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I'm relatively new to using a NAS device. I have an N102 set up as Raid 1 with 3 TB of storage. AFter about 12 months use the UI reported only about 400 MB of space left across all volumes and i decided to delete a large number of files which i did from Windows Explorer via a mapped drive letter which points to one of the shares. I used shift-delete as i would on a local PC drive to bypass any recycle bin type activity. The files disappeared from Explorer but the UI still reported only the same 400 MB of available space. Looking at the graphical representation of volume usage (Data) more than half the used space is taken up by snapshots. Is this where the deletions have gone? If so, how do i clear down the snapshots? Can i prevent them being generated at all, or even specify which shares i would like to be snapshotted?
I've looked throughout the UI but can't find any way to clear or manage snapshots.
Have now worked my way through all 10 shares and cleared all snapshots. Resulted in a dramatic increase in free space - an extra 2 TB. These snapshots had been accumulating over the past 2 years. I will have to assume that the deleted files went into the snapshots although i can't really figure out how that would have worked.
I've now been through and turned off snapshot generation from all but one of the shares - they were set to run daily, which is complete overkill for the content. I also have an external 3 TB usb drive connected and that is set to backup overnight 24/7. In effect it is a 2nd mirror to the raid array and i think it gives adequate recovery capabilities for what i want as most of the data is archival and static in content (videos etc)
As i now have plenty of capacity I will go with that solution for now.
You delete them from the web admin UI. Select the share, then "recover". Then select all the snapshots for that share, and right-click. You'll see a delete control.
Some browsers mignt not let you select multiple snapshots (Chrome on Windows will). If you can only select one, you'll need to delete one at a time.
THank you. That's very helpful. I've removed just two snapshots for 2012 from one share without any impact on free space. I will continue with the other 9 shares for each year 2012-2014 and see what happens to the total free space.
THank you. That's very helpful. I've removed just two snapshots for 2012 from one share without any impact on free space. I will continue with the other 9 shares for each year 2012-2014 and see what happens to the total free space.
When you are done, you might also need to do a balance.
Have now worked my way through all 10 shares and cleared all snapshots. Resulted in a dramatic increase in free space - an extra 2 TB. These snapshots had been accumulating over the past 2 years. I will have to assume that the deleted files went into the snapshots although i can't really figure out how that would have worked.
I've now been through and turned off snapshot generation from all but one of the shares - they were set to run daily, which is complete overkill for the content. I also have an external 3 TB usb drive connected and that is set to backup overnight 24/7. In effect it is a 2nd mirror to the raid array and i think it gives adequate recovery capabilities for what i want as most of the data is archival and static in content (videos etc)
As i now have plenty of capacity I will go with that solution for now.
Snapshots don't take any space when they are created. They start taking up space later on, when the files in the main share are updated or deleted. The frequency of the snapshots usually doesn't matter much - what does matter is how much "churn" (file updates or deletions) are happening in the main share.
Simply turning them off is one option of course, but personally I find it useful to keep them on for most of my shares. I do delete the oldest ones about once a month (keeping about 3 months of snapshots for each share that uses them).
Thanks again. Your July article makes the snapshot operation crystal clear. I echo the other contributor - Netgear should prepare stuff like that in their KB.
Now I can see what happened to the files I deleted. As they included a lot of 2 hour videos (6-10 GB a time) they would have switched the allocation to the snapshot but without growing the overall usage of disk space. Obviously deletion of the snapshot was the only way to recover that space.
Having cleared all snapshots as i previously described I suddenly realised that the residual contents of one share had changed such that it now contained/displayed the entire contents of another share! Its original contents (vital backup images) have disappeared! All other shares (including the one whose contents it is displaying) seem to have their original contents. Judging by the amount of free space i now have on the NAS it looks like these backups have gone for good, which is a major headache. How can this happen? Is it some sort of mapping problem within the NAS? They must have gone when i cleared the snapshots. I also ran a scrub on the volumes after clearing the snapshots.
