Defrag Running for Days! #23600598

xeltros - looking at top - the %wa is about 44%'ish, and the processes causing this are the expected : btrfs, btrfs-endio-met, btrfs-trasncti and md127_raid5 (assuming these are the defrag process as the other ReadyNAS not running a defrag is not showing these and clocking almost no cpu/process time)
So just looks like a massively long running slow defrag.
(side points, no snapshots, no AV, no apps of any kind, not much new data being written either)

MikeB666 wrote:

...Also - are we really expected to do a factory reset after a firmware upgrade which will wipe the disks, seems a little harsh... Is it believed that this will really make any difference - since the disk were bare when written too first time around and it was done in mostly one massive write session to back up another real file server (massive number of files from small, a few KB, to 60GB in size).

They made some changes in the disk format in 6.1.5 which were intended to increase performance somewhat. If you want the new format settings, you do need to reset. I didn't bother myself, since I wasn't seeing a lot of performance issues with my RN102.

Normally firmware updates don't require this, but there have been a few over the years that did suggest it. For instance, it was needed on the NV+ v1 some years ago in order to get 4K sector alignment of the data volume.

Of course, a factory reset is one way to get rid of your long-running defrag...

StephenB wrote:

MikeB666 wrote: ...Also - are we really expected to do a factory reset after a firmware upgrade which will wipe the disks, seems a little harsh... Is it believed that this will really make any difference - since the disk were bare when written too first time around and it was done in mostly one massive write session to back up another real file server (massive number of files from small, a few KB, to 60GB in size). They made some changes in the disk format in 6.1.5 which were intended to increase performance somewhat. If you want the new format settings, you do need to reset. I didn't bother myself, since I wasn't seeing a lot of performance issues with my RN102. Normally firmware updates don't require this, but there have been a few over the years that did suggest it. For instance, it was needed on the NV+ v1 some years ago in order to get 4K sector alignment of the data volume. Of course, a factory reset is one way to get rid of your long-running defrag...

Thanks Stephen - I'm on vacation soon so may just let it run then see where I am :-)

My comment about was just saying that when you first setup the NAS and hadn't yet loaded data on, a factory reset on the latest firmware would have been good. Some improvements (not necessary but nice to have) can only be obtained via a factory reset on new firmware, so I always recommend with a new setup, updating to the latest firmware, verifying the update completed successfully, doing a factory reset and only then configuring it and putting data on.

Now that you have loaded a lot of data on one would think all other options should be exhausted first.

mdgm wrote:

My comment about was just saying that when you first setup the NAS and hadn't yet loaded data on, a factory reset on the latest firmware would have been good. Some improvements (not necessary but nice to have) can only be obtained via a factory reset on new firmware, so I always recommend with a new setup, updating to the latest firmware, verifying the update completed successfully, doing a factory reset and only then configuring it and putting data on. Now that you have loaded a lot of data on one would think all other options should be exhausted first.

Thanks mdgm, understood.
Well after my vacation I may reset one and then copy back from the other then reset that one too and recopy back to that.

So after Level 3 engineering support have remoted onto my 104 ReadNAS the conclusion is as follows

"...
We got feedback from L3. They said that it is very likely that the defragment will take several days depending on the data. Since the RN104 is a very low performing device it is normal it will take several days to do the defragment. They found out that 1721982 files to go through and it has a lot of small files which is more time consuming because it has to allocate block groups that the data sits on
..."

So after a reboot we are going to let it run for 11 days until month end then see where we are. While I look for something more capable of holding more than 5TB of files and being able to defrag them etc. [might just build another Windows File Server to do the job :-( ]

Mike