DriveStation - Memory Issues - 800gb of invisible files ?

[kihaku]

hiya,

 

I'm not the most techy of people but I need your help after spending over 30 mins on hold without any contact with a live person...

 

I have a drivestation (1T) version. Its been pretty good till recently. some how I have filled it and I cannot figure out how.

 

I know my true back up folder are about 110GB but its telling me my EHD is full :( 

 

F:\Anam's PC\Memeo\Anam\C_\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\Memeo = 924GB

 

F:\Anam's PC\Memeo\Anam\C_\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\Memeo\Owner's Backup\C_\Documents and Settings = 107GB

 

for the life of me I cannot locate the 800gb

 

my pc's hd is only 240gb - I've only used 130Gb - and I have adobe photoshop/illustrator/acrobat installed...and my online storage (spideroak) is only 270GB and it takes from the ehd.

 

I only ask memeo to back up the folders I save work in (the 107gb)

 

so obviously I have done something stupid along the way so if anyone would kindly give me the steps to help me clear the ehd of the 800gb, i'd be very grateful.

 

running XP (SP3) if that helps.

 

thanks in advance.

 

anam

 

 

[Buffalo_Phil]

Hi,

I think I'm having similar problems with my Buffalo Linkstation Mini (Model LS-WSXL658, Firmware version 1.33), which I bought last month. I have RAID 1 configured on the dual 500 GB disks of the unit. Before the problems started, I did not have more than 180 GB of files stored in the two separate shared directories I have in my Linkstation mini, so, the discs were more than half empty.

Now, using my PC, I moved files from one directory to another and after that deleted all the files from the trash box. Now my Linkstation Mini's web-UI shows: "Storage: RAID Array 1: 430.9 GB / 451.4 GB (95.5 %)". The trash boxes in both of my shared directories appear to be empty. The total size of the directories has not changed from what it was before I moved the files, it still is less than 180 GB. What has happened? How can I get the missing space back? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I can see several people have been having similar problems with their Buffalo products.

By the way, it would be a great feature to be able to browse the contents of the shared folders in the Linkstation web-UI. But, I'm not sure if that would help here.

Thank you in advance.

[Buffalo_Phil]

Ok, I think I could possibly manage to solve this issue myself. For anybody else facing similar problems, I'll document my solution here.

After deleting the visible trashboxes, I found there were still several hidden .Trash-* directories in both of the shared directories. Those folders contained altogether multiple copies of same files - I guess one for each copy / update / delete operation.  Apparently the OS did not count the space of the hidden files into the total amount of space used until I checked the box that makes them visible, which left me puzzling why Buffalo web-UI showed the disk was full but according to OS it had plenty of free space.

Now I'm in the process of deleting those hidden .Trash-* directories (which is very slow). Maybe by tomorrow all the .Trash-* files (hundreds of GBs) are deleted, then I'll know if this really released the space. I'll let you know. But is it ever possible to permanently delete the files if the recycle bin is enabled? It seems like if I delete a trashbox, the files it contained only appear in a new trashbox.

Despite gathering multiple copies of same files, this recycle bin / trashbox feature in Buffalo Linkstation Mini has already proven to be useful for me. But I must say copying / moving / deleting files is unacceptably slow (~100 KB - ~2 MB / s).