Running out of space - only 1 disk showing

[stuartgb100]

New setup, and receiving error message saying running out of space.
Storage Manager showed that only 1 of my 2 disks were visible.
Have now installed the 2nd disk.
Storage Manager now reports that two Drives are recognized, both Storage Pool 1.

However, I'm still getting the error message that Storage Pool 1 is low on space.

How do I now get the benefit of the 2nd disk, please ?
Cheers.

 

[Gerard]

Pics of storage manager screens would help answer some unknowns. Are the drives in a RAID config? JBOD? Etc

 

[Telos]

I suspect you created a mirrored SHR array. Screenshots of detailed pool/volume/drive Storage Manager views would be helpful.

 

[stuartgb100]

Thanks for the replies.
Do these screenshots help ?
Cheers.

 

[Gerard]

As Telos said, you are running SHR which means adding that second disk isn’t going to get you any more storage to utilize. The two disks are running in mirror, what’s on one disk is copied to another for redundancy.

Go into file explorer and see what is taking up the space. Judging by the name you assigned to the volume you are using this for backups. If that’s the case do you have backup rotations on? Is it incremental backups?

Without knowing your whole working setup and what you have going on, if you need more space you’ll need to upgrade both hard drives to a larger capacity.

 

[Telos]

Thanks for those screenshots. As I suspected. When you added the second drive to the pool, you also added it to the existing SHR volume, which, by default, used the second drive to mirror the first (instead, you should have created a second volume). The good news is that should either drive fail, your NAS will operate as “normal”. But the bad news is... you're still out of space. You have multiple options if your goal is 7.2 TB of total storage.

• You can replace both drives (one at a time) with 2×8 TB drives.
• You can delete both volumes and create either two separate 3.6 TB volumes, or a single 7.2 TB volume (which, it either drive fails, takes out everything). To do this you must back up all content off-NAS (Hyper Backup to an external USB drive, or cloud) before destroying the existing volumes.

 

[stuartgb100]

Thanks again for the replies.
All the data on the Nas has been copied over from my desktop and laptop, so I have it backed up.
I could do as you say with the Nas drives, setting them with a total storage approaching 8TB, or as two 4TB drives which mirror each other.
Then copy the data over.

However, before I do that, can you explain this please ?
I get just under 2TB if I total up what has been uploaded.
So why is the 4TB Nas drive saying it's close to full ?
Is it 'mirroring' over one drive ?

Thanks.

 

[Telos]

Common unexpected storage use comes from

• Recycle bin
• Snapshotting
• Versioning
• Failure to involve a space reclamation schedule

With SSH inspection of /volumeX, other storage sources might be identified.

 

[stuartgb100]

I think what has happened is that I have installed disk 1 with SHR mode and data protection is on, and it has Volume 1, Storage Pool 1.
That seems why only half the disk storage capacity is available.
When I installed the second disk it received the same settings, including Storage Pool 1.

I think that I need to reinstall both drives (my data is backed up).
Install disk 1 ,configured with SHR, Storage Pool 1, Volume 1 and data protection turned off.
Then install disk 2 with SHR, Volume 2, Storage Pool 1 and data protection turned off.
I believe this will allow disk 2 to mirror the data on disk 1.

Does that look correct ?

I can also use Snapshots for additional protection.
I can then use HyperBackup to an external drive and locate that backup in another location.

When I'm happy that all is working, I can delete all the data from my desktop and laptop - both of which are running out of space !

If this seems the way to go, can you point me to a link that will show me how to do the reinstall of the disks please ?

Many thanks.

 

[Telos]

Install disk 1 ,configured with SHR, Storage Pool 1, Volume 1 and data protection turned off.
Then install disk 2 with SHR, Volume 2, Storage Pool 1 and data protection turned off.
I believe this will allow disk 2 to mirror the data on disk 1.

This is not a mirroring (or maybe you are misusing that word). It is two independent volumes. What you have now is mirroring (= one drive data protection for a two drive volume).

Exactly what are you hoping to achieve.

No matter what you do, please understand that if your data is important, a needed regular backup is always, and only, off NAS... using for example, an external USB drive, a cloud service, a separate NAS.

 

[stuartgb100]

Thanks again.
I'm looking to have my 2 new $TB drives in the Synology Nas.
Configured so that disk 1 has the data that I will copy to it.
This should give me approx 3.5-3.6TB of storage.
Data will be mirrored to Disk 2, to give protection against disk failure.
I will set up Snapshots.
I was trying to decide if SHR was better than Raid 1, and also which type of Format to use (I was thinking NTFS) ?
For backup, I have an external drive setup, and can set a schedule for that.

Cheers.

 

[Telos]

Data will be mirrored to Disk 2, to give protection against disk failure.

You have that now. Nothing to change.

I was trying to decide if SHR was better than Raid 1

For two drives they are equivalent. If you were later to move to a 4-drive (or greater ) NAS, SHR would be beneficial in terms of allowing mixed drive sizes (within allowable limits).

which type of Format to use (I was thinking NTFS) ?
For backup, I have an external drive setup, and can

NTFS is not an option. Use btrfs (the NAS will format the pool when it is created.

For backup, I have an external drive setup, and can set a schedule for that.

Excellent.

 

[stuartgb100]

Telos, thanks for sticking with me !
You'll know that I'm a Nas novice, but with your help, things are clearer.

You say that I already have disk 2 mirroring disk 1, I think ?
If so, why am I getting messages saying that disk 1 has no further storage capacity ?
It's a 4TB drive (as is disk 2) and only holds less than 2TB of data ?

I thought that 2x 4TB drives set up this way would let me hold 3.5TB of data (or so) on one drive, mirrored to the 2nd drive.

Thanks.

 

[Telos]

why am I getting messages saying that disk 1 has no further storage capacity ?

Screenshot please. Or does it say volume 1 is running out of storage capacity?

Volume 1 consists of drive 1 and drive 2 per your previous screenshot.

The drives are mirrored, so you have a maximum space of 3.6 TB (which at this time is dangerously full).

How do I now get the benefit of the 2nd disk

There is no space benefit with the second drive (everything on drive 1 is also on drive 2) The drives are mirrored/identical ask you asked.

Data will be mirrored to Disk 2, to give protection against disk failure.

Asking for mirroring and asking for additional space is contradictory.

 

[stuartgb100]

Here's a screenshot for Volume 1:

 

[Telos]

Here's a screenshot for Volume 1:

OK. As I said, it is the volume that is running out of space, not drive 1 by itself. Though in fact, both drive 1 and drive 2 are running out of space as the drives are identical in content.

You can't think in terms of “drives”, but only volumes. For example the title of this thread “…only 1 disk showing” is incorrect. There is no “disk” showing… only one volume made up of two drives.

We seem to be running in a circle. If you want mirrored drives, then you either,

• prune unnecessary content from your existing volume, or,
• replace both drives with drives of greater capacity (ex., 8 TB, or more).

 

[stuartgb100]

Hoping I'm beginning to understand.
Can I remove both drives and reformat, then re-install.
Would that then let me get the better part of 4TB of storage mirrored across to the other drive ?
At the moment it seems that I can only get less than 2TB of storage.

I thought that a 2 drive nas with 2nr 4TB drives would let me store close to 3.6Tb one one drive, mirrored across to the 2nd drive.
Thanks.

 

[Telos]

store close to 3.6Tb one one drive, mirrored across to the 2nd drive

You are already storing nearly 3.6 TB (not Tb). Both drives are full as the volume is full.

If you start over, you will have 3.6 TB of capacity. But you will end up in the same place as you are now unless you discover how the capacity is being filled.

Try enabling space reclamation. If it is enabled, dis-enable and re-enable it. Maybe that will free up your space. If that doesn't help, re-read my previous post. Unless the information here takes a turn, there is nothing further I can add beyond repeating myself.

 

[fredbert]

What packages are you running? Some, like Synology Drive, hold versioned data that is outside Shared Folders, so is difficult to find (check in the package's admin settings to see how much they take up).

To put in a simplified way:

A drive in DSM is partitioned to hold a small space for DSM itself (this is mirrored across all drives in the NAS so that all but one drive can be removed and DSM still runs). There is then another partition of raw storage which is used for a Storage Pool. You configure how this Storage Pool is used, so a single or multi-drive pool of a specific RAID type.​

​

A Storage Pool now can be itself used to create one or more Volumes. Where a Volume is formatted with a file system (Btrfs or ext4). The most common home NAS setup is all drives configured to hold one Storage Pool, and that pool holds one Volume. Using Btrfs provides access for using snapshots and some packages need/prefer it: for instance Drive is much more economical with its versioning storage when using Btrfs, if you have selected ext4 then this could be where the missing space is being used.​

​

The Volume can now be used to hold Shared Folders, which are what is visible using file sharing service such as SMB. Use Storage Analyzer to determine the space take by the Shared Folders. However, Volumes are where Package Center packages are installed and they have configurations and sometimes data that are outside Shared Folders. So you might miss a large data usage by a package, as I mentioned earlier about Drive Server.​

​

You say you only have 2 TB of active data, so there must be something you have installed / activated that is now consuming 1.6 TB for versioning or backup/snapshots. That's what you need to look for.

 

[stuartgb100]

Many thanks for the replies.
I need to digest them and read through the entire thread, again.
In the meantime, I have moved on:

I decided to do a reset (after confirming that I had a full backup).
After DSM loaded, I chose to go for SHR, and I clicked to 'mount' both my 4TB drives.
I was hoping to see an option to enable/disable data protection, but was not given one.
Nonetheless I continued.

After everything settled down, I only installed the Storage Manager package, being aware of earlier comments in this thread.
This showed that both drives were visible and healthy.
Both had a drive size of 3.6TB and shared a common Storage Pool 1.
The RAID type was showing as:
SHR with data protection for 1-drive fault tolerance.

I've now started the process of copying over data.
I will keep totals and then compare what was copied to what the Nas sees.

Will report back.

Many thanks again.