Finally up and running. Having trouble with two things - SMB and Cache to Array mover

[manofoz]

Hello!

 

I finally got unraid going on my server (v6.12.4) and am taking on the steep learning curve. I have two things I am getting stuck on but everything else is going very well.

 

1. I followed this guide -> Unraid & Windows 10 SMB Setup.pdf (which I will attach below) to set up SMB so I could access it from windows 10. I have some shares that are Public and some that are Secure with a user set in windows to match the user configured for the secure shares. Neither show up. I am able to get to \\Tower\ but no folders how up there. When I try to go to one of the shares, \\Tower\Movies\ for example it tells me "Windows cannot access \\Tower\Movies\.

 

2. I can't figure out how to configure a user share to include a cache pool that moves it's contents to the array nightly. I watched some SpaceInvaderVideos for setting stuff like this up and it looks like unRAID 12+ changes the settings around a bit and they no long match the tutorials. This documentation goes in depth how to set it up for unRAID 11 or earlier: https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/shares/user-shares/. It states "They achieve the same functionality as the settings available in 6.12 but are presented differently." but it does not present those differences. Hopefully I am just overlooking something, any updated documentation for this would be great.

 

That's all for now but I'm sure there will be more...

Thanks!

 

Unraid & Windows 10 SMB Setup.pdf

[manofoz]

Quickly hit a third snag. Installed the Unassigned Devices plug in but I can't figure out how to get this external 4TB disk to mount:

[manofoz]

One down! I had to turn on "Export" for my shares to show up. Working on the others. I thought I could make a Windows 11 VM and access the external drive there but it did not show up.

[manofoz]

Found a workaround for not being able to access my external drive as an unassigned device. Was a long journey but I was able to setup a Windows 11 VM and pass the drive to it (which was a bit confusing as it was in some settings about boot drive priority). 

 

I also moved that request for help over to the official thread for the plugin itself. I'd still like to be able to use UD for external drives as I have another and it's a lot larger.

That just leaves question #2 about documentation for configuring User Shares to have cache pools that let you quickly transfer data and then migrate the data to the array when things are idle. Very confused by the documentation and how simple it seemed to set that up in version 6.11 and earlier. I must be missing something obvious.

Enough progress for one night, I'll check back in the morning. Thanks!

[manofoz]

Ugh well my workaround is a bit slow. For some reason my Windows 11 VM isn't mapping the unRAID path I configured here:

 

 

Maybe my expectations are off but I read that this would map /mnt to C:\UNRAID. At least I figured out SMB and can access the shares over the 'network'. 

 

Also now that Windows has it's hands on the disk I no longer see it in Unassigned Devices. I guess that's to be expected.

Edited September 15, 2023 by manofoz

[itimpi]

The steps required for 2) are in the 6.12.0 release notes but can be summarised as

• Go into the settings for the share in question.
• Set the pool to be primary storage (i.e. place files are preferentially initially written)
• Set the array to be secondary storage 
• Set move direction to be cache->array.

Turning on the Help built into the GUI gives information on the various settings.

 

[manofoz]

2 hours ago, itimpi said:

The steps required for 2) are in the 6.12.0 release notes but can be summarised as

• Go into the settings for the share in question.
• Set the pool to be primary storage (i.e. place files are preferentially initially written)
• Set the array to be secondary storage 
• Set move direction to be cache->array.

Turning on the Help built into the GUI gives information on the various settings.

 

 

Thanks for the tip! I think help comes on by default and is actually what caused my confusion. The little tip says that secondary storage is where things write to once primary storage is full but what I had read about was the ability to move things to the Array at 3:40 AM each night. Here is a picture of what I am talking about:

 

[manofoz]

Update on the unassinged device. For some reason when I shut down the VM it mounted fine and I can now interact with it's filesystem without the need of a Windows 11 VM:

[itimpi]

That statement is true as it refers to new files.   If primary storage is below the Minimum Free Space value then primary storage is bypassed and written directly to secondary storage.    For files on the cache pool then the mover setting is relevant.

[manofoz]

1 hour ago, itimpi said:

That statement is true as it refers to new files.   If primary storage is below the Minimum Free Space value then primary storage is bypassed and written directly to secondary storage.    For files on the cache pool then the mover setting is relevant.

Got it. So any cache pool with a secondary drive will move files in the direction that is configured via "Mover action" when the mover is ran. Normally this would be from cahce -> array at 3:40AM but I guess if you wanted to clear files off of the array you could switch the direction.

 

Another update, I was able virtiofs drives to show up in my windows 11 VM by following these steps: 

 

[manofoz]

Ok everything looks great now. Here is a recap so I can mark it resolved:

 

Quote

1. I followed this guide -> Unraid & Windows 10 SMB Setup.pdf (which I will attach below) to set up SMB so I could access it from windows 10. I have some shares that are Public and some that are Secure with a user set in windows to match the user configured for the secure shares. Neither show up. I am able to get to \\Tower\ but no folders how up there. When I try to go to one of the shares, \\Tower\Movies\ for example it tells me "Windows cannot access \\Tower\Movies\.

 

This needed a config change to the share so "Export" was enabled.

 

Quote

2. I can't figure out how to configure a user share to include a cache pool that moves it's contents to the array nightly. I watched some SpaceInvaderVideos for setting stuff like this up and it looks like unRAID 12+ changes the settings around a bit and they no long match the tutorials. This documentation goes in depth how to set it up for unRAID 11 or earlier: https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/shares/user-shares/. It states "They achieve the same functionality as the settings available in 6.12 but are presented differently." but it does not present those differences. Hopefully I am just overlooking something, any updated documentation for this would be great.

 

They changed the way these are configured between 6.11 and 6.12. Any Cache with an Array as secondary will respect the mover schedule and the direction of files being moved is specified in the share.

 

Quote

Quickly hit a third snag. Installed the Unassigned Devices plug in but I can't figure out how to get this external 4TB disk to mount:

 

There is a bug in the UD plugin where you can't mount a drive that has a partition with no file system. This will be fixed soon but can be worked around by Detaching and Re-Attaching the Unassigned Device with Auto Mount enabled. On reattach it should auto mount. You can also access drives in this state inside of a Windows VM. 

 

Quote

Ugh well my workaround is a bit slow. For some reason my Windows 11 VM isn't mapping the unRAID path I configured here:

 

There is more to it than setting the config right (as I've seen is the case with setting up most things up). I posted a thread above that explains how to set it up.