FAST Search index Out of Disk Space

 

Generally speaking, indexing would run out of disk space if there was not 2.5X space available for data_index, where X is the size of an ‘idle’ index set (indexerinfo -a activeindexset outputs the current active directories) on disk.

So let’s say you had 5 partitions currently searchable, which occupied 1TB between them all. During indexing, new partitions may occupy up to an additional 1.5TB, for a total of 2.5TB until indexing completes. Once it does, you would be back down to 1TB usage.

You can also see the currently active partitions with powershell –

C:\FASTSearch\data\data_index\> get-childitem -recurse -include *.inusebysearch | % {$_.directoryname}

Here are few things to consider.

· Never put index on C:\ drive, system update and other things my eat lots of disk space.

· Have a separate disk for fast search.

· Keep eye on total item in index and size of the index, this gives you a rough estimate about your future need when index will grow.

 

In Logs you may get following errors

 

[2012-08-31 13:42:04.691] CRITICAL   indexer resource_checker: Low on disk space for INDEX folder(s) (2310 MBs available)
[2012-08-31 13:42:04.691] CRITICAL   indexer resource_checker: Low on disk space for VAR folder (C:\FASTSE~1\var) (2310 MBs available)
[2012-08-31 13:42:04.691] CRITICAL   indexer resource_checker: Low on disk space for Fault-Tolerant storage (C:\FASTSE~1\data/ftStorage) (2310 MBs available)
[2012-08-31 13:42:14.176] WARNING    indexer index_producer (0): Aborting index producer as we are low on disk

 

To resolve issue we create junction so that we can point to a drive where we have enough disk Space .

 

Junctions

A junction (also called a soft link) differs from a hard link in that the storage objects it references are separate directories, and a junction can link directories located on different local volumes on the same computer. Otherwise, junctions operate identically to hard links. Junctions are implemented through reparse points.

Assuming the same conditions in the Hard Links section, the following references are permitted as junctions:

  • C:\dira linked to C:\dirb\dirc
  • C:\dirx linked to D:\diry

The following are not:

  • C:\dira\one.txt linked to C:\dirb\two.txt
  • C:\dir1 linked to Z:\dir2

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365006(v=vs.85).aspx

 

Steps to move index to other location.

 

  1. Stop the FAST Search for SharePoint service.
  2. Stop the FAST Search for SharePoint Monitoring service.
  3. Move %FASTSEARCH%\data to the larger storage you have added.
  4. Run the following in a command prompt: mklink /j %FASTSEARCH%\data %NEW_LOCATION%\data
  5. Start the FAST Search for SharePoint Service.

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2506015