Snapshots using space?

[kirkdickinson]

Ok, I did something stupid. I used my FreeNAS to temporarily store a block of movies. I needed to store them somewhere and my external 8TB drive isn't here yet from Amazon.

I didn't realize how many TB I was putting there and I loaded it up way more than I ever intended. I got the 91% full error message.

I am using CIFS share to access and from Windows deleted all those movie files.

Now I am wondering how that affects the snapshots. I like having snapshots of all my document and spreadsheet files, etc... but those movies are gone and I wonder if the FreeNAS is still storing them as snapshots?

How can I purge those snapshots without purging the ones that I want to keep?

Thanks,

Kirk

 

[danb35]

movies are gone and I wonder if the FreeNas is still storing them as snapshots?

Did you have a snapshot task running on the dataset where you put the movies? Would a snapshot have been taken while they were there? And are you still within the retention time for that snapshot? If the answer to all of these is "yes", then yes.

How can I purge those snapshots without purging the ones that I want to keep?

If the documents, spreadsheets, and movies were all in the same dataset, you really can't. Wait for them to expire, and the space will be freed automatically.

 

[kirkdickinson]

Did you have a snapshot task running on the dataset where you put the movies? Would a snapshot have been taken while they were there? And are you still within the retention time for that snapshot? If the answer to all of these is "yes", then yes.

Yes, Yes and Yes. I wasn't thinking.

If the documents, spreadsheets, and movies were all in the same dataset, you really can't. Wait for them to expire, and the space will be freed automatically.

I have snapshots running every day and saved for 12 months. I have to rethink my snapshot strategy.

 

[Jailer]

I keep my media on a separate dataset and do not snapshot it. It would be a pain to replace but since I have hard copies of all of it, it is replaceable. My documents are on another dataset and they have snapshots enabled.

 

[danb35]

I have to rethink my snapshot strategy.

Are they running once a day, or throughout the day? If it's only once a day, it is possible to delete individual snapshots. How long were the movies on your system?

 

[kirkdickinson]

Are they running once a day, or throughout the day? If it's only once a day, it is possible to delete individual snapshots. How long were the movies on your system?

Well... I was going to say once a day, but I looked at it and it says from 1:00 to 23:00 every 1 day.

 

[kirkdickinson]

I keep my media on a separate dataset and do not snapshot it. It would be a pain to replace but since I have hard copies of all of it, it is replaceable. My documents are on another dataset and they have snapshots enabled.

Yeah, that makes more sense. I am going to stop putting my personal movies on the business server at work and just keep them backed up from my FreeNas/Plex server at home to an external HD.

 

[kirkdickinson]

So, I have removed all the media files that were plugging up my FreeNAS server. It is still reporting that I have 86% usage. I have ALOT of snapshots. (173)

I have had a lot of movies backed up there for a long time, but only in the last 2 weeks did I put too many on there and go over the threshold.

Should I just delete all the snapshots from the last two weeks?

I do have all my server data either mirrored to a Windoze server or copied to 6TB backup drives.

Should I just slash all my snapshots and shorten the expiration time on them in the future?

 

[danb35]

That's nowhere near "a lot" of snapshots:

Code:

root@freenas2:~ # zfs list -t snapshot | wc -l
	8799

Deleting the snapshots from the last two weeks should reduce your used space.

 

[kirkdickinson]

That's nowhere near "a lot" of snapshots:

Code:

root@freenas2:~ # zfs list -t snapshot | wc -l
	8799

Deleting the snapshots from the last two weeks should reduce your used space.

Not sure about the code? I just deleted them through the GUI. After deleting two weeks of snapshots my storage usage being reported is exactly the same as it was before.

I had a daily snapshot that is saved for 12 months and an hourly that is saved for 2 weeks.

I just changed my snapshot settings for an hourly saved for 1 week, a daily saved for 2 months, and weekly saved for 6 months.

I am still experimenting with this FreeNAS server. Everything on it is backed up and if it goes completely south, I won't lose any data. I am not comfortable enough with my knowledge to completely rely on it. It is sitting on my network and my Windows server gets backed up to it every day. It does seem very robust and has been going just fine for a couple of years. It is obvious that I am probably just lucky and need to dig in and learn some more about it.

Thanks,
Kirk

 

[danb35]

Not sure about the code?

At the time of that writing, I had about 8800 snapshots. Others have more, lots more.

 

[kirkdickinson]

At the time of that writing, I had about 8800 snapshots. Others have more, lots more.

Would that be on a system that is doing a lot of transactions where you might want to rollback to very specific times? Not sure why I would need to have a bunch like that? My system is mostly for documents, photos, spreadsheets, website source files, backups, etc... The files don't change that often.

 

[danb35]

Would that be on a system that is doing a lot of transactions where you might want to rollback to very specific times?

Not especially, but (IIRC) they're hourly, kept for a week, and include a number of jails (each of which is its own dataset, because that's how jails are). When I was more liberal with snapshots, I saw the number approach 100k.

 

[Ericloewe]

You can delete the specific snapshots that contain the bulk of the data. You naturally lose other stuff that is exclusive to them, but it's a very viable option in many cases.