I created shares when I first built my server and I didn't know about split level then. Now all my media is on there and I don't know how to begin to rearrange them.

 

My movie share is like this , Movies/Movie Name/Movie Name.ext I think split level 2 is best for this config. My TV Shows share is like this TV Shows/Show Name/Season/ then it lists all the episodes. I'm not sure about the split level on the TV Shows, is it better to have the seasons span all the disks or is it better if each season stayed on a single disk, if yes which split level would be that. I have a basic understanding of split level issue but I don't want to make any more mistakes.

 

I have over 450 movies. Rearranging them manually is gonna suck. But I just wanted to make sure I don't have any other options before I wipe and retransfer the files (even they took over a day on GigE, about 4TB).

 

Sigh

Do you actually care about which disk hold what media on the server?

 

Many users want to know that each complete movie or TV show is stored on a single disk and they use the split level to maintain that. Others don't care and in that case it won't matter.

 

The easiest might be to make a new share and copy groups of files from the old share to the new share, which would automatically sort out the files. For example, open 2 Windows Explorers with the old and new share and then copy the files by right-click dragging and dropping. Once the each group of files is copied then delete the original ones from the old share. Once the copying is complete then delete the old share and re-name the new one to replace it.

 

There is a quirk in unRAID in that if you move files within a share they will stay on the same disk and not respect the split level or allocation method. I do not know if this also applies when moving files from one share to another share (I think it might not but I'm not sure). You could test move between the old and new share and if the files move disks then you can move them instead of copying them.

 

Peter

 

Isn't this very much like a reverse of the mover script process? I didn't dig into the rsync line but it seems as if that might be a much faster approach than SMB copies. Even if mover's version isn't suited, rsync would be the tool I'd use.

You could move the data to the cache disk and then let it write back to a new share in the right spot.

 

Peter

 

So is the split level number depending on how deep you want to split? 

 

For 0, I read that you specify the folders you want on each drive.

 

So for a Media share

 

disk1: Media/Movies/DVD

disk2: Media/Movies/BluRay

disk3: Media/Movies/BluRay

 

And it will only keep the movie files on those disks.

 

So would setting split level to 3, split the folders/files that are under DVD and BluRay? or the DVD and BluRay folders themselves?

So is the split level number depending on how deep you want to split? 

 

For 0, I read that you specify the folders you want on each drive.

 

So for a Media share

 

disk1: Media/Movies/DVD

disk2: Media/Movies/BluRay

disk3: Media/Movies/BluRay

 

And it will only keep the movie files on those disks.

 

So would setting split level to 3, split the folders/files that are under DVD and BluRay? or the DVD and BluRay folders themselves?

 

I believe at Split level 3 "DVD" and "BluRay" could live on any disk. But a folder under that would be confined to the disk written. So you could end up with...

\\disk1\media\movies\dvd\movie1\files.files

\\disk1\media\movies\dvd\movie3\files.files

\\disk2\media\movies\dvd\movie2\files.files

 

and so on...

 

Shawn

 

I'll just wipe the server and start moving files again.

 

My files are like this , /TOWER/Movies/Aliens/

                              /TOWER/Movies/Aliens 2/

Every movie has it's own folder so I guess if I want every movie to be on 1 disk I would need to set a split level of 1 so the Movies folder would span all drives but each movie would be on a single disk. Am I correct in this assumption ?

Do you actually care about which disk hold what media on the server?

 

 

I do.  Especially when playing back a movie from the unRaid server.   If the VOB's are split across more than one disk,  I risk a "spinup" delay in playback while that next drive comes 'alive'.

 

And, like the poster,  I did the same stupid thing -- so I'm following this thread for an answer to a 'best practice'.

 

I was planning on making a huge filename/path dump of everything at the /mnt/disk{xx} level and crafting something with an excel spreadsheet to do mv's or cp's to get things where I want.    

 

The cache drive idea is interesting -- let "it" figure it out.   "mv" to the cache drive?   and with the new "split level" let the cache drive process 'put things back'

I'll just wipe the server and start moving files again.

 

My files are like this , /TOWER/Movies/Aliens/

                               /TOWER/Movies/Aliens 2/

Every movie has it's own folder so I guess if I want every movie to be on 1 disk I would need to set a split level of 1 so the Movies folder would span all drives but each movie would be on a single disk. Am I correct in this assumption ?

 

Yes, a split level of 1 would be appropriate.

 

Peter