Files randomly left behind on Landing Disk

[jitdor]

I have a 7-disk configuration on tRAID that has been running for a few years, with a 128GB SSD formatted as a single ReFS partition being used solely as a landing disk.

Of late, I notice the landing disk buffer gets filled up very quickly, so I took a peek into the drive and noticed that the available storage is 50-60GB less. I make sure the landing disk is not in use before I took ownership of the hidden folders trying to find out what's hogging the space. To my surprise, there are a few old files being left over on the landing disk, which had already been copied to the array long ago. I am not able to find any pattern because it happens rather randomly - the files that are left behind have different creation dates and during the same period there are many other files of the same type and size which got transferred to the array and removed from the landing disk.

There is no implication to data integrity (so far) and the verify tasks always turn out to be successful. If anything the only compliant is that I need to check the available space on the landing disk regularly.

If anyone has any suggestions on why this occurred, I'd be happy to investigate further. Thanks!

[Brahim]

This can happen if there is a file in the array of the same name and path as the landing disk file.
That or the files could potentially be locked by other programs.

There should be entries in the logs relating to the errors in moving the affected files.

[efishta]

Is there a resolution to this, perhaps via a new version that might try more aggressively to move the files off the landing disk at future times?

Or perhaps a feature that serves as an indicator as to which files are locked/not moved and reason why?

As is, it's poorly implemented. There should be consistent attempts to move these files given changing circumstances in file locks and warnings available, not having to look at free space and change security settings to explore stuck files in the landing disk.

[Brahim]

Nothing logical can be done if a file is locked or has a duplicate in the pool. There is a consistent attempt to move the files. However, if the conditions preventing it persist, so will the issue.

What would you see happen in the case of duplicate file name? Discard one file in favor of the other? Which one?

Is the case of locks, you might need to restart the system for the lock to be released. There are also 3rd party tools to forcefully unlock files that you could look into to avoid having to restart.