topic Re: Full NAS volume - make it working again in Data Protection

Full NAS volume - make it working again

Jerry2 — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:02:24 GMT

Hi all,

what should I do to make NAS volume writable again if it is completely full with data and Snapshot copies? I guess, I should delete Snapshot copies and remove data from active file system? Is it enough? Is there anything what should be done with mirror relationships?

Re: Full NAS volume - make it working again

AlexDawson — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 01:40:03 GMT

Hi Jerry2,

You have a couple of options - you can increase the size of the volume if your IT management plans and system capacity allow it, or you can remove older snapshots.

Can you please provide details of the ONTAP version of the source and destination systems so we can assist further?

Thanks!

Re: Full NAS volume - make it working again

Jerry2 — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 14:26:30 GMT

Hi @AlexDawson, thank you so much for your input. Our version is for both systems NetApp Release 9.10.1.

My last concern is about deleting data from the full volume including snapshot copies. Once I read, that if I deleted data from the active file system, there would be no space increase because data are referenced within the snapshot copies. So, data are kept due to snapshot copies. Is that true or is that an exceptional situation?

Re: Full NAS volume - make it working again

AlexDawson — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 01:18:21 GMT

That is generally the case, yes. Snapshots are versions of the filesystem at a point in time - but you can see how big the data being kept for each snapshot is. This thread has some examples of how to look for large snapshots - https://community.netapp.com/t5/ONTAP-Discussions/Finding-Large-Snapshots/m-p/145828

Since you're running 9.10, you will be using XDP for snapmirror relationships, which means you don't have to have the same snapshots on both sides, as long as there is one in common. Have a read of the documentation at https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/data-protection/index.html and let us know if you have any questions. The "snapmirror technical details" section of that is also really helpful.

Re: Full NAS volume - make it working again

DarrenJ — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 03:07:32 GMT

Deleting active file system will not reflect as free space until the snapshots holding that data are either manually deleted or automatically roll off (auto delete) based off your snapshot policy. Manually deleting snapshots is the quickest and most direct way to immediately reclaim some space.

I would also suggest looking at autogrow for your volumes.

https://kb.netapp.com/Advice_and_Troubleshooting/Data_Storage_Software/ONTAP_OS/What_is_volume_autosize_in_Data_ONTAP

https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/volumes/configure-automatic-grow-shrink-size-task.html