I didn't notice this until it was nearly too late. I had run out of metadata space so I ran btrfs balance start -v -dusage=0 /mnt/btrfsroot
That went fine, but I was still low on metadata space, so I tried a few variations: btrfs balance start -v -dusage=1 /mnt/btrfsroot btrfs balance start -v -dusage=5 /mnt/btrfsroot btrfs balance start -v -dusage=10 /mnt/btrfsroot I didn't run any of these to completion, I cancelled them after a few hours. I captured the output of a couple commands every once in a while: btrfs fi df /mnt/btrfsroot btrfs fi show /dev/sda5 What I didn't notice (because I was looking at the metadata space) was the Data total size. It starts out as: Data, single: total=4.61TiB, used=2.50TiB System, DUP: total=8.00MiB, used=576.00KiB System, single: total=4.00MiB, used=0.00 Metadata, DUP: total=46.50GiB, used=42.82GiB Metadata, single: total=8.00MiB, used=0.00 unknown, single: total=512.00MiB, used=0.00 Label: none uuid: e6818780-7d28-41fe-b7a8-e38b61a98621 Total devices 1 FS bytes used 2.54TiB devid 1 size 5.35TiB used 4.70TiB path /dev/sda5 Over time however, the Data total begins to drop: Data, single: total=4.56TiB, used=2.50TiB Data, single: total=4.41TiB, used=2.50TiB Data, single: total=4.23TiB, used=2.51TiB Data, single: total=4.00TiB, used=2.51TiB Data, single: total=3.59TiB, used=2.51TiB Data, single: total=3.35TiB, used=2.51TiB The drop corresponds to a drop in the "show" used amounts: devid 1 size 5.35TiB used 4.65TiB path /dev/sda5 devid 1 size 5.35TiB used 4.50TiB path /dev/sda5 devid 1 size 5.35TiB used 4.32TiB path /dev/sda5 devid 1 size 5.35TiB used 4.09TiB path /dev/sda5 devid 1 size 5.35TiB used 3.68TiB path /dev/sda5 devid 1 size 5.35TiB used 3.44TiB path /dev/sda5 System info: Ubuntu 14.04 Linux server4 4.4.0-38-generic #57~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 6 17:20:43 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux I had been running the 14.04 btrfs-progs version 3.12-1ubuntu0.1 I just upgraded to btrfs-progs 4.4.1~ubuntu14.04.1~ppa1 from a PPA, which allowed me to run # btrfs fi usage /mnt/btrfsroot/ Overall: Device size: 5.35TiB Device allocated: 3.44TiB Device unallocated: 1.91TiB Device missing: 0.00B Used: 2.59TiB Free (estimated): 2.75TiB (min: 1.80TiB) Data ratio: 1.00 Metadata ratio: 2.00 Global reserve: 512.00MiB (used: 0.00B) Data,single: Size:3.35TiB, Used:2.51TiB /dev/sda5 3.35TiB Metadata,DUP: Size:46.50GiB, Used:42.07GiB /dev/sda5 93.00GiB System,DUP: Size:32.00MiB, Used:416.00KiB /dev/sda5 64.00MiB Unallocated: /dev/sda5 1.91TiB Any suggestions? -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-btrfs" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html