How to analyze storage ussage on Synology with BTRFS?

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How to analyze storage ussage on Synology with BTRFS?

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I'll ask an old question: How to analyze storage ussage on Synology?

The easy answer from someone not very experienced can be - use the Storage Analyzer.
If you ever tried to used it on a system with btrfs and advanced data deduplication, you know that it in not really usefull. For example my NAS has on Volume2 capacity of 7TB but at Storage Analyzer you see that size of some folders is bigger then 60TB (and it is really true if you simply count sizes of the files stored).

Honestly - I really do not know how to judge what files are "eating" the space on my HDDs.

How do you analyze the storage?
 
For the “old question” re: disk space powerful analyze, there is still good old answer, but for Win OS users only:
FolderSizes
Used in personal & work environments (also for all NAS environment) . Realy powerful analyzer, that can give you lot of answers and save a time.

re: Syno Storage analyzer, this is just basic level keeper, not an analyzer :cool:
 
For the “old question” re: disk space powerful analyze, there is still good old answer, but for Win OS users only:
FolderSizes
Used in personal & work environments (also for all NAS environment) . Realy powerful analyzer, that can give you lot of answers and save a time.

re: Syno Storage analyzer, this is just basic level keeper, not an analyzer :cool:

Thanks for the answer and sorry that I did not express my need in details.
I do not know FolderSizes but I use WinDirStat (for Win, improved Linux version) or the original one on Linux. It is free but it seem to give you better graphical overview about the folder/disc space. The best software for this task I have ever seen. Small, free, and really intuitive. Anyway - that is not what I'm asking for.

I'll try to describe what I'm looking for. In fact it is quite diffucult because I do not know how to describe it. Maybe this way: In case I run out of storage space, I need to know what files to delete to empty some space. The biggest, and maybe oldest File/archive etc... And for this task such third party software (as WinDirStat, StorageAnalyzer or FolderSizes) does not help much. Why?
Deduplication.
On my storage of 7 TB I use cca 3-4 TB, but If I count the disc/folder space I see that the data stored have more them 50TB (maybe much more, I did not count it). And it is true.
Deduplication. Combined on the file system (btrfs) and on the backup software level. Really powerfull.But...

Now it is nearly impossible to know what file to delete to free some space. Folders with size of many GB can occupy on the HDD just a few MB. Snapshots even less.
I think I even asked Synology but they have no tool and no idea how to learn the real space distribution. If you think about it it is quite complex.

But I'm not ITprofessional, just a power user and I'm sure that real IT managers have a way how to understand what to free on the storage if they run out of the space.

Any help? Thanks
 
Re: Dedupe
  • of course, till now no Synology internal or integrated by Synology “byte or block level” Dedupe solution is known
  • to be sure - block level Dedupe is not “free of charge” sw anywhere (except some Docker ver)
  • you can use this knowledge base for BTRFS and Dedupe - link
But think about, that block-level Dedupe needs "large amounts of RAM to store the lookup table of known block hashes". And this is the answer for all NAS under 8GB of RAM. Don't forget to CPU power.

There is another point of view: Docker + Duperemove
this link is aggregated old version knowledge posted in oldSynoforum. But as I know, there is not support of encrypted files. Not tested till now by me ...... @Rusty how about you?

Re: FolderSizes vs WinDirStat ... and disk space analyze
are you sure, that you compared FolderSizes and no another (lot of) sw called same like Folder Size etc.?
Because, WinDirStat is just small and pretty unusable tool in face of the FolderSizes - for the storage space analyze point of view. Try this core feature in FolderSizes:
  • find duplicate files across whole network (include all available NASs + LAN storage units)
  • Snapshot of current status of your data, to future comparisons
  • search by users, depth, ....
and lot of useful features for real storage space analyze of all components.
 
One more re: Folder Sizes
  • used from v.6, now is v.9, still satisfied from the speed and deep analyze features
  • suitable for beginners and for advanced storage keepers
  • it is really fast engine, you don't need 8700K CPU
  • snapshot automation can give you immediate answers for your questions re storage space design/utilization/increase
  • advanced prepared or custom filtration
  • for a duplicates finding, there is usable feature set, more practical is in second tool from same producer (free of charge try), called Duplicate Detective. For beginners - "manual" Duplicate finding is not Deduplication (from core point of view).
 

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