Unraid Shares & Split Levels and Hard-Links for Media Folders (Sonarr, etc.)

[Lykos]

Hi everyone,

 

I know there are plenty of posts about this topic & I read a lot of them before bothering you once again, but none of the solutions were satisfying and/or left me with unanswered questions. Therefore, if you can find the time to shed some light for me, I'd highly appreciate your effort.

 

What I want to do is (most likely) a common thing:

I setup a NAS using UnRaid 6.11.5 & installed Plex Media Server on it. I want to use Sonarr, etc., so the best solution is to use hard-links as far as I understood (to not have to move the files, confuse Sonarr and have the downloads immediately in Plex).

 

My NAS (for now) has only the following components:

- 1TB NVMe Cache Drive (yes, too big, I didn't know better)

- 2x16TB SATA Data Drives

- 1x16TB Parity Drive

 

As time goes by, I'd like to add 2 more data drives and a second parity disk, but for now I think I'm fine with this setup.

 

I setup my shares as follows (all using high-water):

/movies: "Automatically split only the top level directory as required"

/tvshows: "Automatically split only the top TWO directory levels as required"

/music: "Automatically split only the top TWO directory levels as required"

(/pics: TBD)

 

Now the idea is what tdallen said here:

 

... and JorgeB explained here:

 

I like this approach - once for mapping, but especially for the spinning up issue.

 

From what I understand, I need a parent "Media" folder for hard-links to work & this is where it gets strange and ugly for me.

 

Yes, a "solution" is like what ProphetSe7en did here, but that's an ugly workaround I'd like to avoid:

 

So what's my question?

 

1. Why does having a parent "Media" folder solve the issue for the hard-links?

 

I get it, that hard-links only work on the same disk, but how is this guaranteed by having a parent "Media" folder or how is this different to having an extra "/downloads" share, regarding the allocation method?

 

To be more precise:

UnRaid is allowed to save to different movies on two different discs. Why/How should Unraid know, that the hard-links between the "/Media/downloads" and "/Media/movies" folder have to be on the same disk or to argue in the other direction: why would UnRaid NOT know it, if "/downloads" and "/movies" would NOT have a parent "Media" folder? What difference does it make?

 

2. If this really does not work, what would you suggest?

 

First thing that comes to my mind is to setup a Scheduler that moves everything from the "/downloads" share every night, but that's also kind of a dirty hack (& would have a delay for watching the movie or show).

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Kind regards,

Wolf