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Forum Discussion
Can't Free Up Space
I am having a similar problem some older threads (links to them below)... files deleted from a volume do not free up space. 4 JBOD drives, various sizes, using this as a basic file server Firmware ...
I'm responding to Marc_V and StephenB thanks for your input!
I downloaded the logs yesterday, so I do have those if it becomes helpful to share them. This morning I started the Defrag again, and I will do the Scrub afterwards. Hopefully that is the right order to do them in - I will report back when they are done. I ran the Balance task yesterday and it finished very quickly - perhaps because it is only trying to balance the remaining space which is practically nothing.
This is only an issue on 1 of my 4 volumes, at this time. The volume is 6Tb & has only 1 share on it that 4-6 Windows PCs access for backups (either Norton 360 or EASUS Backup). From Windows File Manager properties, there is less than 3Tb of files, but the NAS thinks it is at 5.45Tb with only 100K remaining. When we first received an email warning that disk space was low (around 5mo ago), I deleted old backups, and assumed it was freeing up the space. I have not looked at the other volumes to see if deleted files aren't releasing their space, but will run the maintenance tasks on those too. If you suggest a different order to do the defrag, scrub, balance, I'd appreciate the input.
I looked for the Quota setting... in one place the Quota box is checked, in another place it is unchecked. From the System Tab >Volumes, I click the gear for this particular volume, then click Settings. The Summary has Checksum (unchecked) and Quota (checked). Alternatively, from the Shares Tab, I mouse over the 1 share on this volume and click the gear, then click Settings. The window that opens has a Properties Tab with Quota at the bottom (unchecked) and no size. Not sure yet how these 2 options differ - since I don't have different shares per person where I would be balancing/limited usage, maybe it doesn't matter in my case.
Appreciate any input and I will report back when defrag, scrub and balance are complete. 4Js : )
4Js_Mom wrote:
I looked for the Quota setting... in one place the Quota box is checked, in another place it is unchecked. From the System Tab >Volumes, I click the gear for this particular volume, then click Settings. The Summary has Checksum (unchecked) and Quota (checked).
That's the one I meant. You get more complete reports on space usage in the web ui with that setting checked.
4Js_Mom wrote:
I downloaded the logs yesterday, so I do have those if it becomes helpful to share them. This morning I started the Defrag again, and I will do the Scrub afterwards. I ran the Balance task yesterday and it finished very quickly
Defrag is actually a bad idea - if you do have hidden snapshots it will actually increase the space usage.
The balance might not able able to run if you have too little space left.
Do you have any apps installed? It's conceivable that a run-away app is using the space. You can look for that by access the volume from file explorer using NAS admin credentials. For instance, using cmd:
net use * /delete /y net use t: \\nas-ip-address\volume-name /user:admin nas-admin-password
using the real ip address, volume name, admin password of course. That will map the full volume to drive letter t.
If you enable viewing of hidden files/folders in Windows you will see a .apps folder Note this is only populated on one of your volumes. You can navigate into it, and see if there's a lot of space used there.
Of course you can also see this with ssh. If you do that, then the .apps folder is mounted as /apps.
One brute-force option is to copy off the backup share (either to USB or one of the other volumes). Then destroy/recreate the volume and share, and load it back. If this volume happens to hold installed apps, then you should uninstall them before you do this (reinstalling them afterwards). FWIW, if you use apps it is useful to know which jbod volume holds them.
No apps installed, per GUI and not seeing an apps folder after mapping a T drive as you suggested - I'm attaching a screen cap of what Windows file explorer tree looks like. Hidden files/folders are on.
Would you recommend that I stop the Defrag and try the Scrub instead? Since that one specifically says it doesn't delete files I didn't think that would be the right choice.
The backup share also says 5.4Tb consumed, so I don't have another volume with that much space. I can copy individual files over to other volumes then destroy/recreate the volume and share, but I'd still like to know why this is happening so I can be sure it won't happen again.
Thanks!
4Js_Mom wrote:
No apps installed, per GUI and not seeing an apps folder after mapping a T drive as you suggested - I'm attaching a screen cap of what Windows file explorer tree looks like. Hidden files/folders are on.
ok. it looks like the .apps folder is on a different volume.
4Js_Mom wrote:
Would you recommend that I stop the Defrag and try the Scrub instead? Since that one specifically says it doesn't delete files I didn't think that would be the right choice.
I'd stop the defrag, as it won't accomplish anything. I'm not sure if the scrub will either, but it will might (and will do no harm). Defrag, balance, and scrub won't delete files (unless of course something is very wrong).
Have you downloaded the log zip file? You could look for errors (for example in system.log, kernel.log, dmesg.log). Snapper.log is worth a look (in your case it should show no snapshots on the volume).
StephenB Appreciate your continued suggestions.
The defrag had finished in about 2hrs yesterday. Started the Scrub 22hrs ago and it is at 91%. Oddly, it took almost 4hrs just for it to show me a progress bar in the ReadyNAS GUI.
In any event, I found the culprit - Norton's N360 backup for one of our PCs seems to have grown to at least 3x the size of the PCs disk drive. When I was adding up the size of each folder on the share, using Windows File Explorer properties, the folder for this 1 PC was really slow calculating the size. It was taking hours for that dialog to run to show a size up near 1Tb, and I, incorrectly, assumed that it couldn't possibly get to be much more than 1.5Tb for the backup of a 1Tb drive. Apparently not true as this morning I finally see that the backup folder is nearly 4Tb. Will be switching to EaseUS for that PC since I can see the backup files and purge off old ones.
In the ReadyNAS GUI, under Shares > Browse it doesn't show the size of each folder. That would have been helpful to more quickly see that a specific folder was maxing it out, but live and learn.
When I deleted 1 easeus backup file, the NAS volume quickly showed 99Gb free where previously there was only 100K.
So, out with Norton, and going forward I'll also take more care to do periodic maintenance tasks on the volumes.
Thanks again for the suggestions and perhaps someone else running Norton backups and getting a full NAS will benefit from this thread.
Jaimi : )
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