Data deletion not freeing up space

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GPstar2021 wrote:

unsure how to "destroy the share itself"

 

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 When you select the share on the share page of the web ui, you should see a settings wheel.   Click on that and you'll see "delete".  That destroys the share and all associated snapshots.

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GPstar2021 wrote:

 

Also not sure how to "Balance from volume" 

 

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Navigate to the volume page, and click on the volume settings wheel.  There is an option to run a balance from there. If you've never run one, then it can take quite a while to complete it.  

FWIW, there are other maintenance functions (scrub, disk test, and defrag), and you can set up a schedule to run them automatically.  I run one test per month (cycling through them 3 times a year).  

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GPstar2021 wrote:

i did delete a whole heaps of snapshots to free up space

 

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If you are running the default "smart" snapshots, then I suggest switching to custom snapshots.  The reason is that you can then explicitly set retention, which will automatically delete old snapshots.  Once set up, you can watch the snapshot space used by each share, and tune the retention to get the balance you want between retention and on-disk storage.  I've set mine to 3 months for most shares - which is sufficient for me, and keeps the snapshot usage reasonable without me needing to go in manually and delete them. 

The disk space used by each snapshot is a bit tricky to figure, as they are all deltas off the main share (and deltas from each other). Unfortunately there's no easy way to see how much on-disk space you'll save by deleting just some of the snapshots for the share. If you happen to recall that you deleted a bunch of files (or reorganized the subfolders) on a certain date, then you can delete all the snapshots older than that date to free up the space.  But most of the time I don't recall that.

A good way to manage this is that to start by deleting the oldest snapshot(s) for the share, as they are the ones that are most different from the main share.  Continue deleting the oldest ones, until you get the savings you are looking for.  You do need to take your time, as the system recovers the snapshot space in the background, so it won't show up right away.  And sometimes you do need to run a balance before the space frees up.

The other strategy is to just delete all the snapshots for the share (and then run a balance).