Reclaim from directory containers?

[mirrorsaw]

Last year we created a new DIRC STGP and gave it about 10TB of storage which mostly filled up - but recently we decided that DIRC is not actually a good solution for us, so we are changing back to DISK pools.

We've defined a new disk pool and our backups have been going into there for about a month now, but we're not getting any space back from the DIRC and I assume this is because even though versions are expiring from the DIRC, the containers won't actually be removed from the filesystem until they're 100% empty (or maybe not even then?).

Is there any way we can consolidate the data into fewer containers and delete the empty ones to reclaim space?

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated

 

[marclant]

Is there any way we can consolidate the data into fewer containers and delete the empty ones to reclaim space?

Kind of. It's rather painful though. At a high level, it would involve protecting the stgpool, marking it destroyed, and repairing it on less containers.

the containers won't actually be removed from the filesystem until they're 100% empty (or maybe not even then?).

Yes it will when they are empty. But keep in mind that as long as an extent is referenced, it will remain in the container pool.

 

[Trident]

Hi,
You can look at move container command. Based on output from q container f=d, find the containers with most free space and move them to free space. You can also slook at 'select * from contaiers' and find which ones to move to get the most free space. Keep in mind the reuse value from 'q stg XXXXX f=d'

select 'move container '||cast(CONTAINER_NAME as char(50)) from containers where STGPOOLDIR_NAME='/tsm/tod/03' and STATE='AVAILABLE'

 

[markino87]

Same query with some info on it:
SELECT -
'move container '|| SUBSTR(CONTAINER_NAME,1,50) AS CONTAINER_NAME, -
'defrag=yes '|| CAST(FREE_SPACE_MB AS DECIMAL(8,0)) as "FREE_SPACE_MB", -
SUBSTR(TOTAL_SPACE_MB,1,5) AS TOTAL_SPACE_MB from containers -
where FREE_SPACE_MB>10 and STATE='AVAILABLE' and CONTAINER_NAME not like '%N:\%' order by FREE_SPACE_MB desc

CONTAINER_NAME FREE_SPACE_MB TOTAL_SPACE_MB
------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------- ---------------
move container M:\IBMSP\SPDCVE01-02\00\0000000000000005.ncf defrag=yes 62 1024
move container M:\IBMSP\SPDCVE01-02\00\0000000000000007.ncf defrag=yes 62 1024