v2.39, the device does not support discard
           operation

AUTHORS         top

       Lukas Czerner <lczerner@redhat.com>, Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>

SEE ALSO         top

       fstrim(8)

REPORTING BUGS         top

       For bug reports, use the issue tracker at
       https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues.

AVAILABILITY         top

       The blkdiscard command is part of the util-linux package which
       can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
       <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. This page
       is part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux
       utilities) project. Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have
       a bug report for this manual page, send it to
       util-linux@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
       2024-06-14. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
       that was found in the repository was 2024-06-10.) If you discover
       any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in
       this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
       send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

util-linux 2.41.devel-537-e... 2024-06-13                  BLKDISCARD(8)

Pages that refer to this page: fstrim(8)

HTML rendering created 2024-06-26 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface.

For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here.

Hosting by jambit GmbH.

Cover of TLPI