Buffalo Forums

Products => Storage => : mc2 January 29, 2018, 07:55:14 AM

: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: mc2 January 29, 2018, 07:55:14 AM
I recently bought an LS220D0202 (1.66).  I knew beforehand that it has a cluster size of 128MB, which is huge, but that didn't worry me as I'd be using it primarily for backups, producing files which would be typically much larger than that, so the relative overhead would be low.

However, while many files are being allocated up to the next 128MB some are being allocated up much more.  Here's a few examples at random:

Size (MB)Allocated (MB)
1715.62816.0
3999.96144.0
4207.08192.0
17838.824576.0
59682.865536.0

And many others.  However it isn't consistent: there are other files of very similar sizes that are only allocated up to the next 128MB.

It's happening with both Macrium and Paragon backups, so it's not software dependent, and the overall figures are consistent with what NAS Navigator and the http interface are reporting.  Doing a direct copy (LS220->LS220) of such over-allocated files, using either Windows Explorer or DOS Copy, reduces their allocated sizes to just the next 128MB.

So, how come some files have such huge over-allocations, and what can be done about it?
: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: mc2 February 05, 2018, 06:22:51 AM
Surely I'm not the only one who is seeing this?  (Or has nobody else looked....?)
: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: oxygen8 February 24, 2018, 12:39:03 PM
[root@LS421DE test]# ls -lh
total 4
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        1.3K Feb 24 19:36 test.sh*
[root@LS421DE test]# du -h
4.0K    .

how do you test allocated space ?
: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: mc2 February 25, 2018, 05:54:56 AM
[root@LS421DE test]# ls -lh
total 4
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        1.3K Feb 24 19:36 test.sh*
[root@LS421DE test]# du -h
4.0K    .

I'm curious as to why you edited away the "LS421DE uses 4K" line in your original answer, but in any case, at least up until two and half years ago it seems some folks had (still have?)  the same issue with the LS421.  http://forums.buffalotech.com/index.php?topic=20309.0

how do you test allocated space ?

It's what Windows tells me, or to be more precise, it's what Windows reports the Samba server on the LS220 tells it.  However, as I say in my original post, the overall figures are consistent with what NAS Navigator and the http interface are reporting too.

It's apparently the same from a Linux box too, according to this guy https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R1C275J5EJ6RXA/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00ISM5EDK
: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: oxygen8 February 25, 2018, 09:04:15 AM
"LS421DE uses 4K"
i mean, all Buffalo NAS use 4kB as smalles unit
i have edited my post and forget to wrote this

NASNavigator shows the correct values
only the Windows Explorer shows wrong values

i have a positiv example TS1200D

http://forum.nas-hilfe.de/buffalo-technology-nas-anleitungen/wie-viel-platz-benoetigen-kleine-dateien-wirklich-t2740.html
: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: mc2 February 25, 2018, 10:08:18 AM
only the Windows Explorer shows wrong values

The person complaining about it in the Amazon review is running Linux.

And in any case, Windows is only showing the values that the LinkStation has reported to it, and those are in multiples of 128MB.  See the answer at https://superuser.com/questions/1202593/network-drive-size-on-disk-multiples-of-128mb-instead-of-reality
: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: oxygen8 February 25, 2018, 11:01:41 AM
please ignore the wrong value from the windows explorer

trust the Nasnavigator
your nas uses 4kB
: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: mc2 February 25, 2018, 11:30:45 AM
please ignore the wrong value from the windows explorer

You mean the wrong values being reported by the LinkStations over SMB.   For the apparent 128MB cluster size it looks like Buffalo have, for some reason, configured it that way:

allocation roundup size (S)
    This parameter allows an administrator to tune the allocation size reported to Windows clients. The default size of 1Mb generally results in improved Windows client performance.
  https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/current/man-html/smb.conf.5.html

However, that doesn't explain the much bigger bogus values the LinkStation is reporting that were the subject of my original post.  Those look like a bug in the LS220.

: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: oxygen8 February 25, 2018, 12:33:51 PM
yes, this is a bug
please ignore this
there is no problem
1k Files needs 4k space
10k needs 12k
100k needs exakt 100k
with big files greater 1MB you can not see a differenz

check the status with nasnavigator
thats it

: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: oxygen8 February 27, 2018, 12:02:10 AM
you do not need nasnavigator
windows shows the correct values for mapped drives
(http://forum.nas-hilfe.de/galerie/image.php?album_id=122&image_id=584)
: Re: Allocated file sizes on LS220
: mc2 February 27, 2018, 02:49:03 AM
The discussion is about what the LinkStation reports for individual files (and, in fact, folders too), not the whole drive.