Unraid 6.12.1 Share settings "Minimum free space"

[oeci]

On my server I have various shares and since I don't intend to store files bigger than 100 GB I set the "Minimum free space" value  to 100 GB. But with version 6.12.1 this value has changed to 8.2 %. If I want to revert it to 100 GB it does not accept that value but instead keeps the 8.2 %. What does that even mean? 8.2 % of what? How do I calculate the actual min. free space in GB based on that percentage? Is this intended behavior or a bug?

Edited June 23, 2023 by oeci

[itimpi]

I see where it says %, but since it is talking about drives I assume that is % of drive size?  I think this is something that has often been requested.   I CAN however make a change and set a specific value such as 10GB without problems.

[bonienl]

Internally absolute numbers are used for the free space value. The GUI translates that to a percentage, which is displayed in the browser. 

You can simply enter 100GB as a value which is then used (but displayed as a percentage)

 

[oeci]

Thanks for your reply. I would indeed welcome it if it was possible to set an absolute value like 100 GB. And for those who prefer a relative value in form of a percentage unraid could keep accepting those as well.

[bonienl]

2 minutes ago, oeci said:

Thanks for your reply. I would indeed welcome it if it was possible to set an absolute value like 100 GB. And for those who prefer a relative value in form of a percentage unraid could keep accepting those as well.

 

Both absolute values or percentage values can be entered, but as explained earlier the GUI displays the value as a percentage

 

[itimpi]

Just now, bonienl said:

 

Both absolute values or percentage values can be entered, but as explained earlier the GUI displays the value as a percentage

 

In that case what is it a % of?   With absolute values it is a fixed amount of space on a drive regardless of drive size.   I do not see how this can be converted to a % if a share has drives of mixed sizes as a fixed amount converts to a different % on different drives.

[oeci]

2 minutes ago, bonienl said:

Internally absolute numbers are used for the free space value. The GUI translates that to a percentage, which is displayed in the browser. 

You can simply enter 100GB as a value which is then used.

 

I understand that. But something does not add up. If I enter 100 GB it converts the value to 8.2 %. I have 3 data drives in the array, two 10 TB and one 6 TB. In case of the 10 TB drives 8.2 % would equal to 0.82 TB or 820 GB. And in case of the 6 TB drive it also does not match as 8.2 % of 6 TB is 0.492 or 492 GB. So in neither case the 8.2 % corresponds to 100 GB.

[oeci]

7 minutes ago, itimpi said:

In that case what is it a % of?   With absolute values it is a fixed amount of space on a drive regardless of drive size.   I do not see how this can be converted to a % if a share has drives of mixed sizes as a fixed amount converts to a different % on different drives.

That would also have been my next point. In case of mixed drive sizes a percentage is not really practical. I would definitely prefer absolute values.

[Kilrah]

Same, don't understand why the change to displaying %, it means nothing. What matters is for it to be set high enough with regard to transferred file sizes so they can fit on a disk, % doesn't tell anything about this and reading the value gives absolutely no information about whether the currently set value is appropriate or not.

[bonienl]

The percentage is calculated based on the smallest disk size on which the share exists (or may exist).

The percentage relates directly to the utilization levels set.  The critical level is by default 90%, which means 10% left.

 

[oeci]

I understand that. But I still cannot see how in my case 8.2 % equals 100 GB. The smallest drive is 6 TB.

[oeci]

Ok, now I'm getting somewhere. There is also a 1.3 TB cache pool on my server. Is the "Minimum free space" value also relevant for the cache? In this case 8.2 % of 1.3 TB results in approximately 100 GB.

[Kilrah]

It's still pretty terrible UX since what matters isn't visible without extensive extra effort. Bit like the new notification handling...

[trurl]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

It's still pretty terrible UX since what matters isn't visible without extensive extra effort. Bit like the new notification handling...

The help for the setting doesn't say anything about %, and I don't think % is particularly useful for this setting since its purpose is to allow a different disk to be chosen based on file size.

[miicar]

Just going to chime in here, i would also rather have a hard limit, not a percentage.  I have situations where a cache pool is larger then some of my array disks, so with the current system (if i understand it correctly), i can't utilize my cache to its full maximum, cuz its calculating the 100GB % off the smallest drive in my array

...being able to use "100GB" would just make more sense (being able to have min free on both array and cache pools as separate options would be amazing, but beggars can't be choosers)!

And yes, the new notifications "bell" is awful!  😝

[itimpi]

15 hours ago, miicar said:

Just going to chime in here, i would also rather have a hard limit, not a percentage

It has been set back to an absolute value for the 6.12.4 release.

 

15 hours ago, miicar said:

(being able to have min free on both array and cache pools as separate options would be amazing, but beggars can't be choosers)!

 

You can set values for both of these in the GUI, but they do not function completely separately from each other as I think would make more sense.