Hi Mike,

When you delete files, the space formerly accounted for in the active file system now gets accounted for in the .snapshot area. Snapshot space consumed grows as you delete or modify files, and the more you change the larger the snapshot area becomes; think of snapshots as measuring the "delta" in a file system.

Eventually the Netapp will free up space as the snapshots expire. If you need the space back right now you can delete snapshots manually via console commands. Do a "snap list" at the console to obtain a list of snapshots, and you'll get an idea of which snapshots are taking up the most space. Generally you want to start deleting the oldest snapshots first. You can delete one or more snapshots by using the "snap delete <snapshot name>" command, which will return space to the active filesystem as long as your overall snapshot utilization exceeds 100% of the snapshot reserve. This sounds a little complicated, but do a "df" on the filer after each snapshot deletion and check out the effect on active and snapshot utilization percentages.

Regards, Arnie

At 08:54 AM 2/20/98 -0800, Mike Mueller wrote:

We are moving a large amount of files onto our NetApp but first we had to delete a lot of files to make space for the new files. As the files are being deleted, the .snapshot is growing and seemingly there will not be enough space for the new files and the now bloated .snapshot. We're kind of new at this but we so far have not been able to verify that the space seemingly taken up by the bloated .snapshot will be released as needed to make room for the new files.

Will the NetApp release space from .snapshot to make room for new files, or do we need to somehow manually get rid of the .snapshot?

Sorry if this is a dumb question but the move is currently running and I'm not sure that I'll be able to find the answer before the NetApp runs out of space.

Thanks,

-- Mike