Issue with cache and share

[Western Sound]

Hello,

 

My cache has some empty folders in that won't move/go away. It seems like, as a result, the share that contains those folders says it is unprotected. 

 

All of the folders and files related to the empty ones in the cache fully exist in the array. For some reason it just never fully deleted those folders out of the cache.

 

Please help, this share contains over 20 years of recording studio client archives - I sure would like for that share to say it is fully protected.

 

I was able to test deleting some of that stuff out of the cache, and it did not delete anything out of the share. I did this using the rm -rv command. But is this safe? Can I delete that whole share out of the cache without actually deleting the contents of the share? Will doing so make the share say that is it fully protected?

 

This is relating to the "WSSARCHIVE" share shown in the attached images. 

 

Thank you.

 

 

wssserver-diagnostics-20240221-1235.zip

Edited February 21 by Western Sound

[itimpi]

You should post your system's diagnostics zip file in your next post in this thread to get more informed feedback.  It is always a good idea to post this if your question might involve us seeing how you have things set up or to look at recent logs.

[trurl]

Just some forum advice. Since you edited a previous post, anyone who had already read this thread doesn't know there is anything new to see here. That is why we say NEXT post.

 

Now that I have posted here, it will show as an unread thread again.

[trurl]

Any reason you are staying on 6.12.4?

 

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/release-notes/6.12.8/

[Western Sound]

Oh, no, there is no reason I am still on 6.12.4, just slipped my mind. I can update and if that resolves this.

[Western Sound]

No Change so far, cache still has empty folders, and share says unprotected.

[trurl]

You can delete empty folders on cache. What you don't want to do is delete any files on cache that is not duplicated on the array.

 

User shares are pretty simple. Here is how they work.

 

User shares are just the combined top level folders on array and pools.

 

If you create a user share, Unraid creates a top level folder, named for the share, on array or pools, as needed, in accordance with settings you make for that user share.

 

Conversely, any top level folder on array or pools is part of a user share named for that folder. Other top level folders with that same name on other disks or pools are part of that same user share.

 

So, it is possible to create a user share just by creating a top level folder. Any user share you haven't made settings for has default settings.

[trurl]

The way you have configured the share in question, with nothing as Secondary storage, means that Mover will ignore it. If you want Mover to move its files to the array, you will have to configure it as Primary:cache, Secondary:array, Mover:cache->array.

 

Nothing can move open files. And Mover won't replace files, so if something exists on cache and array, you will have to decide which to keep.

 

After you get things Moved to the array, you can change it to Primary:array, Secondary:none and new files won't go to cache.

 

Or, you could just take care of all this yourself and leave Mover out of it.

 

I suggest you don't do this from the command line. You should never mix disks or pools with user shares when moving or copying files or you could lose data. Install Dynamix File Manager plugin to manage folders and files directly on the server. It will prevent you from making this mistake.

 

More about the "mixing" here, which discussion led up to creation of Dynamix File Manager:

 

 

[Western Sound]

Thanks for all of this.

 

So I did have the Cache set to primary and the Array set to secondary with the mover set to move things from the Cache to the array. This issue occurred while it was set like that, but for some reason, those folders were never removed from the cache after being moved to the array. 

 

I had a large set of files to move, more than the size of my cache, so I went to change it to not use the cache, which is when I noticed this issue.

 

While the cache was set to primary etc, I tried to manually invoke the mover, and it would say complete in the system log, but the empty folders remained in the cache.

 

I have deleted the folders out of the cache and the share now says it is protected. So problem partially solved. I guess the question now, is why this happened. However, I think I will generally just not use the cache since many of my transfer are larger than the cache.

 

Thanks for all of the help!

 

-Paul

 

 

[trurl]

Mover runs on schedule, set in Scheduler Settings. Default is daily in the middle of the night, when the server is probably idle. Mover is intended for idle time.

 

Even if you schedule it more frequently, or run it manually, it is impossible to move from fast cache to slow array as fast as you can write to cache, and continuing to write to cache while mover runs only makes this worse.

 

If you need to write more than cache can hold, don't cache.