memory: snapshot — Ada sizing corrected; prune and drives are orthogonal

comfy-dev's disk-vs-catalog diff and a recount of my own figures both
landed on this thread. Two numbers were wrong and both were headed for
the operator's sizing conversation.

- My ~90% was a double-count. I read ALLOC 1.45T while their pull was
  running and then added the full ~112 GB on top; most of it was already
  in that reading. "Onboarded" is not "landed". Settled payload is
  ~1.47 TiB and the as-bought mirror lands at 84%, not 90%.
- comfy-dev's "pruning gets us nearer 45%" is the striped figure. On the
  as-bought pair mirrored, deleting all ~215 GiB of unreferenced weights
  still lands at 72%, with ~140 GiB of runway on a store that took on
  ~100 GiB in one day. The constraint is vdev layout, not payload — a
  1.75 TiB pool stays 1.75 TiB whatever goes in it.
- So the prune audit and the drive purchase are independent decisions
  and neither gates the cutover. Presenting them to the operator that
  way rather than as a trade.

Also recorded: pool arithmetic (1.75 / 3.49 / 3.57 TiB), the mirror-vdev
smallest-member gotcha if the new drives get paired one-each with the
1.92s, comfy-dev's 34 GiB of uncatalogued LTX 2.5, and an open question
back to them on whether the H3 encoder's nvfp4 pin was set under a
Blackwell assumption that sm_89 does not satisfy.

Memory-only; no version bump per the SemVer SKIP list.

persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-ada-inference-server-r750xa.md

@@ -75,17 +75,26 @@ both cheaper and likely faster than four more SATA drives.
 
 ⚠ **CAPACITY, not throughput, is the binding constraint — the as-bought drives are SMALLER
 than the pool they receive from** (measured 2026-09-01). ComfyUI's `/storetank` on irv-ml1 is
-a 2x 2 TB mirror: SIZE **1.81 TiB**, ALLOC **1.45 TiB**, CAP **80%**, and growing as
+a 2x 2 TB mirror: SIZE **1.81 TiB**, ALLOC **1.45 TiB**, CAP **80%**. Settled payload
-comfy-dev's ~112 GB batch lands (-> ~1.56 TiB). The R750xa's 2x **1.92 TB** mirrored is only
+**~1.47 TiB**. The R750xa's 2x **1.92 TB** mirrored is only **~1.75 TiB** — smaller than the
-**~1.74 TiB** — the migration would arrive at **~90% full** with zero growth room, past the
+source pool — so the migration arrives at **~84% full** with no growth room, past the ~80%
-~80% line where ZFS allocation degrades. Compression buys nothing: safetensors measured
+line where ZFS allocation degrades. Compression buys nothing: safetensors measured
 `compressratio 1.00x`, `logicalused == used`.
 
 **-> Add 2x 2 TB SATA SSD to the buy list.** Six of eight bays free, HBA355i has the ports;
-two mirror vdevs striped = **~3.49 TiB at ~45%**, redundancy intact. Cheapest line on this
+two mirror vdevs = **~3.57 TiB at ~41%**, redundancy intact. Cheapest line on this buy list
-buy list and it does not gate the cutover window. The no-spend alternative is striping the
+and it does not gate the cutover window. The no-spend alternative is striping the as-bought
-as-bought pair (same ~3.49 TiB, **no redundancy**) — only acceptable if irv-ml1 retains its
+pair (~3.49 TiB, **no redundancy**) — only acceptable if irv-ml1 retains its copy, which makes
-copy, which makes retain a requirement rather than a recommendation.
+retain a requirement rather than a recommendation.
+
+⚠ **Pruning does NOT substitute for the drives.** comfy-dev found ~215 GiB of unreferenced
+weights; deleting every byte still lands the as-bought *mirror* at **72%**. The constraint is
+**vdev layout**, not payload — a 1.75 TiB pool stays 1.75 TiB whatever goes in it. The prune
+audit and the drive purchase are independent decisions.
+
+⚠ **Build-time: pair like with like.** A mirror vdev caps at its smallest member; pairing each
+new 2 TB with an existing 1.92 TB caps both vdevs at 1.92 TB and wastes ~150 GiB. Correct:
+the two 1.92s as one vdev, the two new drives as the other.
 → [[2026-09-01-ada-migration-branch-a]]
 
 **UNCHECKED, and it may moot the whole bay question:** free PCIe slots. Riser Config 0 is
@@ -113,7 +122,7 @@ circuit this lands on before racking, not after.**
 |---|---|---|
 | RDIMM 16 GB 3200 2Rx8 | **`M04W6`** | **8** → restores 256 GB, all 16 slots, all 8 channels/socket |
 | NVIDIA 12VHPWR adapter | **`930-00030-1546-000`** | **2** |
-| 2 TB SATA SSD (any; match/exceed the MX500s) | — | **2** → pool ~3.49 TiB at ~45%; without it the migration lands at ~90% |
+| 2 TB SATA SSD (any; match/exceed the MX500s) | — | **2** → pool ~3.57 TiB at ~41%; without it the migration lands at ~84%. Pair the two NEW drives together, not one-each with a 1.92 |
 
 **Only if the iDRAC inventory shows them absent:** `12XPY`, `9TR6X`, `4RW1P`, `W4K7M`,
 `XC48N`, `6C77X`, `CP67W`, `CXYF8`, `H4D7D`, `N61TK`, `HXJDR`, `W1P56`, `C2JNP`,

persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-ada-migration-branch-a.md

@@ -87,25 +87,98 @@ Measured 2026-09-01 (`zpool list` / `zfs list` on irv-ml1), not derived:
 Safetensors are **incompressible** (1.00x measured) — the destination needs the same physical
 bytes regardless of what compression is set to at recv. There is no free win there.
 
-The R750xa shipped **2x 1.92 TB** SATA SSD. Those are smaller than the 2 TB MX500s:
+**Pool sizes** (decimal TB -> TiB; a mirror vdev shows ~raw member size, confirmed against
+the measured 1.81T for the 2x 2 TB source):
 
-    dest pool (2x 1.92 TB mirror)      ~1.74 TiB     <- SMALLER than the 1.81 TiB source
+    2x 1.92 TB mirrored          1.75 TiB     <- SMALLER than the 1.82 TiB source pool
-    payload today                       1.45 TiB
+    2x 1.92 TB striped           3.49 TiB     (no redundancy)
-    payload after comfy-dev's batch    ~1.56 TiB
+    4 drives, two mirror vdevs   3.57 TiB     (1.92 pair + 2.0 pair)
-    occupancy on arrival               ~90%
 
-It fits, and it arrives already past the ~80% line where ZFS allocation degrades, with no
+**Payload** — ⚠ corrected 2026-09-01, infra-ops' first figure was inflated:
-growth room, for a workload whose whole history is "the model store grows."
+
+    1493.9 GiB   measured on disk by comfy-dev (weight files)
+      ~11 GiB    remainder of their batch still arriving
+    ~1.47 TiB    settled payload
+    ~1.56 TiB    what infra-ops first quoted -- ~90 GiB of DOUBLE-COUNT
+
+⚠ **The double-count:** infra-ops read `ALLOC 1.45T` while the pull was running, then added
+the full ~112 GB on top as if none had landed. Most of it was already inside that reading —
+the 93.4 GiB comfy-dev lists as "today's batch, not yet onboarded" was **on disk, just not
+catalogued**. **Onboarded is not landed.** Occupancy quoted as 90% is really **84%**.
+
+    config                  full (1.47 TiB)   pruned (-215 GiB)
+    as-bought mirror              84%               72%
+    as-bought stripe              42%               36%
+    +2 drives, two vdevs          41%               35%
+
+## ⚠ PRUNE AND DRIVES ARE ORTHOGONAL — pruning cannot rescue the as-bought mirror
+
+comfy-dev diffed every weight file against the catalog + all 254 workflow graphs:
+
+    on disk                    1493.9 GiB
+    referenced                 1121.2 GiB
+    unreferenced                374.6 GiB  (198 files)
+      - today's batch            93.4 GiB  expected, catalogued at onboarding
+      - *ADA-PENDING* builds     24.2 GiB  deliberate, correct on Ada
+      = UNEXPLAINED             257.1 GiB  (183 files), ~215 GiB of it concentrated in
+                                           diffusion_models / checkpoints / text_encoders
+
+⚠ **comfy-dev's own caveat, keep it attached to the number:** "referenced" = catalog +
+graphs, which does NOT know about custom-node dependencies — grounding-dino, florence2, sams,
+ultralytics, depthanything, facexlib, vitmatte, ipadapter, clip_vision, controlnet,
+upscale_models (~20 GiB) are over-counted as orphans and are almost certainly live.
+
+**comfy-dev suggested this might land the as-bought disks "nearer 45% than 90%". It does
+not** — 45% is the *striped* figure. Pruning all 215 GiB on the as-bought pair **mirrored**
+gives **72%**, which leaves ~140 GiB before the 80% line on a store that took on ~100 GiB in
+a single day. The capacity problem is a **vdev layout** problem: the as-bought pair mirrored
+is a 1.75 TiB pool whatever we put in it, and deleting payload does not make the destination
+bigger. Only adding drives or dropping redundancy does.
+
+**Therefore the audit does not gate the cutover in either direction** — buy the drives on the
+layout argument and the audit becomes leisure hygiene; skip them and the audit cannot rescue
+it. Two independent questions for the operator, not a trade. comfy-dev is NOT deleting
+anything: unreferenced is not safe-to-delete, pins rot, and it is a per-file operator call.
 
 **Recommendation to the operator: add 2x 2 TB SATA SSD to the R750xa order** — six of eight
-bays are free, HBA355i has the ports, two mirror vdevs striped gives ~3.49 TiB at ~45%
+bays are free, HBA355i has the ports, two mirror vdevs gives ~3.57 TiB at ~41% with
-occupancy with redundancy intact. Cheapest line on a buy list that already carries 8x `M04W6`
+redundancy intact. Cheapest line on a buy list that already carries 8x `M04W6` and 2x
-and 2x `930-00030-1546-000`, and ordering now does not gate the cutover.
+`930-00030-1546-000`, and ordering now does not gate the cutover.
 → [[2026-09-01-ada-inference-server-r750xa]]
 
-The alternative — **striping the as-bought pair** for the same ~3.49 TiB with no redundancy —
+⚠ **BUILD-TIME GOTCHA — pair like with like.** A ZFS mirror vdev is capped at its SMALLEST
+member. Pairing each new 2 TB drive with an existing 1.92 TB caps both vdevs at 1.92 TB and
+throws away ~150 GiB. Correct layout: the two 1.92s as one vdev, the two new drives as the
+other (1.75 + 1.82 = 3.57 TiB).
+
+The no-spend alternative — **striping the as-bought pair** for ~3.49 TiB with no redundancy —
 is viable ONLY under retain (below), because then irv-ml1's mirror is the only redundancy.
 
+## Incidental — LTX 2.5 was already on disk, uncatalogued
+
+comfy-dev's diff turned up 34 GiB of LTX 2.5 (`ltx-2.5-22b-distilled-transformer` 20.0 GiB +
+`gemma4-12b-with-proj-ltx-2.5` 14.3 GiB, both int8-convrot) that nobody knew was there — after
+they had spent part of the day reporting LTX 2.5 as the strategic acquisition of the civitai
+scan and queuing a 15.9 GB REDGraft 2.5 checkpoint on top of a base already present. Their
+domain, no infra-ops action.
+
+⚠ **OPEN QUESTION back to comfy-dev, unanswered:** `qwen3vl_32b_minimax_h3_int8_convrot`
+(25.3 GiB) is listed as an orphan because the pin favours a 15.7 GB nvfp4 build over "the
+27.1 GB int8 one". **sm_89 Ada has no native nvfp4** — that is Blackwell, and it is the same
+fact that made their OTHER pin (away from a 7.74 GB nvfp4, toward a 12.84 GB int8) correct.
+If the H3 pin was set under a Blackwell assumption, the int8 file may be the one that is right
+on the new box. Asked, not asserted; infra-ops may be conflating two pins.
+
+## THE PATTERN THIS THREAD KEEPS PRODUCING
+
+Three findings in one day, all from measurement, each beating a confident derivation:
+
+1. comfy-dev's `docker inspect` across 12 containers — corrected infra-ops' branch (b) reason.
+2. infra-ops' `zpool list` — caught the destination being smaller than the source.
+3. comfy-dev's disk-vs-catalog diff — caught 257 GiB of orphans and 34 GiB of unknown LTX 2.5.
+
+Same lesson as `docs/pfi/training-throughput-playbook.md` §4, on storage instead of training.
+
 ## Retain vs reclaim on irv-ml1 after the move — RECOMMEND RETAIN
 
 After cutover irv-ml1 holds a ~1.8 TB mirror whose only remaining live content is ~4 GB of
@@ -126,9 +199,13 @@ comfy-dev raised it; infra-ops concurs. **Operator's call.** Two independent rea
 - **Cutover window** — operator's, not yet set.
 - **2x 2 TB SATA SSD for the R750xa** — surfaced to the operator, not yet ordered.
 - **Retain vs reclaim irv-ml1's `/storetank`** — surfaced to the operator, retain recommended.
-- **comfy-dev's ~112 GB batch** — unheld by infra-ops, but they are deliberately NOT pulling
+- **comfy-dev's per-file prune audit** — offered, explicitly NOT gating the cutover, waiting
-  until the operator approves putting that much onto his infrastructure. Their call, correct
+  on the operator wanting it. Their judgment, not infra-ops'.
-  instinct. Manifest pinned and staged (`29324e9`). **Landing as of 2026-09-01** — SHAs
+- **The H3 encoder nvfp4-vs-int8 pin** — infra-ops asked whether it was set under a Blackwell
-  verifying green; source pool `used` moved 1.39T -> 1.45T during the exchange.
+  assumption; unanswered.
+- **comfy-dev's ~112 GB batch** — unheld by infra-ops; they deliberately did not pull until
+  the operator approved putting that much onto his infrastructure. Manifest pinned and staged
+  (`29324e9`). **Landed 2026-09-01**, SHAs green; 93.4 GiB on disk awaiting catalogue
+  onboarding, ~11 GiB still arriving at last measurement.
 
-Thread: `01M1EYBSYA4QRYK54PX0K1S8CS`.
+Threads: `01M1EYBSYA4QRYK54PX0K1S8CS` (strategy), `01M1FNAN1BTABXRPWW29KPS2Y7` (sizing).

persistent-memory.md

@@ -122,8 +122,9 @@ _As of 2026-09-01 — **the GX10 is on the operator's desk, NOT racked. Standing
 - **▶ ADA INFERENCE SERVER (R750xa `JPJ1ZP3`) — awaiting an iDRAC inventory.** 2× RTX 6000
   Ada to be fitted; ComfyUI's new home at NH3. **Order regardless: 8× `M04W6` RDIMM (restores
   factory 256 GB), 2× NVIDIA `930-00030-1546-000` 12VHPWR adapters, and 2× 2 TB SATA SSD**
-  (the as-bought 1.92 TB pair mirrored is ~1.74 TiB — SMALLER than the 1.81 TiB pool it
+  (the as-bought 1.92 TB pair mirrored is ~1.75 TiB — SMALLER than the 1.82 TiB pool it
-  receives from, landing the migration at ~90% full). Everything else waits
+  receives from, landing the migration at ~84% full; pruning cannot fix it, only vdev layout
+  can). Everything else waits
   on the inventory — the invoice omits risers, GPU cables and the 6 high-performance fans, but
   omission is not proof of removal. **Add free-PCIe-slot inventory to the pull** — an NVMe
   add-in card would bypass the SAS/SATA backplane and moot the drive-bay question.
@@ -139,10 +140,12 @@ _As of 2026-09-01 — **the GX10 is on the operator's desk, NOT racked. Standing
   Branch (b) rejected on the trade (comfy-dev corrected the *reason*: only comfyui mounts
   `/storetank`, so (b) was unavailable during the transition, not structurally).
   **TWO decisions now sitting with the operator: (1) add 2× 2 TB SATA SSD to the R750xa order
-  or the pool lands at ~90%; (2) retain vs reclaim irv-ml1's `/storetank` after the move —
+  or the pool lands at ~84%; (2) retain vs reclaim irv-ml1's `/storetank` after the move —
   RETAIN recommended** (two paywalled pins mean a from-source rebuild cannot reproduce the
-  stack; and under a no-spend striped destination it is the only redundancy). comfy-dev's
+  stack; and under a no-spend striped destination it is the only redundancy). comfy-dev also
-  ~112 GB pull is landing now. → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-ada-migration-branch-a.md`
+  found ~215 GiB of unreferenced weights and offers a per-file prune audit — **explicitly NOT
+  gating**, because pruning all of it still lands the as-bought mirror at 72%.
+  → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-ada-migration-branch-a.md`
 - **⏸ Worldtree `route_not_found` awaiting the operator's DEPLOY PUSH.** Approved and landed
   by worldtree-dev as `ece0250c` (wire 2.5.0→2.6.0). main auto-deploys demo. Until it ships,
   "trust the HTTP status, not `error_code`" still applies on running instances.
@@ -164,7 +167,7 @@ _As of 2026-09-01 — **the GX10 is on the operator's desk, NOT racked. Standing
 
 - `[2026-09-01]` **The Ada inference server is a used Dell R750xa (`JPJ1ZP3`) and the reseller stripped four things Dell shipped** — half the RAM, the 2400 W PSUs, and the GPU risers/cables/fans are absent from the invoice. Card is **RTX 6000 Ada**, not L40S. GPU power chain resolved via NVIDIA `930-00030-1546-000`. NVMe in the drive bays is CLOSED (SAS/SATA backplane). → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-ada-inference-server-r750xa.md`
 - `[2026-09-01]` **pfi-gx10 onboarded headless — and it is the intended new home for run 3c, which died on a tripped breaker.** GB10/sm_121/aarch64, 121 GB unified. NOT racked yet. Bare of any CUDA stack; probe throughput before porting. → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-pfi-gx10-onboarding.md`
-- `[2026-09-01]` **Ada migration is `zfs send` (branch a) — and the DESTINATION IS SMALLER THAN THE SOURCE.** 99 MB/s measured; ~3.9 h. ⚠ Measured 2026-09-01: `storetank` = 1.81 TiB pool, 1.45 TiB used, **80% CAP already**, compression off / `compressratio 1.00x` (safetensors are incompressible — no win at recv). The R750xa's as-bought 2× 1.92 TB mirrored is ~1.74 TiB → arrival at **~90%**. Fix = 2× 2 TB SATA SSD on the buy list (6 bays free) → ~3.49 TiB at ~45% with redundancy. Also: **branch (b)'s original reason was WRONG** — comfy-dev enumerated all 12 containers, only `comfyui` mounts `/storetank`, so (b) was unavailable *during the transition*, not structurally (right conclusion, wrong reason — infra-ops reasoned about the BOX when the question was the MOUNT). Plus the retain-vs-reclaim call and the two-boxes confusion (the Ada box and the GX10 are DIFFERENT machines). → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-ada-migration-branch-a.md`
+- `[2026-09-01]` **Ada migration is `zfs send` (branch a) — and the DESTINATION IS SMALLER THAN THE SOURCE.** 99 MB/s measured; ~3.9 h. ⚠ Measured 2026-09-01: `storetank` = 1.81 TiB pool, 1.45 TiB used, **80% CAP already**, compression off / `compressratio 1.00x` (safetensors are incompressible — no win at recv). Settled payload **~1.47 TiB**; the R750xa's as-bought 2× 1.92 TB mirrored is ~1.75 TiB → arrival at **~84%**. Fix = 2× 2 TB SATA SSD on the buy list (6 bays free) → ~3.57 TiB at ~41% with redundancy; **pair the two NEW drives together** (a mirror vdev caps at its smallest member). ⚠ **Pruning is NOT a substitute** — comfy-dev found ~215 GiB unreferenced, and deleting every byte still lands the as-bought mirror at 72%: the constraint is **vdev layout**, not payload, so the prune audit and the drive purchase are independent and neither gates the cutover. ⚠ **"Onboarded" is not "landed"** — infra-ops read `ALLOC` mid-pull and re-added the whole batch on top, inflating 84% to a quoted 90%. Also: **branch (b)'s original reason was WRONG** — comfy-dev enumerated all 12 containers, only `comfyui` mounts `/storetank`, so (b) was unavailable *during the transition*, not structurally (right conclusion, wrong reason — infra-ops reasoned about the BOX when the question was the MOUNT). Plus the retain-vs-reclaim call and the two-boxes confusion (the Ada box and the GX10 are DIFFERENT machines). → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-ada-migration-branch-a.md`
 - `[2026-09-01]` **Matrix: Synapse 1.120→1.159, appservice namespace opened, `/_synapse/admin` closed to the internet, alias convention ratified.** Schema migrations are one-way; push is `event_id_only` and assembled on-device. → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-matrix-upgrade-and-hardening.md`
 - `[2026-09-01]` **A named failure class: a correct check aimed at the wrong object.** Six instances in one day across three sessions; re-running the same check cannot catch it. **Recommended for `docs/pfi/training-throughput-playbook.md` §4 — NOT YET WRITTEN, awaiting operator.** → `persistent-memory.d/2026-09-01-wrong-object-measurement.md`
 - `[2026-09-01]` **Ops boundary ruled by the operator: worldtree-dev writes the bridge code; infra-ops OPERATES the Worldtree/Matrix instances and may change them.** Corrects a mis-route where infra-ops asked worldtree-dev to provision an account on a box it does not run. Tracked at `931bac8` + althing `01M1F4PK796EDGDCBKZ9W3JC0S`.