SOLVED Merging datasets or expanding an existing one?

freenas-supero

Contributor
Joined
Jul 27, 2014
Messages
128
Hello, when I initially built this Freenas storage server (about 6 years ago), I thought creating separate datasets would offer some benefits over a single "large" dataset.

My dataset configuration is as follows:
Screenshot_2020-01-15_09-25-32.png

  • dropbox was a dataset used for cloud storage. This is no longer being used and the contents have been destroyed. This 1TB dataset is now empty and its space ready to be reused somewhere else.
  • jails, are jails (I am not using jails).
  • media is a dataset to store movies, music, etc
  • pve-backups is a dataset used to save backups of VM's
  • storage is the main dataset, used as a mount point for all kind of clients, VM's for their storage needs.
Question is: can I "merge" the unused dataset with another dataset to expand it? I could not find anything in the documentation about merging nor could I find anything useful in the forums, so I have a bad feeling about this...

Some system data:

Motherboard

Supermicro X9SCL-F
Firmware Revision : 03.38
Firmware Build Time : 2015-01-05

SAS Controller
IBM ServeRAID M1015 (Flashed to IT)
[Not sure how to retrieve the FW version from SSH CLI]

CPU
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1220 V2 @ 3.10GHz

System RAM
Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3
SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1600 Server
Memory w/TS Model KVR16E11K4/32

Storage Config
Raid Z3 (single pool using 8 drives)

Network cards
Using onboard Intel LAN chipsets

System Data
BuildFreeNAS-11.1-U7
PlatformIntel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1220 V2 @ 3.10GHz
Memory32700MB
System TimeWed, 15 Jan 2020 09:29:37 -0500
Uptime9:29AM up 175 days, 11:56, 0 users
Load Average0.20, 0.17, 0.12
 
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
926
You don't need to merge your datasets to recover unused space. All of your datasets are able to access all of the space within your zpool.

I would guess that you currently have a 1TB quota on the 'dropbox' dataset that could simply be removed or you could simply delete the dataset if there is no data in it.
 
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
524
You don't need to merge your datasets to recover unused space. All of your datasets are able to access all of the space within your zpool.

I would guess that you currently have a 1TB quota on the 'dropbox' dataset that could simply be removed or you could simply delete the dataset if there is no data in it.

Any other dataset you have a quota on will have to be adjusted as well if you want it to use the free space
 

joeschmuck

Old Man
Moderator
Joined
May 28, 2011
Messages
10,974
A few things that should help you...

1) If you did not set up quotas on your datasets then all available space will be used on your pool and it's shared by all datasets.
2) you can just delete the unused datasets if you desire.
 

freenas-supero

Contributor
Joined
Jul 27, 2014
Messages
128
1. Thank you very much for the help, this worked flawlessly, I indeed had set some quotas on the datasets, so I simply deleted the "dropbox" dataset, then set the quota on dataset "storage" to "0" which had for effect to increase its capacity.

2. I completely had forgot how datasets worked. I had in mind they were like partitions but obviously not (at least not completely)...

3. I need to re-read the documentation, this must clearly be stated somewhere, perhaps I had in mind the concept of partitions hence why I didnt realise one could simply unset quotas or change them to "redistribute" pool space among the datasets... Quite powerful feature!!!

Thanks guys!
 

joeschmuck

Old Man
Moderator
Joined
May 28, 2011
Messages
10,974
Many of us have to re-read the user guide from time to time, especially when the software changes or just to refresh our brains on something we just forgot.
 
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