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RN316 FW: 6.7.5 - Snapshots - Reclaiming Space
I really don't want to start another Snapshot thread but I've been reading many threads like this in the last two days and I'm not sure what to do. So an advanced apology since this topic has been covered many times before but I can't seem to find an answer that works for me.
In the last few months I've replaced my old Ultras6s with 316s. Moved all my data. Backedup up all my data. Updated the firmware like a good citizen. Yet I am plagued with deleted snapshots that won't recover space on my systems. Both 316s (one 6x4 the other 6x3) are both approaching 3TB of snapshots that I don't need. I do need the space for data. I'm tired of reading the "You are 70% full" in my system logs and "This may affect performance. Buy bigger disks".
What I've done is these commands via ssh:
# touch /.force_snapshots_upgrade # systemctl restart readynasd
However, I'm a ssh novice. I'm not sure what to look for or expect. How long to wait. Is this doing anything as I sit here and type this post?
A few questions then:
What am I looking to see happen and where?
Will Netgear ever address this issue?
If my backups are always current do I need snapshots?
The thought of doing a factory reset to correct this makes me wanna weep.
Any ideas?
Dave-
FWIW., snapshots have never misbehaved on my ReadyNAS. Though the older RN102 and RN202 were both factory reset about 9 months ago (right now I only use them for beta testing or checking issues I see reported here).
Mook1 wrote:
What I've done is these commands via ssh:
# touch /.force_snapshots_upgrade # systemctl restart readynasd
These commands are only needed if you have "invisible" snapshots that don't appear in the admin web ui.. If your volume is very old, then you might possibly have some. If so, you just took care of it.
Overall, your symptoms sound a little different - you deleted snapshots sucessfully , but the space isn't being reclaimed.
Have you deleted shares recently? One poster recently found that deletion wasn't 100% sucessful. The share seemed to disappear, but the subvolume hadn't been fully destroyed (and it's snapshots were still there, taking up space). You can check for that with different ssh command: btrfs subvolume show /data
Mook1 wrote:
I am plagued with deleted snapshots that won't recover space on my systems.
One aspect is that when you do delete snapshots, you generally only get space back when you delete the oldest snapshots in the share. So if you aren't following that practice, then try doing that.
If the space doesn't show up a little while after deletion, the next step is to run a balance. I recommend using the volume maintenance scheduling feature - I schedule a balance every three months.
Mook1 wrote:
If my backups are always current do I need snapshots?
Probably not. Snapshots let you recover older versions of the file, which is handy, but not absolutely essential. Some share really shouldn't use snapshots (a share for torrent downloading is one common example). If you have a lot of file updates, you end up with lots of snapshot storage and a highly fragmented main share.
FWIW, I don't use the "SMART" snapshots. I use "custom" snapshots, with "
- "Only take snapshots with changes" set
- "Allow snapshot access" clear.
- "Allow access to windows previoius versions" set
I normally set retention to 3 months - though I do set it a lot smaller on my PC backup share. If snapshot space usage seems to grow too much, I either manually delete a few of the oldest, or adjust the retention downwards.
At the moment I have about 9 TB of data on the volume, with about 300 GB of snapshots.
5 Replies
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FWIW., snapshots have never misbehaved on my ReadyNAS. Though the older RN102 and RN202 were both factory reset about 9 months ago (right now I only use them for beta testing or checking issues I see reported here).
Mook1 wrote:
What I've done is these commands via ssh:
# touch /.force_snapshots_upgrade # systemctl restart readynasd
These commands are only needed if you have "invisible" snapshots that don't appear in the admin web ui.. If your volume is very old, then you might possibly have some. If so, you just took care of it.
Overall, your symptoms sound a little different - you deleted snapshots sucessfully , but the space isn't being reclaimed.
Have you deleted shares recently? One poster recently found that deletion wasn't 100% sucessful. The share seemed to disappear, but the subvolume hadn't been fully destroyed (and it's snapshots were still there, taking up space). You can check for that with different ssh command: btrfs subvolume show /data
Mook1 wrote:
I am plagued with deleted snapshots that won't recover space on my systems.
One aspect is that when you do delete snapshots, you generally only get space back when you delete the oldest snapshots in the share. So if you aren't following that practice, then try doing that.
If the space doesn't show up a little while after deletion, the next step is to run a balance. I recommend using the volume maintenance scheduling feature - I schedule a balance every three months.
Mook1 wrote:
If my backups are always current do I need snapshots?
Probably not. Snapshots let you recover older versions of the file, which is handy, but not absolutely essential. Some share really shouldn't use snapshots (a share for torrent downloading is one common example). If you have a lot of file updates, you end up with lots of snapshot storage and a highly fragmented main share.
FWIW, I don't use the "SMART" snapshots. I use "custom" snapshots, with "
- "Only take snapshots with changes" set
- "Allow snapshot access" clear.
- "Allow access to windows previoius versions" set
I normally set retention to 3 months - though I do set it a lot smaller on my PC backup share. If snapshot space usage seems to grow too much, I either manually delete a few of the oldest, or adjust the retention downwards.
At the moment I have about 9 TB of data on the volume, with about 300 GB of snapshots.
Stephen, thanks for the response.
I have deleted shares. I only wanted "Music" so I deleted the other shares that are created by the system. They had no data in them.
I tried "btrfs subvolume show /data" but got the following message: "ERROR: not a subvolume: /data"
I did not run a balance which I'll do now and report my results.
Dave-
Balance took about 1 second to complete.
That can't be correct.
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