How does unRAID know which disk to write new files to?

[Roscoe62]

I thought I knew this, but can't find where the setting is for this. I thought unRAID wrote new files to the disk that had the most spare space left, but I was a bit shocked to log into the unRAIID GUI yesterday to find that my drives 1, 2 & 3 (the drives with the least amount of storage space left) have now passed the 90% allocation mark, and were presenting me with warnings about it.

 

It was always my intention to replace some of the unRAID server disks with larger ones (they're all currently 4TB in size), but thought I had a bit more time.

 

Could someone please inform me of where to find the disk write preference setting?

 

Thanks heaps!

[Hoopster]

7 minutes ago, Roscoe62 said:

Could someone please inform me of where to find the disk write preference setting?

It is determined by a combination of settings which are set at the share level; allocation method, split level and disks to be included (or excluded) for share storage.

 

[trurl]

You can toggle the help text for many settings by clicking on its label. You can toggle Help for the entire webUI by clicking Help ( ? ) on the main bar.

 

Highwater is default allocation method for good reason, not Most Free as you seem to expect. Most Free is the least efficient.

 

Split Level takes precedence over other settings. If Split Level says a file belongs on the same disk with other files, that is where it will go.

 

If you want us to take a closer look

 

Attach Diagnostics to your NEXT post in this thread.

[Roscoe62]

Thanks very much.

 

I did some investigation, and all shares were set to use the highwater allocation method, except for the 'media share' share - which is by far the biggest share on the server, and the 'backups' share - which are really the only shares we use regularly. Both of those are currently set to the MOST FREE allocation method.

 

I've attached latest diagnostics.

server-diagnostics-20240322-1106.zip