Brian,

If compression had been turned on that would account for a small part of the problem, i.e.  the files size you see listed in the uncompressed size but the actual storage space on the disk is quite a bit less -- but not 90% less!

A bigger part of the issue could be the "File Delete Wait Time".  This is usually set to some short time like 5 minutes, but could have been set for a much longer time, inadvertently perhaps.   When files are deleted they go into a "limbo" state (that's what NetWare calls it).  During the file delete wait, the OS won't remove them, even if you run out of disk space.  After the initial wait time, the files are available for purging (the final expunging)  but the OS won't "autopurge" them until the disk space on the volume is quite low.

Oops.  Just saw Dave Tisdell's reply (as well as Paul's).  As usual, Dave's more succinct than I.  I agree with him about vrepair but I'd do it after the purge just to run two different disk maintenance processes, instead of one (This is America: more is always better, right?).  The easiest way to purge, as Dave suggests, is to right click on the root of the volume and choose "Purge All".  But you can also do it in various ways from the server console as with vrepair.  Another way is to type "Set purge files on dismount = on" at the console prompt.  Then dismount the volume and remount it (or restart the server).  That will purge every deleted file from the volume which is really what you want to do.  Then run vrepair.   Then buy a new disk drive.

Vince


Vince Rossano
Information Technology Director
Montpelier Public Schools
58 Barre Street
Montpelier, VT 05602

Voice: (802) 229-5355
Fax: (802) 223-6146
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All,

Yes, we have one ANCIENT Novell 4.1.1 server humming along with
absolutely no problems since I've been at Winooski (4 years). A
secretary started getting warnings that the server was starting to
run out of hard disk space and I found a few files that could be
better served elsewhere. I copied the documents to my computer (1.2
GB) and deleted them off the server but only 100MB was freed up. Is
it just taking a long time to "empty the trash" or are the files
stuck in some network trash folder that I have to manually dump? The
server is VERY low on hard drive space and I'd like to get this
resolved before it decides to crash and burn.

Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks,
Bryan
--


Bryan Thompson
Technology Facilitator
Learning Media Center
60 Normand Street
Winooski, VT 05404
Phone: 802-655-2555
Fax: 802-655-6538
AIM: bryantg3
mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://www.winooski.k12.vt.us