Modify System Health threshold "volume is nearly full"

[Another_NAS_User]

Hi folks,

is there an way to modify the thresholds? My Qnap Dashboard shows me "Warning" for my Raid, but -from my point of view- there is still plenty enough free space. I assume there is an configured percantage value which controls the warning levels...

Mybe somebody can give me some advice and tips! (and please not "buy bigger discs.. )

Thx community!

Br Another_NAS_User

[Another_NAS_User]

Nobody an idea?

Yes - that was a bumper

/Another_NAS_User

[halol]

Did you manage to figure this out?

I have to admit that I find this annoying as well. The warning is useless if you cannot define the threashold (you constantly get false positive and eventually start ignoring the warning completely), I would rather have it go away completely. And it obviously doesn't use the threshold defined in the hardware configuration as suggested in another thread (for the light signal alert), which really is a pity.

Anybody knows how we could tweak this?

Thanks!

TS 219P II, with 4.1.1

[doktornotor]

This is available on SMB firmware only.

[Another_NAS_User]

Thx @doktornotor for your reply. At least I know now where to activate that setting (when using SMB firmware (not right now )).

Cheers!


/Another_NAS_User

[pwilson]

Hi folks,

is there an way to modify the thresholds? My Qnap Dashboard shows me "Warning" for my Raid, but -from my point of view- there is still plenty enough free space. I assume there is an configured percantage value which controls the warning levels...

Mybe somebody can give me some advice and tips! (and please not "buy bigger discs.. )

Thx community!

Br Another_NAS_User

Your "point of view" may or may not be realistic. How about providing some output so we can see what you are working with? Please login to your NAS via SSH, login as "admin", and run:

Code: Select all

df -h

Please cut&paste the output back to this message thread.

[halol]

Your "point of view" may or may not be realistic.

I am not sure if "being realistic" is what this is all about... The question wasn't directed to me, but let me still provide my point of view.

I have 3TB in total on my NAS. If I get a warning when the free space drops below 10% let's say, I would start getting a warning as soon as I have less than 300 GB remaining. This might sound reasonable (maybe even not enough depending on the use) in a business context. But for me? I am perfectly happy to get a warning only when free space drops below 30 GB or so (in fact 10 GB is more than enough and this is the value I am using for the light signal alert. And why not use this value as well for the dashboard?).
This may not be "realistic" for you, but considering how I am using my storage space this is what I need. Most of my data is garbage, if I start running out of space I can easily do some clean up and recover enough free space for a few months (but I won't throw this garbage away unless I have to, some of this stuff could still come in handy at any time). I have no need for a bigger disk, and no plans to buy one either: as of today, the data I absolutly cannot delete is well below 1 TB. Even though 'df' might be reporting a different value, I know that I still have 2 TB 'available'.

Currently, this is what my disk usage looks like:

Code: Select all

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                 33M   17M   17M  51% /
/dev/root              33M   17M   17M  51% /
tmpfs                  64M  252K   64M   1% /tmp
/dev/sda4             371M  335M   37M  91% /mnt/ext
/dev/md9              510M  144M  366M  29% /mnt/HDA_ROOT
/dev/md0              2.7T  2.6T  176G  94% /share/MD0_DATA

And the amount of free space has been going up and down between 20 GB and 200 GB since almost day one (I am exagerating but it took very little time to fill the 3 TB), which means that during all this time the dashboard has been displaying a warning. In my opinion that completely defeats the purpose of a warning... this is now just an annoyance and I don't look at it anymore, so I could very possibly miss a more important message.

The point is: you will never find the ideal threshold that works for everybody. Why not let people configure this the way they believe it suits them best, regarless of whether this is realistic or not? This is what was done with the light signal alert, I don't see any good reason for the admin console to use a different threshold, and even less if it cannot be configured.

Does that makes sense?

[halol]

And by the way, if the SMB firmware allows you to define the threshold then I guess that QNAP already acknowledged that this is something that each user should be free to control. It's really a pity that this isn't implemented in the SOHO firmware or that the dashboard doesn't use the same value than the light signal alert.

Side question: I don't think that it is possible to install the SMB firmware on a SOHO device, is it?

[pwilson]

Currently, this is what my disk usage looks like:

Code: Select all

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                 33M   17M   17M  51% /
/dev/root              33M   17M   17M  51% /
tmpfs                  64M  252K   64M   1% /tmp
/dev/sda4             371M  335M   37M  91% /mnt/ext
/dev/md9              510M  144M  366M  29% /mnt/HDA_ROOT
/dev/md0              2.7T  2.6T  176G  94% /share/MD0_DATA

And by the way, if the SMB firmware allows you to define the threshold then I guess that QNAP already acknowledged that this is something that each user should be free to control. It's really a pity that this isn't implemented in the SOHO firmware or that the dashboard doesn't use the same value than the light signal alert.

Side question: I don't think that it is possible to install the SMB firmware on a SOHO device, is it?

I would never run any Linux Filesystem more than 95% full myself, so I'd call the warning timely. Looks like it is time to upgrade to larger drives, or remove unneeded data.

No operating system likes it when it runs out of space, and due to the NAS running almost all services as the UID=0 user, ("root" in Linux, "admin" in QTS), you really don't want to temp fate on this issue. Upgrade your drives, or remove some data. Strive to always keep your NAS under 95% full.

SMB Firmware supports Block-level iSCSI, so it is desirable in some configurations to "over-provision" storage in some circumstances. Non-SMB Firmware does not support this, so classic protections/threshholds should be adequate for most owners. Your drive is "full" whether you believe it or not. Ignore that warning at your data's peril.

No it is not possible to install SMB Firmware on non-SMB devices.

[halol]

I think that you missed several points...

I would never run any Linux Filesystem more than 95% full myself, so I'd call the warning timely

Sure, if that's how you want it, then why not. But I do run Linux with filesystems over 95% full. That's just the way it is. Give me a 10 TB drive today, and it will be full tomorrow. If I have some space available, I just fill it: can't stand empty space, it's in my nature. Please just don't force your own practices on everybody else, we all have different ways to use our hardware and mine suits me perfectly well. I never had any problem because of a lack of free space in the last 20 years (almost now!) since I started using Linux. I wouldn't do this on any production system I am working with, but we are talking about my own personal NAS here, I would like to manage it as I see fit.
And by the way, it is somewhat a contradiction that on SMB systems (and therefore on the most critical systems) it is possible to reduce the threshold while on SOHO systems it isn't.
Honestly I don't see what's so difficult in acknowledging that not everybody has the same point of view on what defines a critical threshold.

Also, since when does Linux requires 150 GB of available free space (5% of 3 TB)? The bigger the drives are getting, the lower the threshold can be because even just 1% of a big drive is still plenty of space. Sure, having a drive nearly full is probably not the best for performance but Linux won't crash just because of this.

And the most important point is that a warning has to be meaningful for the people seeing it to be useful. The warning I am currently getting has no meaning for me, which makes it useless and counterproductive (as I already explained, because I don't check the details anymore I could be missing something more important at some point). It is of absolutely no value to me that you think that the warning is timely: at the end of the day I am the one managing my NAS, not you. I would like a warning that has meaning for me (hence a customizable threshold).

[pwilson]

I think that you missed several points...

I would never run any Linux Filesystem more than 95% full myself, so I'd call the warning timely

Sure, if that's how you want it, then why not. But I do run Linux with filesystems over 95% full. That's just the way it is. Give me a 10 TB drive today, and it will be full tomorrow. If I have some space available, I just fill it: can't stand empty space, it's in my nature. Please just don't force your own practices on everybody else, we all have different ways to use our hardware and mine suits me perfectly well. I never had any problem because of a lack of free space in the last 20 years (almost now!) since I started using Linux. I wouldn't do this on any production system I am working with, but we are talking about my own personal NAS here, I would like to manage it as I see fit.
And by the way, it is somewhat a contradiction that on SMB systems (and therefore on the most critical systems) it is possible to reduce the threshold while on SOHO systems it isn't.
Honestly I don't see what's so difficult in acknowledging that not everybody has the same point of view on what defines a critical threshold.

Also, since when does Linux requires 150 GB of available free space (5% of 3 TB)? The bigger the drives are getting, the lower the threshold can be because even just 1% of a big drive is still plenty of space. Sure, having a drive nearly full is probably not the best for performance but Linux won't crash just because of this.

And the most important point is that a warning has to be meaningful for the people seeing it to be useful. The warning I am currently getting has no meaning for me, which makes it useless and counterproductive (as I already explained, because I don't check the details anymore I could be missing something more important at some point). It is of absolutely no value to me that you think that the warning is timely: at the end of the day I am the one managing my NAS, not you. I would like a warning that has meaning for me (hence a customizable threshold).

Feel free to follow or ignore my advice as you deem fit. It's your data, so you can treat it any way you want. I have no desire to explain this further; Google is your friend. You will not like the outcome if you overfill it, but hey, that is what Backups are for. Personally I'd recommend that you simply upgrade your drives to larger ones so that you don't have to worry about this issue at all. (Drives are cheap, Data isn't).

[rigogs]

This setting is not available on my TS-469 Pro running ver 4.1.1, did I miss something... sure would like to set a threshold to alert me before its FULL and I can not access data. Was forced to Unplug NAS and then delete extra backups.

Thanks for the help,

This is available on SMB firmware only.

[chriswren]

10% threashold for Linux OS to run is OK but no to the raid array that is attaced to it that is dedicated to storage.

if we take a 16tb of disks, this reduces down to just over 10Tb of usable space and by your calculationg I need a 1Tb buffer? I call bull on that......... yes, allocate enough disk space for /root and /tmp but for /storage or /home can be run as full as you like.

[pwilson]

10% threashold for Linux OS to run is OK but no to the raid array that is attaced to it that is dedicated to storage.

if we take a 16tb of disks, this reduces down to just over 10Tb of usable space and by your calculationg I need a 1Tb buffer? I call bull on that......... yes, allocate enough disk space for /root and /tmp but for /storage or /home can be run as full as you like.

RAID5: 4 * 4TB = 10.8TB of storage space. 95% of this number is: 10.3TB. Surely it isn't unreasonable to consider this full when you are under 0.5TB of free space.

You unfortunately can not adjust the "threshhold" on the "Home" version of the Firmware, so it will continue to warn you about this. You can pretty much ignore this warning until free space falls below 0.5TB. This should provide you will lots of time to save up for some 5TB drives for your NAS prior to following the instructions for "Expanding Capacity (Online RAID Capacity Expansion)" instructions in the fine manual.

Do NOT purchase 6TB drives for your SS-839 Pro as it only supports "expansion" on volumes up to maximum Volume size 16.0TB (A "Home" Firmware restriction), so you will probably want to run with 2 RAID5 Volumes of 13.5TB each. (ie RAID5: 4 * 5TB = 13.5TB).

[pwilson]

This setting is not available on my TS-469 Pro running ver 4.1.1, did I miss something... sure would like to set a threshold to alert me before its FULL and I can not access data. Was forced to Unplug NAS and then delete extra backups.

• Have you migrated to Storage Pools yet?

Your NAS can not be expanded at all, if it is still using "legacy" volumes of any size. If you need to convert over, simply follow the steps in poorly titled QNAP Tutorial: How to completely upgrade your NAS from QTS 3.8 to QTS 4.0

Similarly, you can not adjust the "threshold" on "legacy" volumes at all, under any Firmware. It this option is not appearing in your NAS Admin WebUI, this would suggest that you are still on "legacy" (Pre-QTS4.x) Storage Volumes, rather than QTS 4.x Storage Pools.