Hello Qnap users
I got a strange crash on a Nas, lost Smb access but https admin access was still working. I tried to connect using ssh, but got access denied.
Then I lost access to http admin, and the only way to get out of it has been the big red button.
After reboot everything was fine again.
I connected through ssh after that and noticed that the / partition was 94% full. That's 17,8 Mb out of 250 Mb. I followed the Nas for a week after that and it lost about 350 K of free space on the / partition per day. After 8 days there was 15 Mb available. At this point there was a firmware update so I restarted the NAS
So a back of the envelope calculation led me to think that the NAS needed about 50 days of standard operating to fill up its root partition.
The NAS had been up for 47 days before the crash.
When the root partition has not a lot of free space remaining, is it as dangerous as I suspect to let it run for a long time without rebooting it on a regular basis ?
Thanks for your thoughts !
Thoughts about / root partition getting full
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gpa56
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AlastairStevenson
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Re: Thoughts about / root partition getting full
Something is consuming the space when it should not - that's not normal.When the root partition has not a lot of free space remaining, is it as dangerous as I suspect to let it run for a long time without rebooting it on a regular basis ?
Can you see from the root contents what type of files are accumulating and using the space, and what app they are associated with?
TS-431+ for storage and media and a bunch of IP cams under Surveillance Station. TVS-473 as files backup and QVR Pro.
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gpa56
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Re: Thoughts about / root partition getting full
Your question has 2 sides I think
- why is the used space 94% at startup ? My guess is that the reserved space for / is fixed for a given Nas and that QTS is growing with time.
For example, this problematic NAS was bought in 2014 and a 250 Mb root partition, from which 230 are used at startup..
A Ts-231 bought in 2017 has a 330 Mb root partition, from which 170 Mb are used at startup. (Note that a TS-231 has *half* the Ram of the old NAS, so the root partition is taking a third of the 1 Gb total Ram, while the old Nas root partition takes only 1/8 of the 2Gb total Ram !)
The 60 Mb difference in used space between the 2 Nas comes almost entirely from the linux modules, not from applications; the old NAS has a X86 Cpu and the Ts-231 is a low-end Nas with an Arm Cpu, so it's not the same kernel at all.
I have not found on these forums any trick to raise the root partition size, I am not sure it is possible.
- why should the free space starting from 6%, dwindle to 0 ? Well I am not sure that it does. Since last reboot there is no smoking gun. The observed growth comes from /var/log of course, but it seems inherently limited by the QNAP home-grown logger. I do not know for now, it will need more time, if there is yet another firmware update real soon now I will skip it for a while to not have to reboot the Nas.
- why is the used space 94% at startup ? My guess is that the reserved space for / is fixed for a given Nas and that QTS is growing with time.
For example, this problematic NAS was bought in 2014 and a 250 Mb root partition, from which 230 are used at startup..
A Ts-231 bought in 2017 has a 330 Mb root partition, from which 170 Mb are used at startup. (Note that a TS-231 has *half* the Ram of the old NAS, so the root partition is taking a third of the 1 Gb total Ram, while the old Nas root partition takes only 1/8 of the 2Gb total Ram !)
The 60 Mb difference in used space between the 2 Nas comes almost entirely from the linux modules, not from applications; the old NAS has a X86 Cpu and the Ts-231 is a low-end Nas with an Arm Cpu, so it's not the same kernel at all.
I have not found on these forums any trick to raise the root partition size, I am not sure it is possible.
- why should the free space starting from 6%, dwindle to 0 ? Well I am not sure that it does. Since last reboot there is no smoking gun. The observed growth comes from /var/log of course, but it seems inherently limited by the QNAP home-grown logger. I do not know for now, it will need more time, if there is yet another firmware update real soon now I will skip it for a while to not have to reboot the Nas.