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VFAT limitation? "No space left on device" when drive is only 79% used

Posted: 08 Sep 2023, 11:58
by Rava
Is this due to some VFAT limitation?

When I need to save a new file into a folder that has many files in it (really many) I get this error:

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/bin/cp: cannot create regular file './testing.webp': No space left on device
This is the free space on the device:

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guest@rava:~$ df -Tm /mnt/sdb3
Filesystem     Type 1M-blocks   Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb3      vfat    894041 705943    188099  79% /mnt/sdb3
As you can see, enough free space, therefore I assume it's due to some VFAT limiation.

Can that VFAT behaviour (when that's the issue) be tweaked without the need to move all the data (a massive 690 GB) away and format the device into NTFS or ext3?

Added in 7 minutes :
I forgot to add:
I can create new files in other folders, seems the error only occurs in folders which have "too many files" already.