Delete VM does not reduce the disk usage

[Miro_I]

Hello,
I deleted all backups under a VM no longer needed. Then i ran garbage collection. The storage use did not drop and shows same as before del+GC.
Why unneeded backups are not deleted from disk?

 

[dignus]

Takes 24 hours + 5 minutes.

 

[Neobin]

For context:

The garbage collection will only remove chunks that haven't been used for at least one day (exactly 24h 5m). This grace period is necessary because chunks in use are marked by touching the chunk which updates the atime (access time) property. Filesystems are mounted with the relatime option by default. This results in a better performance by only updating the atime property if the last access has been at least 24 hours ago. The downside is that touching a chunk within these 24 hours will not always update its atime property.

Chunks in the grace period will be logged at the end of the garbage collection task as Pending removals.

https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/backup-client.html#garbage-collection

 

[Miro_I]

If PBS is shut down for 2 days and then started, would it remove all chunks as their atime will be older than 24h+5min?

 

[Dunuin]

Yes, it don't has to be running all the time. Just 24h +5min time passed between the prune and GC.

 

[Miro_I]

I meant would it delete valid chunks (these i do not want to be deleted) if they were not accessed for 2 days due shutdown?

 

[Dunuin]

I meant would it delete valid chunks (these i do not want to be deleted) if they were not accessed for 2 days due shutdown?

No, wont delete valid chunks. Thats all marking chunks and deleting chunks in done phase 1+2 of the GC.
The 24h + min is just so you could use relatime without deleting valid chunks.