[Support]: Misleading free space reported on Storage Stats

[bobemoe]

Checklist

• I have updated to the latest available Frigate version.
• I have cleared the cache of my browser.
• I have tried a different browser to see if it is related to my browser.
• I have tried reproducing the issue in incognito mode to rule out problems with any third party extensions or plugins I have installed.

Describe the problem you are having

Looking at the "Storage Stats" page, I see:

Which, looking at recordings saying 21.9GB of 823GB leads me to believe I have 800GB free space!
However in reality I only have 149GB free space, as see from du inside the container:

root@9d46d2cf4802:/opt/frigate# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
overlay         824G  634G  149G  82% /
tmpfs            64M     0   64M   0% /dev
shm              64M  2.0M   63M   4% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2       824G  634G  149G  82% /config
tmpfs           954M   21M  934M   3% /tmp/cache

Is this expected? I guess its true to say 21.9GB of the 823GB disk is used for recordings. But saying that without also saying that 600GB is also used by OS/other storage seems to make it useless?

Nowhere does it say how much free space there is?

I am concerned this means free space calculation is inaccurate and will let the disk fill up without triggering the disk full cleanup process?

Steps to reproduce

1. install frigate with docker onto a disk that is already partly full
2. view storage stats

Version

0.14.1-f4f3cfa

In which browser(s) are you experiencing the issue with?

FireFox 115.5.0esr (64-bit)

Frigate config file

mqtt:
  enabled: false

# NOTE: Can be overridden at the camera level
objects:
  # Optional: list of objects to track from labelmap.txt (default: shown below)
  track:
    - person
    - car
    - cat
    - dog
    - truck
    - bicycle
    - bird
    - horse
    - sheep
    - cow
    - motorcycle

cameras:
  Cam1:
    enabled: true
    ffmpeg:
      inputs:
        - path: rtsp://xxxx/Streaming/Channels/102
          roles:
            - detect
        - path: rtsp://xxxx/Streaming/Channels/101
          roles:
            - record
    detect:
      enabled: true # <---- disable detection until you have a working camera feed
#      width: 1280
#      height: 720
    zones:
      Outside:
        coordinates: 0.471,0.191,0.242,0.341,0.234,0.189,0.09,0.287,0.213,0.016,0.495,0.054
        loitering_time: 0
        inertia: 3
      Driveway:
        coordinates: 0,0.357,0.228,0.187,0.247,0.321,0.48,0.191,0.991,0.99,0,1
        loitering_time: 0
        inertia: 3
      Car_Park:
        coordinates: 0.435,0.227,0.516,0.014,0.898,0.09,1,0.225,1,0.988
        loitering_time: 0
    review:
      alerts:
        required_zones:
          - Driveway
          - Car_Park
      detections:
        required_zones: Outside
    record:
      enabled: true
      retain:
        days: 3
        mode: motion
      events:
        retain:
          default: 30
          mode: motion

    objects:
      filters:
        car:
          mask: 0,0,0.229,0.191,0.334,0.996,0,1
    motion:
      mask: 0,0.486,0.209,0.006,0.901,0.102,1,0.209,1,0,0,0
version: 0.14

docker-compose file or Docker CLI command

version: "3.9"
services:
  frigate:
    container_name: frigate
    privileged: true # this may not be necessary for all setups
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
    shm_size: "64mb" # update for your cameras based on calculation above
#    devices:
#      - /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb # Passes the USB Coral, needs to be modified for other versions
#      - /dev/apex_0:/dev/apex_0 # Passes a PCIe Coral, follow driver instructions here https://coral.ai/docs/m2/get-started/#2a-on-linux
#      - /dev/video11:/dev/video11 # For Raspberry Pi 4B
#      - /dev/dri/renderD128:/dev/dri/renderD128 # For intel hwaccel, needs to be updated for your hardware
    volumes:
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - ./config:/config
      - ./storage:/media/frigate
      - type: tmpfs # Optional: 1GB of memory, reduces SSD/SD Card wear
        target: /tmp/cache
        tmpfs:
          size: 1000000000
    ports:
      - "8971:8971"
      - "5000:5000" # Internal unauthenticated access. Expose carefully.
      - "8554:8554" # RTSP feeds
      - "8555:8555/tcp" # WebRTC over tcp
      - "8555:8555/udp" # WebRTC over udp
    environment:
      FRIGATE_RTSP_PASSWORD: "password"

Relevant Frigate log output

none

Relevant go2rtc log output

none

Operating system

Debian

Install method

Docker Compose

Network connection

Wired

Camera make and model

hikvision

Screenshots of the Frigate UI's System metrics pages

as above

Any other information that may be helpful

No response

[NickM-27]

this is not a bug and is working as designed. in the previous version of frigate it showed total used space and users found it confusing. Frigate is not a place to see total storage usage, it shows how much storage is used by Frigate's recordings

[xconverge]

We should probably change the wording on "Unused Free Space" because that is misleading IMO, this is very much not "free space". I can't think of a better alternative though.... "Available to Frigate" isn't any better

[hawkeye217]

"Unused" is probably fine

[bobemoe]

If this isn't the place to see total storage usage then maybe don't show the total disk size at all? Just show what is used.

If you want to show total disk size, then I think you need to include actual free space.

Maybe "Recordings" shouldnt be in the overview as it is a bit out of place with the other overview items, and just be "/media/frigate" showing true disk use/free as per the other /tmp/cache and /dev/shm devices? That would feel more consistent and less confusing to me.

It looks like the new Camera Storage would be the place to show known frigate usage, maybe unnecessary to show free space in that section if its shown in overview.

Just my thoughts, take what you will :)

[NickM-27]

Maybe "Recordings" shouldnt be in the overview as it is a bit out of place with the other overview items, and just be "/media/frigate" showing true disk use/free as per the other /tmp/cache and /dev/shm devices? That would feel more consistent and less confusing to me.

That's how it worked in previous versions and users complained because they wanted to know what frigate was using not what general storage was.

[bobemoe]

That's how it worked in previous versions and users complained because they wanted to know what frigate was using not what general storage was.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Cant we see general storage AND what frigate is using/actual free space?

looks like I'm late to this party so I wont chip in too much more at the end of your redesign ;)