Just Upgraded - Few Questions

[sapper]

HEy all.

So I have just upgraded my FreeNAS from 9.1.1 to 9.2.1.7. There are a number of changes which I think are great, and a few that have caused me a few questions.

Here are my system specs:

Dual Xeon E5440
32 GB DDR2 EEC Memory
4 x 2 TB WD RED in RAIDz (Data Storage)
1 x 1 TB Seagate Barracuda (Data Storage
1 x 80 GB HDD (FreeNAS OS).

So one thing I've noticed is the Alert Icon in the top right corner is giving me a critical warning for my 4 WD RED Drives in RAIDz as its currently almost full (sitting at 93% capacity). It says the recommended value is below 80%. Is it dangerous to have the drive above 80%? Is 20 % needed for anything extra - as in will it affect the performance of the NAS Server if its above the recommended capacity?

So far I think the new features and updates are fantastic. Good job on this guys!

 

[anodos]

Once you hit 100% full you won't be able to delete files to free up space. Not a fun predicament. Performance probably won't be so good as well.

 

[sapper]

I have never heard of not being to delete files when 100% full. I don't know FreeNas all that well and the reason I asked is because I wasn't sure if te OS used some of the drive for swap or deduplication and so on. I'm not dumb enough to believe files can't be deleted when the drive is full.

 

[mjws00]

I have never heard of not being to delete files when 100% full. I don't know FreeNas all that well and the reason I asked is because I wasn't sure if te OS used some of the drive for swap or deduplication and so on. I'm not dumb enough to believe files can't be deleted when the drive is full.

Heh. Dead serious. ZFS literally assumes that you know better than to overfill your drives. You end up having to cheat like an SOB and pipe null data into a file to get some space so you can delete. Kinda strange that something so powerful would be that way... but it is. :)

 

[enemy85]

Well if you know what a "CopyOnWrite" file system means...u wouldn't have asked that question!

 

[Ericloewe]

I have never heard of not being to delete files when 100% full. I don't know FreeNas all that well and the reason I asked is because I wasn't sure if te OS used some of the drive for swap or deduplication and so on. I'm not dumb enough to believe files can't be deleted when the drive is full.

Feel free to search the forums.

There's a very good reason (well, two very good reasons) for the warning:

Performance tanks in very full volumes and deleting files in a full volume is next to impossible.

 

[sapper]

Wow.... I can honestly say I'm stunned. When I started using FreeNas just over a year ago it was the first time I used a ZFS File System, as well as any sort of BSD OS. I've used Linux before (CentOS and Ubuntu). This was the info I was looking for. I was taken a bit by surprise when I heard you couldn't delete files when full - good thing I asked this question. I honestly thought Anodos was trying to pull a fast one on me!

 

[gpsguy]

Yea, it took one user a week or more to delete stuff - even with some scripts. I think he had about 200,000 snapshots when he ran out of disk space.


Sent from my phone

 

[anodos]

I honestly thought Anodos was trying to pull a fast one on me!

Nah, I get kicks from tormenting colleagues rather than random people on message boards.. For instance, just this morning I got in early and started doing the good old "putting tape over the optical sensor on the mouse" trick. Good immature fun. The issue of not being able to delete when the disk is full is a fundamental limitation of any copy-on-write filesystem.

 

[sapper]

Looks like I've got some work to do when I get home from work tonight then.....