How long can fsck take on a 30 TB volume

fsck

In mid-November, a VPS that I am renting from a hosting company stopped responding. When I contacted support, they explained that a power outage in the datacenter caused a forced reboot and fsck. Eventually, I asked why it was taking so long, and was told that the size of the volume is 30 TB. The last time I received an update was in February, and they have not responded to my most recent inquiry.

I understand that fsck can be very slow for some file systems, but is it possible for fsck to take 6 months on a 30 TB volume, or should I assume that this hosting company is lying to me so that I continue to pay my bill every month?

Best Answer

fsck speed mainly depends on the number of files and how they are spread in the respective directory. That said, 6 month for a fsck is absolutely absurd: it should had completed in some hours at most, especially if using xfs which has the speedy xfs_repair utility. Here you can find some fsck run at a scale - all completed under one hour (3600s). So, it is not possible that your fsck is still running.

Anyway, an unexpected power loss will not cause a full-blow fsck, rather only a very fast (some seconds) journal replay. However, if some key files was damaged, the OS can be unbootable.

But they probably just lied to you. You should stop paying immediately, ask for an explanation and apply for a total refund.

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