June 30, 201115 yr Hi, I have just installed unraid, 3 x 2TB disks so far. I'm looking to add another 3 after I purchase unraid. I have would like to have my NAS look like this: Disk 1 MOVIES - MOVIE FOLDER A A.MKV - MOVIE FOLDER C C.MKV Disk 2 MOVIES - MOVIE FOLDER B B.MKV - MOVIE FOLDER D D.MKV There will be no other data on there for now. I just need a movie folder on both disks, and it have it write to all disks... What split level do I need to use? 1 or 2? Also. Will I ever need to write directly to //TOWER/DISK1 or will I always just copy to \\TOWER\MOVIES and unraid will spread the movies across the disks? Do I need to worry about disk shares? No one else will be deleting or touching the array besides me. Thanks for you help in advance
June 30, 201115 yr Hi, I have just installed unraid, 3 x 2TB disks so far. I'm looking to add another 3 after I purchase unraid. I have would like to have my NAS look like this: Disk 1 MOVIES - MOVIE FOLDER A A.MKV - MOVIE FOLDER C C.MKV Disk 2 MOVIES - MOVIE FOLDER B B.MKV - MOVIE FOLDER D D.MKV There will be no other data on there for now. I just need a movie folder on both disks, and it have it write to all disks... What split level do I need to use? 1 or 2? Also. Will I ever need to write directly to //TOWER/DISK1 or will I always just copy to \\TOWER\MOVIES and unraid will spread the movies across the disks? Do I need to worry about disk shares? No one else will be deleting or touching the array besides me. Thanks for you help in advance Just copy to //Tower/Movies I would use split level 2 that way the movies folder can be created on all disks (Level 1) and Movie Folder A, Movie Folder C, and so on can be created on each disk under Movies (Level 2) By using split level two when your movie A folder fills up on disk 1 it can create another Movie A folder on disk2 when it is needed. I personally would not split movies A and C on disk one and B and D on disk two. I create the User Share Movies, set the split level and let UnRaid manage it. Less drives spinning if you keep everthing on one disk until it needs to fall over to the second for more space.
June 30, 201115 yr Use 1. You don't want a movie folder, e.g., movie A, to spilt because because this could cause a pause during playback while the second drive spins up if the video data is in multiple files. If all the movies are a single file then this will never be a problem and split level will not matter as long as its greater than zero.
June 30, 201115 yr what happens when the drive holding movie a fills up? It cant span to a new disk. Storing each movie in a folder for its name.. Disk1 Movies - Movies A -Aliens Would solve this That way movies and each letter of movie could expand to new disks but each movie would have to reside on a single disk.
June 30, 201115 yr Leave enough "min free space" so that this never happens. Having a VIDEO_TS rip span two disks will cause a problem unless you have a spin-up group, but that is a waste of electricity.
June 30, 201115 yr what happens when the drive holding movie a fills up? It cant span to a new disk. Storing each movie in a folder for its name.. Disk1 Movies - Movies A -Aliens Would solve this That way movies and each letter of movie could expand to new disks but each movie would have to reside on a single disk. Ok I did not complete this so it looks wrong.. What I meant to put was Disk1 Movies - Movies A -Aliens -Aliens.mkv or whatever format So movies was level one, Movies A was level 2 and each movie folder ie: Aliens could only exist on one drive keeping the movie together. I never considered the use of min free space to accomplish this without another directory level.
June 30, 201115 yr Hold on a second here something is confusing me. (not hard to do) In Mikesmiths example Disk 1 MOVIES - MOVIE FOLDER A A.MKV - MOVIE FOLDER C C.MKV level 2 should still work. Movies is Level 1, Movie Folder A is level 2 a single movie file such as A.MKV could never split across disks because it is a single file. If he were to rip a movie in dvd format the multiple video.ts files would end up in a video ts folder (that i would assume you would rename to the name of the movie. which would be a level 3 folder and would not span disks. You would never just rip all of your movies in video ts format to a single parent directory such as movie folder A. Is this correct or is my thinking about this twisted in some way?
June 30, 201115 yr Hold on a second here something is confusing me. (not hard to do) In Mikesmiths example Disk 1 MOVIES - MOVIE FOLDER A A.MKV - MOVIE FOLDER C C.MKV level 2 should still work. Movies is Level 1, Movie Folder A is level 2 a single movie file such as A.MKV could never split across disks because it is a single file. If he were to rip a movie in dvd format the multiple video.ts files would end up in a video ts folder (that i would assume you would rename to the name of the movie. which would be a level 3 folder and would not span disks. You would never just rip all of your movies in video ts format to a single parent directory such as movie folder A. Is this correct or is my thinking about this twisted in some way? Yes 2 would still work. 10 would work if all of the movies are singe file MKVs. But 1 is what he should use. 1 will work regardless of the movie format.
July 1, 201115 yr Ok 1 it is, I guess I don't have my head wrapped around split levels as well as I thought I did.
July 1, 201115 yr Your explanation was OK, but what happens if the OP goes and sticks an image or something similar into each movie directory? Just using level 1 ensures that a movie directory won't split to multiple disks. Peter
July 1, 201115 yr Author Thanks guys 1 it is Excited for my other disks to arrive Then I will make my purchase of unraid
July 1, 201115 yr Your explanation was OK, but what happens if the OP goes and sticks an image or something similar into each movie directory? Just using level 1 ensures that a movie directory won't split to multiple disks. Peter I see, I was not considering any movies being placed in the Movies folder itself, all in the Movie Folder (letter)
July 1, 201115 yr I don't think "Movie Folder A" was to represent "all movies starting with the letter 'A'". As you see, he had A.mkv, so it's more like: Disk1 -Movies --Aliens ---Aliens.mkv ---Aliens.jpg ---Aliens.fanart.jpg ---Aliens.nfo Split Level 1 would be better in case he uses a media jukebox, and has NFO/JPG artwork in his movie-title folder. So multiple drives would not need to spin up in the case of scraping his movies using local data.
July 1, 201115 yr I'm trying to wrap my head around this as well. I'm building my unRAID server tonight and after disk setup, I'll be copying all my files that are currently on my Synology NAS. Right now it's just one volume so I just drag whatever I want over to the share. I just don't want to deal with having to specify disks or anything. Here is a little of my directory structure, although some of them go deeper. NAS Shares ->iTunes ->Movies ->Jurassic Park ->Jurassic Park.mkv ->movie-trailer.mp4 ->Jurassic Park.nfo ->TV Shows ->Lost ->Season 1 ->S01E01.mkv ->Library ->Backups ->Images ->Desktop ->5-11-11 And so on. Do you count the longest structure and use that for your level? So if my longest path is 6 folders deep to find the file, then my level would be 6?
July 1, 201115 yr I don't think "Movie Folder A" was to represent "all movies starting with the letter 'A'". As you see, he had A.mkv, so it's more like: Disk1 -Movies --Aliens ---Aliens.mkv ---Aliens.jpg ---Aliens.fanart.jpg ---Aliens.nfo Split Level 1 would be better in case he uses a media jukebox, and has NFO/JPG artwork in his movie-title folder. So multiple drives would not need to spin up in the case of scraping his movies using local data. Now I understand where my thinking was off. I ASSUMED based on how my structure was setup where Movies A is a folder to cut down on time searching for a movie. My Structure is -Movies --Moives A - F ---Avatar ----Avatar.mkv So based on this I ASSUMED his move folder A was an actual folder. Thanks for clearing this up for me.
July 1, 201115 yr I'm trying to wrap my head around this as well. I'm building my unRAID server tonight and after disk setup, I'll be copying all my files that are currently on my Synology NAS. Right now it's just one volume so I just drag whatever I want over to the share. I just don't want to deal with having to specify disks or anything. Here is a little of my directory structure, although some of them go deeper. NAS Shares ->iTunes ->Movies ->Jurassic Park ->Jurassic Park.mkv ->movie-trailer.mp4 ->Jurassic Park.nfo ->TV Shows ->Lost ->Season 1 ->S01E01.mkv ->Library ->Backups ->Images ->Desktop ->5-11-11 And so on. Do you count the longest structure and use that for your level? So if my longest path is 6 folders deep to find the file, then my level would be 6? Now you count up to the level you'll allow spread across disks. So if you had a User Share named "iTunes", in the above example, you'd want to use split level 2, so that iTunes/Movies could be on any number of your disks (or those you specified to include), but the Jurassic Park folder and its contents would remain on only one drive. Also, this seems appropriate for your TV Shows, also--same scenario as I stated for Movies. Now, for Backups, that'll be a new Share, and you could use split level 1, 2, 3, or 4, depending on what the contents of the folder are like, and how they'll be accessed. If you want all of the backup images for your Desktop to remain on one drive only, you would use split level 2, so Desktop/* would be contained on one drive. Then, Laptop/*, for example, could potentially be grouped on another drive.
July 1, 201115 yr So there isn't a "I don't care what disk you put it on as long as the directory structure is the same" button I guess? I just had no idea I would need to deal with each share and each disk individually. I guess I should have investigated a little further before I made my purchase. I think I would have went a different route. I just assumed it would appear as one large volume to the clients and I wouldn't have to dig from one disk to another to try and find something. What happens if I use Level 2 for the NAS Shares -> iTunes structure? That would force everything inside the iTunes folder to remain on one drive? What happens when the size of the folder out grows the hard drive size? Do you have to go back and change everything around. All my devices rely on the current directory structure, so if anything changes I'll be rebuilding the libraries for days. I really don't want to do that if the share name changes to Disk 1 -> NAS Shares -> iTunes. Hopefully I'm just making this harder than it actually is going to be.
July 1, 201115 yr So there isn't a "I don't care what disk you put it on as long as the directory structure is the same" button I guess? I just had no idea I would need to deal with each share and each disk individually. I guess I should have investigated a little further before I made my purchase. I think I would have went a different route. I just assumed it would appear as one large volume to the clients and I wouldn't have to dig from one disk to another to try and find something. What happens if I use Level 2 for the NAS Shares -> iTunes structure? That would force everything inside the iTunes folder to remain on one drive? What happens when the size of the folder out grows the hard drive size? Do you have to go back and change everything around. All my devices rely on the current directory structure, so if anything changes I'll be rebuilding the libraries for days. I really don't want to do that if the share name changes to Disk 1 - NAS Shares -> iTunes. Hopefully I'm just making this harder than it actually is going to be. You will NOT be dealing with the disks individually. By properly setting your user shares and split levels it will all happen in the background all. when you copy a movie to the server just copy it to the movies folder, unraid will handle what disk it goes on by your split levels.
July 1, 201115 yr So there isn't a "I don't care what disk you put it on as long as the directory structure is the same" button I guess? If you don't care then make a share called NAS (or Storage or unRAID or whatever you want) and set the split level to 99 and the allocation method to fill-up or high-water. You will have a big network storage location that uses all the disks and you can just put any files you want there and they'll end up on one of the disks. I personally use shares such as TV, Movies, Music, Storage and then I allow certain disks and certain split levels. That way, if the worst happene and I did lose a disk, I wouldn't have fragmented data. For example, I wouldn't have lost 1/2 of a TV series. I would have certain TV series missing completely and I could just replace that whole series instead if trying to figure out what I have and don't have. Same would apply for music, I wouldn't have artists with a bunch of songs missing, just the whole collection of that artist. In my mind, it would be simpler to recover the data this way. It's a personal choice so just decide if you care or not and then set-up the server accordingly. Peter
July 1, 201115 yr So there isn't a "I don't care what disk you put it on as long as the directory structure is the same" button I guess? I just had no idea I would need to deal with each share and each disk individually. I guess I should have investigated a little further before I made my purchase. I think I would have went a different route. I just assumed it would appear as one large volume to the clients and I wouldn't have to dig from one disk to another to try and find something. What happens if I use Level 2 for the NAS Shares -> iTunes structure? That would force everything inside the iTunes folder to remain on one drive? What happens when the size of the folder out grows the hard drive size? Do you have to go back and change everything around. All my devices rely on the current directory structure, so if anything changes I'll be rebuilding the libraries for days. I really don't want to do that if the share name changes to Disk 1 -> NAS Shares -> iTunes. Hopefully I'm just making this harder than it actually is going to be. There is split level 0, where you originally define the folders on the drives, and when you dump the files into a user share, it'll go onto the drive that already has the folder. If more than one drive has the same folder structure, it'll choose a drive based on your chosen allocation method. This is the beauty of unRAID though--you don't need to deal with individual disks. One you set up your user shares at the top level, you just drop files into the User Share and the system chooses which drive to put the file, based on available space, and again, the allocation method. It's really much simpler than you're making it out to be. You picked the right route, so don't beat yourself up about that
July 1, 201115 yr This is personally how I deal with things. I personally don't use the split level stuff because honestly it confuses me so I choose not to use it. This is my structure and my shares. Shares Movies TV MP3 Misc Photos Drives disk1 Movies disk2 TV disk3 Movies disk4 MP3 disk4 Misc disk4 Photos What every client sees Movies TV MP3 Misc Photos How I do it I use user shares read only I use disc shares read/write hidden So on my machine I access my movies via \\tower\disk1 or \\tower\disk3. I can read/write to them, but I have to manually type in the path so I can do it. Now nobody else can see that path because all they see is Movies, which of course shows everything since its all linked. TV, MP3, Misc and Photos are all done the same way except their paths are different since they are on different disks. I do this because it gives me read/write access to hidden shares and what others see are simply read only. Nobody in my house cares except me. I do have a few shares like Photos set to read/write, but my movies and Tv shows are read only.
July 1, 201115 yr This is personally how I deal with things. I personally don't use the split level stuff because honestly it confuses me so I choose not to use it. This is my structure and my shares. Shares Movies TV MP3 Misc Photos Drives disk1 Movies disk2 TV disk3 Movies disk4 MP3 disk4 Misc disk4 Photos What every client sees Movies TV MP3 Misc Photos How I do it I use user shares read only I use disc shares read/write hidden So on my machine I access my movies via \\tower\disk1 or \\tower\disk3. I can read/write to them, but I have to manually type in the path so I can do it. Now nobody else can see that path because all they see is Movies, which of course shows everything since its all linked. TV, MP3, Misc and Photos are all done the same way except their paths are different since they are on different disks. I do this because it gives me read/write access to hidden shares and what others see are simply read only. Nobody in my house cares except me. I do have a few shares like Photos set to read/write, but my movies and Tv shows are read only. nearly identical to how I have my shares configured, and how I use them.
July 1, 201115 yr Thanks Joe L. I think I copied your thought process when I saw you explaining it to somebody once. LOL To expand you must create a folder on each drive that you want to link together. Meaning if you click on Movies and expect to show the contents of all your Movies from Drive1 and Drive3 you must create a "Movies" folder at the root of both drives so the content is displayed to your clients.
July 27, 201114 yr This is personally how I deal with things. I personally don't use the split level stuff because honestly it confuses me so I choose not to use it. This is my structure and my shares. Shares Movies TV MP3 Misc Photos Drives disk1 Movies disk2 TV disk3 Movies disk4 MP3 disk4 Misc disk4 Photos What every client sees Movies TV MP3 Misc Photos How I do it I use user shares read only I use disc shares read/write hidden So on my machine I access my movies via \\tower\disk1 or \\tower\disk3. I can read/write to them, but I have to manually type in the path so I can do it. Now nobody else can see that path because all they see is Movies, which of course shows everything since its all linked. TV, MP3, Misc and Photos are all done the same way except their paths are different since they are on different disks. I do this because it gives me read/write access to hidden shares and what others see are simply read only. Nobody in my house cares except me. I do have a few shares like Photos set to read/write, but my movies and Tv shows are read only. So what allocation method do you use with this set up? V
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