[Gluster-users] Write failure on distributed volume with free space available

[Jeff Darcy]

On 01/28/2013 01:43 PM, Nux! wrote:
>> Thanks to "partner" on IRC who told me about this (quite big)
>> problem. Apparently in a distributed setup once a brick fills up
>> you start getting write failures. Is there a way to work around
>> this?

The way this is supposed to work is that if a brick is full then *new*
files will be created on other bricks with more space.  However,
*existing* files are not relocated, so a write that requires allocating
new space for a file on a full brick will fail.  There are three ways
that you can cause files to be relocated, freeing up space.

(1) A full rebalance via the CLI.

(2) Targeted rebalance of a directory using a special setxattr (see my
exchange with Dan Bretherton).

(3) Manual copying.  When you create the new file it will be created on
the brick with the most space, then when you complete the copy the space
used by the original will be freed.