'nvme list' shows 100% usage on empty drives

[Keith Busch]

On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 03:46:03PM +0000, Eric Robinson wrote:
> Why does 'nvme list' show drives as fully used when they are not? Note that 4 of the drives show as fully used. These drives have been secure-erased.

The value here comes from your controller; "nvme list" is just the
messenger. The utilization is the Identify Namespace "NUSE" (Namespace
Utilization) field as reported by your controller.

The spec indicates this field is optional, section 2.1.1 of NVM Command
Set specification says: "the controller (...) may report a value in the
Namespace Utilization field that is always equal to the value in the
Namespace Capacity field." Sounds like your controller opted to use that
behavior.