topic Any way to delete big file from NAS volume without update snapshot in ONTAP Discussions

Any way to delete big file from NAS volume without update snapshot

igor_karasik — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:45:58 GMT

Hi,

I am looking for any way to delete big file from NAS volume without update snapshot - i.e. delete file like "Shift-Delete" option in Windows

Sometimes we have big files and we want to delete them and don't want that this file will appear in snapshot (just to save space in snapshots)

Thanks,

Igor

Any way to delete big file from NAS volume without update snapshot

lagenevoise — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:48:41 GMT

Hi Igor,

If the file is present only in AFS, it's possible

however is the file is allready in a SnapShot from my point of view if the file is deleted, the Snapshot size is not realy impacted, because the bloc witch are used by the file are allready calculeted in a previous backup.

Regards,

CGA

Any way to delete big file from NAS volume without update snapshot

radek_kubka — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:52:27 GMT

That's not doable - NetApp snapshot is a read-only, point-in-time copy of your file system.

Also, deleting a file from live file system causes the existing snapshot to grow, as it means creating a change (snapshot size is an equivalent of block-level changes).

Regards,

Radek

Any way to delete big file from NAS volume without update snapshot

igor_karasik — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:59:24 GMT

>>deleting a file from live file system causes the existing snapshot to grow, as it means creating a change (snapshot size is an equivalent of block-level changes).

Yes, I know 😞 That is the reason I asked the this question

Thanks