Disk Says It is Full But There's Nothing on It

[Eric Robinson]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Busch <kbusch at kernel.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 6, 2024 9:20 PM
> To: Eric Robinson <eric.robinson at psmnv.com>
> Cc: Daniel Wagner <dwagner at suse.de>; linux-nvme at lists.infradead.org
> Subject: Re: Disk Says It is Full But There's Nothing on It
>
> On Tue, Aug 06, 2024 at 08:28:05PM +0000, Eric Robinson wrote:
> > > someting bogus (nsze, ncap, nuse).
> >
> > [root at store11b zpool0]# nvme id-ns /dev/nvme0n1 NVME Identify
> > Namespace 1:
> > nsze    : 0x6fc400000
> > ncap    : 0x6fc400000
> > nuse    : 0x6fc400000
> > nsfeat  : 0
>
> Is this after a fresh format? If you've no data on here that you wish to save, run
> something like
>
>   # blkdiscard /dev/nvme0n1
>

That did the trick. First, I issued the blkdiscard command against /dev/nvme0n1. I then ran nvme list several times in a row, and each time I could see the Used column decreasing. Clearly the drive was doing cleanup. I then ran blkdiscard for all the other drives in sequence. Each time it took 24 seconds to return to a prompt. At the end, I ran nvme list again, with the following results. It is obvious that each of the drives is going through a discard process.

[root at store11c ~]# nvme list
Node                  Generic               SN                   Model                                    Namespace  Usage                      Format           FW Rev
--------------------- --------------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1          /dev/ng0n1            6240A0Y0TCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1          1.18  TB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme1n1          /dev/ng1n1            6240A0T2TCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1          4.37  TB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme2n1          /dev/ng2n1            6230A0N9TCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1          5.92  TB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme3n1          /dev/ng3n1            62D0A0FFTCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1          7.74  TB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme4n1          /dev/ng4n1            62D0A0FPTCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1          9.24  TB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme5n1          /dev/ng5n1            6240A0XNTCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         11.04  TB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme6n1          /dev/ng6n1            6240A1BJTCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.63  TB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme7n1          /dev/ng7n1            6240A0Q4TCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         14.04  TB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1

And then finally, after a few minutes...

[root at store11c ~]# nvme list
Node                  Generic               SN                   Model                                    Namespace  Usage                      Format           FW Rev
--------------------- --------------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1          /dev/ng0n1            6240A0Y0TCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.82  MB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme1n1          /dev/ng1n1            6240A0T2TCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.82  MB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme2n1          /dev/ng2n1            6230A0N9TCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.82  MB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme3n1          /dev/ng3n1            62D0A0FFTCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.82  MB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme4n1          /dev/ng4n1            62D0A0FPTCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.82  MB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme5n1          /dev/ng5n1            6240A0XNTCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.82  MB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme6n1          /dev/ng6n1            6240A1BJTCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.82  MB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1
/dev/nvme7n1          /dev/ng7n1            6240A0Q4TCG8         Dell Ent NVMe CM6 RI 15.36TB             0x1         12.82  MB /  15.36  TB    512   B +  0 B   2.2.1

...success.

> or
>
>   # nvme format /dev/nvme0n1 -f
>
> and see if it changes. If it still doesn't change, then you need to check with your
> vendor on the discrepency because nvme-cli is just the messenger and faithfully
> shows what the device reports.
>
> In my experience, about half of nvme devices always report nuse == nsze.
> LBA allocation tracking is an optional feature that many devices don't do, but
> since you apparently have the exact same model and firmware that shows it
> implementing this option, that's just weird.
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