space recalimation after CIFS data deletion

[FelixZhou]

We have a 5T CIFS share for SQL logging on NetApp AFF300. Application team is complaining after they deleted the data, the available space is not increasing right way. is there any way we can manually refresh the space reclaimation on storage? Snapshot policy is disabled, no existing snapshots.

we are on AFF300, 9.6P5, using aggr volume encryption and  thin provisioning.

thanks in advance.

[donny_lang]

Once a volume is deleted, it goes into the "volume recovery queue", which is an ONTAP feature that's designed to guard against accidental volume deletions. By default, the volumes exist in the VRQ for 12 hours until they are deleted. This document (below) details the behavior, how to modify it if desired, or how to manually purge the VRQ. 

https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1031855/~/how-to-use-the-volume-recovery-queue-feature-in-clustered-data-ontap-8.3-

[FelixZhou]

thanks Danny. it is good to know the deleted volume will be queued for some time before go away.

I also want to know, how data deletion from cifs share will trigger space to be released to the volume? Any manual way to do it?

[TMACMD · Accepted solution]

AFF, ONTAP 9.6P5, CIFS, Aggr Encryption, Thin Provisioning. No SnapShots, Snap Policy disabled

From ONTAP, (like "vol show" or "df") I suspect the answer to this is wait. When a large amount of DELETE is done on a NFS/CIFS share/mount, ONTAP takes some time to update all the free-blocks in the system. It should start freeing pretty quick but in severe cases I have seen upwards of 30-60 minutes to finish. 

Are you over-provisioned on the aggregate?

It is possible that the assumed free space was not really there.

Once it was deleted from SQLlog, another volume have "claim" it if it was nearly full.

Might be good to look "storage aggregate show-space" and maybe even "vol show":

set diag ; vol show -sort-by aggregate,volume ; set admin

[paul_stejskal]

It's entirely possible where a thin provisioned volume may not see the space if there is a bigger thick volume taking up all the space. We'd need to look at ASUPs to know for sure. If you want feel free to pop open a case and we can take a look.