I'm trying to figure out a strategy for my user shares and split levels.

after lots of reading some things aren't entirely clear to me and i thought it would be wise to check before making wrong decisions.

 

for "normal" directories it seems pretty straight forward

 

share   \   level1   \ level2     \  level3

Series  \   dexter  \ season1  \   files

Movies \    Akira   \  files

 

 

for series lvl2  wil keep all files in 1 season together, different seasons can be spread to all allowed disks according to allocation method.

for movies lvl1  all files stay in the same movie folders, movies can be spread to all allowed disks according to allocation method.

 

from the unraid manual here

If you set the Split level to 0 for a share, then all directories/files created under that share will be on the same disk where the share was originally created.

If you set the Split level high, e.g., 999 for a share, then every directory/file created under that share will get placed on a disk according to Allocation method.

 

split level 0 would keep all files to 1 disk good for  say a music collection and a very high splitlevel would make sure any files can be written anywhere according to allocation settings.

I read some other usage of splitlevel 0 in the wiki but I believe that is outdated.

assuming this is all correct this knowledge will be good for most of my shares.

There are some shares I can't come up with an acceptable split level due to different depths of the folder paths.

 

so question is How you can manually control what disk something is written to , this would also be great to fill up a nearly full disk

 

if it is possible to chance an existing shares allocation method (is it?) it seems possible , tho somehow it feels as this could get messy in complex thought out systems that one rather not change stuff in.

 

another way would be if one could access the single disks directly.

it seems allowing disk shares might be an key in this. but it seems there is no user protection for those.

 

to sum up the questions

1) are my assumptions on the use of split levels correct?

2) is it possible to change share attributes, allocation method etc. of an existing share?

3) is it possible to access disks directly so you can control where files are put, even when the share already has an allocation method?

4) if yes can one do so while having user protected access?

5) did I miss any method to have more control over files placement?

 

 

thanks for your patience all

 

 

 

interesting   thread here

 

it speaks about a third option that afaik isn't mentioned in the wiki.

 

Yes there is a way to do this.  A new feature was added in 4.4 that lets you 'tag' a directory to not be split.  Instead of specifying a number for the split level, you can specify a (non-numeric) string.  When a new object is created, if that string exists anywhere in the directory path of that object, then the object is created on the same disk as the object's directory.

 

with this it would be possible to determine a string that determines what files are kept together

 

 

update

taken from unofficial manual here

unRAID versions 4.4.x and below: If you set the Split level to 0 for a share, then all directories/files created under that share will be on the same disk where the share was originally created.

 

unRAID versions 4.5.x and above: An explicit value of "0" in the 'Split level' field means this:

 

When we are creating a new object (file or directory), we follow these rules:

 

First, we determine the set of disks that already contain the new objects parent directory. Second, we assign the disk to use, from among this set, according to the 'Allocation method' specified for the share.

it doesn't say how to get the same directory across multiple disks, maybe it is used to change  an shares attributes at a later point to keep it from expanding further to other disks

 

 

Currently a split level of 0 means YOU will create the parent directories where YOU want on the disks YOU wish and then unRAID will use them as it finds them.

thanks for your reply Joe.

 

sorry if this is a stupid question, but how would you manually create a folder on a specific disk?

 

is it correct to assume that if a user share is already spread-out over several disks it possible to chance the split level to 0 to keep it from expanding further?

thanks for your reply Joe.

 

sorry if this is a stupid question, but how would you manually create a folder on a specific disk?

 

is it correct to assume that if a user share is already spread-out over several disks it possible to chance the split level to 0 to keep it from expanding further?

Easiest way.  Enable disk shares.  Then create the directories as needed.  I keep my disk shares enabled as read/write, but hidden.

 

I can type in windows explorer

\\tower\disk3\

and see the disk3 share in file explorer.

thanks again Joe 

this is very handy

by the way is there any way to add security to disk shares?

if not might be a great feature request,