I am looking at restructuring my server to support hardlinks and allow for permaseeding, but it's going to be a long, long process to do so and wanted to clarify a few things to ensure I don't do this and not achieve what I thought I understood lol. I've seen and read through the trash guide but I still want a more technical answer, which is why I am posting here. 

Currently in order to seed, two copies of the same file must exist on my system. For example: 

 

TorrentA - 10GB gets downloaded to /mnt/user/downloads/torrents
 

Once complete, Sonarr/Radarr imports/copies that into /mnt/user/anime for example. 

Now, there are two files, for a total of 20GB. The one in /downloads/torrents will continue to seed, while the /mnt/user/anime is now in my media library. 

If I move to a single share of /data/media, the above would instead be:

 

TorrentA - 10GB

/mnt/user/data/media/downloads/torrents

/mnt/user/data/media/anime

 

For a total file size of 10GB because of hardlinks? The more technical answer I am looking for is, how is this achieved and where is the "master" file actually stored? Will using a cache and mover break hardlinks? My current setup is below, I plan on keeping mover tuner the same but just structure everything into a single share. 

 

Though, I just don't understand how unraid will see a single file, with two different names. For example when you download TorrentA, that might be the name but then Radarr/Sonarr importing it will reename it to TorrentA - 2023 - 1080p - DD - H264 etc. After 14 days, it will move the file from cache to array, the paths will stay the same but instead it will seed from the array? Though, which is the master file and how is that determined? 

If anyone has a good video that explains this or anything or the sort, I've watched ibracorps, spaceinvader and a ton of others but none really go into it on a technical level, which is what I am looking for. 



Current setup does not use hardlinks and is the following: 

 

• 100+ TB HDD Array
• cache_system - 3 2TB Samsung 980 Pro in ZFS pool (total of 4GB usable space)
• spare_cache - 4TB 870 Evo

 

cache_system is cache=yes for all shares below, as well as appdata and system shares. 

 

Mover tuner is set to move files from the below shares that are older than 14 days to the array. 

Shares:

 

/movies

/music

/anime

/animemovies

/tv

/cartoons

/downloads

The reason for the above is I wanted to have each media share separate and not housed under a central directory. This allowed me for more control, such as keeping specific media items to specific drives etc. 

Curious what you ended up doing as I'm in a similar scenario. Are you permaseeding from your array now? Or are you keeping 2 copies of the file and permaseeding from cache?