I have a RAID 1 mirrored 500GB cache pool setup for my "downloads" folder, also for appdata, domains etc.

I have 3 x 8 TB drives, 1 as parity in an array. 

I have both the /mnt/user/downloads (cache=prefer) and /mnt/user/plex (cache=no) folders mounted as network shares.

 

I'm curious how data moves onto the array in the case of adding new content to the media server. Lets say I add download a new movie and want to add it to Plex.

If I copy this from my Windows machine, directly to the /mnt/user/plex share held on the array (cache=no) then I presume Mover never gets invoked and I am writing directly to the array.

 

Is a better alternative here to copy the files onto the /mnt/user/downloads share, which will then be cached. Then invoke Mover, or have it invoked periodically to move files onto the array. And then, later copy from /mnt/user/downloads into /mnt/user/plex?

 

Thanks!

If you are talking about copying things to the server manually then I would just cache whichever share you want to be the final destination and let Mover take it from there. 

 

That assumes you aren't writing more per day than cache will hold. Mover is intended for idle time. Default schedule is daily in the middle of the night.

 

If you need to write in a day more than cache can hold then don't cache. It is impossible to move from faster cache to slower array as fast as you can write to faster cache. 

 

I see no reason to write to a share that isn't the final destination then manually move it to the final destination. 

 

And depending on how you do manual moves things can get more complicated with possible surprises. 

 

If there are automatic processes involved such as dockers downloading, post-processing, and moving things as is often done then lots of scenarios are possible. 

1 hour ago, trurl said:

depending on how you do manual moves things can get more complicated with possible surprises

Just thought I would elaborate on this statement a bit because it can be important to know the details.

 

Here is a link to a post I made in a Feature Request that explains these possible surprises. This Feature Request ultimately led to the creation of the Dynamix File Manager plugin which avoids these surprises that can happen with other methods.

 

 

1 hour ago, trurl said:

automatic processes involved such as dockers downloading, post-processing, and moving things

The surprises mentioned above can also occur with these automatic processes if you don't choose paths carefully.