July 3, 201115 yr Well, my drives are pre-cleared and I'm ready to move data. I'm going to be using the most recent beta, since I need support for 3TB drives. Currently there is a 3TB and 2TB drive in the server. I was going to copy my data and then install the other 3TB as the parity drive. I just need help setting up my shares and choosing the correct split level. I have 4 main shares on my NAS right now. Backups, Business Files, Media and Personal files. Backups contain images of my machines, copies of programs / documents on my flash drive, etc. Business and Personal folders have mostly word documents, power point presentations, etc. Inside media is where the TV shows, Pictures, Movies, iTunes libraries, etc are stored. So I'm assuming I'll want to create 4 user shares with the same names (Backups, Business Files, Media & Personal Files). Then just drop my stuff inside the appropriate folder? What would I use for my split level settings and my Allocation method? Here is what I have now: -Backups ----Flash Drive --------Programs ------------program.ext --------Documents ------------paper.doc ----Images --------HTPC ------------5-11-11.xml --------Desktop ------------5-11-11.xml -Business Files ----Income Taxes --------2010 --------2011 ----Invoices ----Letters ----Proposals -Media ----Movies --------Aliens ------------Aliens.mkv ------------Aliens.nfo ----TV Shows --------Alias ------------Season 1 ----------------S01E01.mkv ----Music --------Alter Bridge ------------AB III ----------------02 Isolation.mp3 ----iTunes Libraries --------Nathan ------------iTunes Media ----------------Mobile Applications --------------------Azul.ipa I'm just confused about all this stuff. Or should I then create user shares inside of Media so I can change the split level on each folder independently? Please help!
July 3, 201115 yr afaik you cant create user shares inside another folder you can set one splitlevel and allocation method per usershare it depends how much control you want in what drive the files will go. split levels are handy to keep files in a folder on the same disk so only one disk has to be spun up. for example for A DVD rip in folder structure were the video is split across multiple files it is important to have all of them on the same disk so there is no delay from starting up another drive when it moves to the next file. same thing for for a music album. for each created share you can set the disk (include or exclude). allocation method and splitlevel for small shares it would be best to just have them on one disk. when using the share only one disk has to be active and there is no need for a split level. for movies it is best to keep atleast the files of folder the movie is in on one disk. to understand more read here http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Configuration_Tutorial#User_shares looking at your layout I assume "Media" is the user share that will be the biggest it could be hard to choose the right split level if all files are in one share depending on how you organize the folder structure. an option would be to use split level 0 In addition, brought back new-and-improved "split level 0" functionality. I will be posting a more comprehensive write-up on User Shares and Split Level on the web site and wiki soon, but in the meantime here's how it works. If you explicitly set a share's Split level to 0 (that is, not blank, but actual numeric value 0), then when a new object (file or directory) is created, unRAID will form the set of disks where the parent directory of the object already exists; and, then the actual disk to use from this set will be selected according to the current share allocation method. (Still subject to included/excluded masks.) Example, assume you created this folder structure: disk1/Video/Movies/Action disk2/Video/Movies/Action disk3/Video/Sports Now suppose on the Video user share you create "Movies/Action/Braveheart" folder. With split level 0, even though the Video share spans disks 1..3, since the parent of "Braveheart" only exists on disks 1 and 2, unRAID will create "Braveheart" folder on either disk 1 or 2, according to allocation method. If no space is available on disk 1 and 2, then operation will fail. In this case if you want to add more storage for "Movies/Action" folder, you would have to explicitly create "Movies/Action" on some other disk. Similarly, if you create "Sports/soccer-2009-05-02.avi", the soccer-2009-05-02.avi file could only be created on disk3. Along with split0 feature, added also a new allocation method called "Fill up", which will cause disk space to be allocated from the lowest numbered disk provided the amount of free space remaining is greater than "Min free space" (a new share config parameter which also applies to the other allocation methods). Min free space units are in 1024-byte blocks.
July 3, 201115 yr Author I did read the link you found earlier, along with some other article, but wanted to get someone's opinion before I messed everything up. I was just hoping someone could look at my directory structure and offer some suggestions.
July 3, 201115 yr each person will probably have his own way of doing things it might help if you can give an estimate of the size and expected size of your shares
July 3, 201115 yr personally i don't use allocation method I always access the servers disk shares and put files on the disk I want them to be. for example disk1 • Series/"seriename"/file disk2 • Anime/ • Documentaries/ • Food/ • Library/ • Reality disk3 • backup • Series/"seriename"/file disk4 • movies/moviename
July 3, 201115 yr Author My current Movies folder is about 1TB and I haven't even started ripping my blurays or HD-DVD's yet. The TV Show folder is about 900GB right now, but there is more than I still have to rip. As for expected size, I don't know that anyone here would be able to answer that question when it comes to media, would they? I guess I'm just trying to make sure things work properly so I don't have problems later. I only have 2 HDD's right now and most of my media is still in disk form so I just want to make sure I get this right before I proceed. What about removing the "Media" folder and making individual shares for Movies, TV Shows, Pictures, Etc and then setting the split level on those? Is it even necessary to worry about split level on something like a picture or documents folder?
July 3, 201115 yr for small folders it is easiest to stick to one disk for series i try to keep a season together whatever you do you can always change the settings later it wont affect files already on the disk with estimate size i meant you probably know if a folder will expand a lot or very little.
July 4, 201115 yr The important detail you didn't mention is which files you want to keep on a single disk and which ones can go to whatever disk is available. Some people care and need to use the settings to achieve it and others don't care so different settings can be used. If you keep "Media" and set it to level 2 then the collection of folders/files for each Movie, TV series and Artist will remain on a single disk. It's not a bad way to do things but you have to leave room so that a disk doesn't fill in the future. For example, confining a TV series to a disk means you need room for future seasons of that TV show. This works OK as long as you use either the most-free or high-water allocation method and make sure you add disks before the present ones get too close to full. Worst case, you may have to take 30 minutes or an hour and move a working series to an empty disk one day. I don't see music causing much of an issue even if you only have say 1% of the disk free. mp3's just don't take much room compared to today's disk sizes. Now, the itunes library may cause a bit of an issue doing the above since each collection would be confined to a single disk. You may want a seperate share for that. As for the backups and Business files, I would confine them to a single disk and then the rest doesn't matter. Peter
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