I have a 4tb disk drive that is showing a Free area of 9.76tb. This is incorrect.

Attached screen shots of Share page,Shares and Share contents.

 

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Your Stewart Laptop Image share is probably set to include all disks, so its showing the available space on all disks.  The "Disk8" that's appearing is just indicating which disks the share is currently sitting on,  but it bears no relationship to the available space on disk 8 UNLESS the share is explicitly set to only use disk 8

 

Your Stewart Laptop Image share is probably set to include all disks, so its showing the available space on all disks.  The "Disk8" that's appearing is just indicating which disks the share is currently sitting on,  but it bears no relationship to the available space on disk 8 UNLESS the share is explicitly set to only use disk 8

 

I believe if you check this latest screen capture my share is set to use only disk 8. That is what brought it to my attention.

Your Stewart Laptop Image share is probably set to include all disks, so its showing the available space on all disks.  The "Disk8" that's appearing is just indicating which disks the share is currently sitting on,  but it bears no relationship to the available space on disk 8 UNLESS the share is explicitly set to only use disk 8

 

I believe if you check this latest screen capture my share is set to use only disk 8. That is what brought it to my attention.

That changes things then...

I believe if you check this latest screen capture my share is set to use only disk 8. That is what brought it to my attention.

 

The size of the share is calculated based on the presence of the share on each disk. Go to the disk shares tab and do a "compute all". Next check if your share name appears on disks other then disk 8. If so move their content to disk 8 and remove the folder.

 

 

 

Your initial graphic indeed shows that all of the current files in the share are on disk #8, but there could, as bonienl noted, be empty top-level directories on other disks with that name if you're previously had them as part of the share.

 

I'm surprised those would be included in the free space computation -- I'd think that would be limited to the disks actually included in the share -- but if they indeed are then that would explain what you're seeing.

 

Go to each of the disk shares and confirm that you don't have a folder with that name on the other disks -- if so, simply delete the folder (confirm that it's empty first ... but it certainly should be, or else there's an error in the listing shown in your initial graphic).

 

I checked every hard drive for the share contents and I did find empty files with the same name. As you surmised they were all empty so I deleted them and the computed size is now correct.

I wonder how and where the folders came to be on the additional drives as I do not remember ever having that share on another drive.

 

Thanks for the great help

This has shown what I'd consider a flaw in the space computation for the shares.

 

While the directory of a user share will always show ALL files that are on ANY disk with a top-level folder with the share name, a share will only WRITE to those disks which are currently included in the share's settings page.    So it would seem that the "free space" should only include those disks -- but clearly that's not what's shown on this page.

 

A minor flaw ... but nevertheless it could cause confusion (as it did for you).    And it would be even more confusing if you saw lots of free space in a share, but couldn't copy files to it because it was "full" => which could happen if, for example (in your case), disk #8 was full.

 

If on the other hand only the included disks are taken into consideration, it may go totally unnoticed that the share with possible content exists outside the list of designated disks.

 

When a share is viewed it will show all content - as mentioned - and it may be confusing when the size calculation shows only a fraction of that.

 

I guess the bottom line is that users need to take care when explicitedly using include or exclude lists.

 

If on the other hand only the included disks are taken into consideration, it may go totally unnoticed that the share with possible content exists outside the list of designated disks.

 

When a share is viewed it will show all content - as mentioned - and it may be confusing when the size calculation shows only a fraction of that.

 

I guess the bottom line is that users need to take care when explicitedly using include or exclude lists.

Maybe the best compromise would be to include all disks when calculating Used Space, but only the included disks when calculating Free Space?  This might still occasionally be confusing, but it probably does impart the key information most users would be interested in.

If on the other hand only the included disks are taken into consideration, it may go totally unnoticed that the share with possible content exists outside the list of designated disks.

 

When a share is viewed it will show all content - as mentioned - and it may be confusing when the size calculation shows only a fraction of that.

 

I guess the bottom line is that users need to take care when explicitedly using include or exclude lists.

Maybe the best compromise would be to include all disks when calculating Used Space, but only the included disks when calculating Free Space?  This might still occasionally be confusing, but it probably does impart the key information most users would be interested in.

 

I haven't the ultimate answer how to do this best.

 

When including all disks for used space, you may end up reporting more space than the actual disk can hold, and still reporting there is free space available. Sounds confusing to me 

 

Perhaps a warning needs to be added when shares are found on disks which are outside the designated list ?

 

When doing a "compute" for a share it will actually show all disks where this share is present regardless of the include/exclude list. I guess this can help already in determining if all is as expected.

 

I made an update to the Users and Disks shares. During a compute of a share or disk it will show a warning when the share is outside the designated list of disks.

 

The designated list of disks is determined first by the global include/exclude disk settings and next by the individual include/exclude settings of the share itself.

 

Attached an example screen.

I don't see anything "confusing" about limiting the FREE space computation to those disks that are currently included in the share.

 

The USED computation should include everything that's in the share -- no warning needed, as it's not uncommon to remove disks that are nearly full and you don't want to actively participate in a share from the included list.  Their content will still be accessible via the share ... and should indeed be included in computing the size of the share.

 

I suspect it's doing exactly what it should for the USED computation ... but isn't limiting the FREE space computation to those disks included in the share.

 

The 'initial' free value in the main row comes from emhttp, it stores this information together with the share. The GUI merely translates this information to the proper format, as set under display settings.

 

When clicking on 'compute' it activates a background script which reads each individual share or disk, taken directly from the filesystem (i.e. emhttp is not involved). At this point more details can be shown, and give an indication if there is a 'mismatch' between the presence of a share and the configured include/exclude list.

 

Remember, however, that the include/exclude parameters ONLY impact writes.    ALL disks that contain the appropriate top-level folder are merged for accessing.  You could, for example, have 15 disks full of movies in a "Movies" share, and only have 2 or 3 of them "included", if the others are so full you no longer want data written to them.    This is not a "mismatch" -- it's simply the way the shares work.

 

 

...  You could, for example, have 15 disks full of movies in a "Movies" share, and only have 2 or 3 of them "included", if the others are so full you no longer want data written to them.

 

Never thought of doing it that way, you have surprise use-cases 

...  You could, for example, have 15 disks full of movies in a "Movies" share, and only have 2 or 3 of them "included", if the others are so full you no longer want data written to them.

 

Never thought of doing it that way, you have surprise use-cases 

 

I don't do it like that, but I know some do.    Some folks have some disks that they only want written to when they specifically write to the disk share ... but want the content included in their more global share.    So they simply don't "include" those disks in the share, but can still add content by writing directly to the disk share.

 

For example, if you wanted all of your John Wayne movies, James Bond movies, Doris Day movies, etc. grouped together, you might want to manually add those to a folder on a disk that's not otherwise in your "Movies" share ... but for most movies you'd just copy them to the "Movies" share and let it put them where it wants.  By not including the disk (or disks) that you reserve for "collections" those disks won't fill up with your other content.