Question about network drives and free memory

Vir

Vir

Vir

Associate
Joined
21 Oct 2002
Posts
1,860
Location
Netherlands
Hi there,

At my work I help my remote IT department and I am having a discussion with other colleagues who don't know much about computers.

Now, I don't think they are right but I'd like to know your opinions on it. If I'm wrong I'll have no problem admitting it to them :)

Ok what is the case:
Our fileserver's free space get's below 100GB and my colleagues start a big panic and send mails "SAVE YOUR FILES LOCAL IF IT GETS TO 80GB THE DISK WILL CRASH AND THE PROGRAMS WILL STOP WORKING".

I myself get really tired when I see mails like that or if something doesn't work they blame it on "only 80GB free space".

Is there any thruth in what they say. As far as I know... nothing CRASHES but when there is like a few KB/MB left ofcourse files can't be written to the disks etc.

What do you guys think?
 
Hi All

Please reduce the G drive disk space or the server will stop working.

All irrelevant ,redundant and personal data on the G drive must be permanently removed and this includes the Z Common folder.

You co-operation is appreciated.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A copy of a mail from our IT dept. I think you are right, nothing crashes except possibly networked apps that are being used, so software, not hardware.
 
Thanks for your reply! Yeah exactly...

So if users are using a program on their workstation that accesses a file on the network disk that has approximately 80GB left then there is no possible way that could conflict with the program right? The files they work with are < 1Mbyte
 
It'll keep working until the files can't fit!

What sort of files are they working with?

If it's a video editing company with 25 employees all saving to the network, then I'd worry about the remaining free space!

On the other hand, if it's just office documents, it'll be fine
 
IT should take steps to reduce the disk space consumed, by policies and routine maintenace. -- it's not not up to bill and jane on accounts to start managing the space on the network disks - that's IT's job!
 
Vir said:
Is there any thruth in what they say. As far as I know... nothing CRASHES but when there is like a few KB/MB left ofcourse files can't be written to the disks etc.

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

correct unless ......

the installer of the server was some special spacker and created one partition for data/ os/ email (say you are running exchange) and database (say oracle)..

in that were the case, Exchange would shut down due to disk space, oracle would probably crash and the OS would have a nervous break down.

MS Access databases would probably "crash" ones its out of space (if hosted on the full shared drive)

anyone with an open document will probably have to save it locally...
 
@whitecrook
Yes I fully agree, they are busy archiving as we speak (it was needed).

@edscdk
Ok well it's like this. I work at a translation company. The translators here use a program that accesses its to be translated files (itd's) on the network share and its translation memories (.mdb) access files on the network share as well.

They think that somehow when the server get's below 100GB everything becomes slower, programs crash etc.

I do not agree. I myself use the same programs and access these files from the same network share and do NOT have these problems they claim.
 
It's because , once, a long time ago - the system crashed for *some reason*. This may have been any rational reason, but it just so happens that somebody noticed the free disk space at that time and said OMG! disk space less than 100GB (cos, well, 100GB is a nice round figure) and from that moment on, that's the way it was. Disk space going less than 100GB is a forewarning of a darker time, one that the peasants, ahem, office workers, don't want to go back to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom