Shared drive or NAS nearly full — what to do and what not to delete

Storage is nearly full: what to do and what not to delete

A warning appears saying the shared drive or the NAS is nearly full, or people start getting errors when they try to save. This is one of the most common tickets we see, and it is not a sign anyone has done anything wrong. Business data grows, and storage that was generous three years ago fills up quietly.

The important thing at this point is not to rush. A drive at 95 per cent full is a problem to schedule. A drive where someone has deleted the wrong folder to make room is a much bigger problem.

What actually takes up the space

In small business file shares, the space is almost never in the ordinary documents people worry about. Deleting a thousand Word files rarely moves the needle. It is nearly always one of these:

  • Video and audio. Site footage, training recordings, meeting recordings, marketing clips. One video can be larger than a year of documents.
  • Photo libraries. Job photos, product shots, event photos, especially straight off a modern phone or camera, and usually stored twice.
  • Old backups sitting in the wrong place. Copies of accounting files, database dumps, exports from an old system, or a full backup someone once saved onto the shared drive because it was the only place with room.
  • Duplicated project folders. "Project X", "Project X final", "Project X final v2", "Copy of Project X". Each is a full copy, not a shortcut.
  • Mailbox exports. PST or archive files someone saved when they left a role, or when an old mail system was migrated.
  • Design and CAD working files. Large by nature, and often kept alongside every previous revision.

Deleting is not the same as archiving

Deleting removes the file. Archiving moves it somewhere cheaper and slower, and keeps it. For most of what fills a shared drive, archiving is what you actually want. Completed jobs from four years ago still have to be findable if a dispute or an audit turns up, but they do not need to sit on fast storage that everyone touches daily.

The other thing worth knowing before you touch anything: deleting a file from a NAS or a shared drive often does not put it in a recycle bin. Depending on how the device is configured, it can be gone the moment you press delete, and the only way back is a restore from backup. That is not a reason to be frightened of your own files, but it is a reason not to do a clean-up in a hurry on a Friday afternoon.

Please ask before deleting anything from a shared drive

A shared drive is shared. The folder that looks like abandoned junk is, often enough, the folder someone in accounts opens once a quarter, or the source files a customer might ask for. You cannot tell from the outside, and neither can we without looking.

So the rule is simple. Your own desktop and downloads folder, clean up freely. The shared drive or NAS, ask first. It costs a short conversation and it has saved several businesses a very bad week.

Try this first

  1. Check your own Downloads and Desktop folders if they sit on the server. These are usually safe to clear and are often surprisingly full.
  2. Empty your own recycle bin on your computer. This does not free space on the server, but it rules out an easy one.
  3. Stop and note anything obviously enormous that you recognise — a folder of video from an event two years ago, for example. Write it down. Do not delete it yet.
  4. Tell everyone to hold off on any bulk clean-up until there is a plan. Several people deleting at once, with no record of what went, is how good data disappears.

We can tell you exactly where the space went

Rather than guessing, ask us for a storage report. We can produce a breakdown of what is using the space — largest folders, largest files, oldest untouched data, and duplicates — so the conversation becomes a short list of specific decisions instead of a hunt.

From there the options are usually some combination of archiving old projects to cheaper storage, moving media libraries somewhere better suited to them, clearing out genuine rubbish with the owner's sign-off, and, if the business has simply outgrown the device, adding capacity. We will tell you honestly which of those applies rather than selling you a bigger box by reflex.

Still stuck?

Log a ticket at portal.yougrowit.com.au or email support@yougrowit.com.au. If it is stopping you working right now, call 03 9028 4358.

Support hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm Melbourne time, excluding Victorian public holidays.

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