I am totally confused about cache drives. I have read the entries in the Wiki about cache drive and Rah's post on Cache drives. I am running an ESXi build running unRAID 5b11 in a VM, along with a Windows XP VM that downloads stuff for me to save to the cache drive's "_downloads" folder.

 

My understanding:

[*]You install a cache drive. Then go in to WebGUI, stop the array and select the cache drive. Start your array.

[*]Go to your share (Library in my case). Tell it to use cache.

[*]On the cache drive (\\tower\cache), create the same directory structure as in your share. In my case, under \\tower\library, I have movies.eng, movies.kids, tvshows.eng, tvshows.kids. I created the same 4 folders under \\tower\cache\library.

[*]Copy the files you want to move to the same folders and it will be moved at 3:40am.

 

What is happening:

[*]I copied files in movies.eng and tvshows.kids. At 3:40am, all the files from these 2 folders were moved to the parity share (\\tower\library\movies.eng and \\tower\library\tvshows.kids).

[*]However, there are folders under \\tower\library\movies.eng for all/some of the movies I was working on last night. I was creating nfo files, downloading fanart, etc for the movies in \\tower\library\movies.eng but these files are now also present in \\tower\cache\library\movies.eng. What is going on here? I do not have "cache_dirs" package installed (at least I did not do that).

[*]I also created 2 additional folders on the cache drive called _test and _downloads. I installed the unMenu package called "unraid-mover-exclude-underscore". I see both these folders under User Shares. Their settings:

- use cache disk: No

- Export - No

I did not think they would be shared with settings like those.

 

What am I doing wrong? Or is everything working as expected and I am just confused? Thanks

I am totally confused about cache drives. I have read the entries in the Wiki about cache drive and Rah's post on Cache drives. I am running an ESXi build running unRAID 5b11 in a VM, along with a Windows XP VM that downloads stuff for me to save to the cache drive's "_downloads" folder.

 

My understanding:

[*]You install a cache drive. Then go in to WebGUI, stop the array and select the cache drive. Start your array.

[*]Go to your share (Library in my case). Tell it to use cache.

So far, yes.

• On the cache drive (\\tower\cache), create the same directory structure as in your share. In my case, under \\tower\library, I have movies.eng, movies.kids, tvshows.eng, tvshows.kids. I created the same 4 folders under \\tower\cache\library.

No.  no need to create any directories on the cache drive.  Basically, once enabled, you forget it is there.  You use the regular shares as you always have.

• Copy the files you want to move to the same folders and it will be moved at 3:40am.
  

 

What is happening:

1. cache_dirs has nothing to do with this.  It simply is doing a periodic listing of the directories on the disks.You are attempting to use the cache drive directly.  Do not think of it as a separate drive. 

 

The any top level directories you create are automatically "shares"

The package you installed (assuming you are not on the beta release) will simply prevent the files on directories with leading "_" from being moved.

 

Since you have export set to "No" they are not shared on the  LAN.

[*]I copied files in movies.eng and tvshows.kids. At 3:40am, all the files from these 2 folders were moved to the parity share (\\tower\library\movies.eng and \\tower\library\tvshows.kids).

[*]However, there are folders under \\tower\library\movies.eng for all/some of the movies I was working on last night. I was creating nfo files, downloading fanart, etc for the movies in \\tower\library\movies.eng but these files are now also present in \\tower\cache\library\movies.eng. What is going on here? I do not have "cache_dirs" package installed (at least I did not do that).

[*]I also created 2 additional folders on the cache drive called _test and _downloads. I installed the unMenu package called "unraid-mover-exclude-underscore". I see both these folders under User Shares. Their settings:

- use cache disk: No

- Export - No

I did not think they would be shared with settings like those.

 

What am I doing wrong? Or is everything working as expected and I am just confused? Thanks

Thanks Joe L. for your response.

 

So just to be clear, to use cache drive:

 

[*]You install a cache drive. Then go in to WebGUI, stop the array and select the cache drive. Start your array.

[*]Go to your share (Library in my case). Tell it to use cache.

[*]When I want to copy files to unRAID, I just copy them to \\tower\library. Since \\tower\library is set to use cache, it will use it as it sees fit.

[*]And that's it.

 

I am on 5b11. Can I also use part of the drive as a temporary staging area to download the files? Once the files are downloaded and renamed as I need them, I just copy them to \\tower\library. Right?

Thanks Joe L. for your response.

 

So just to be clear, to use cache drive:

 

[*]You install a cache drive. Then go in to WebGUI, stop the array and select the cache drive. Start your array.

[*]Go to your share (Library in my case). Tell it to use cache.

[*]When I want to copy files to unRAID, I just copy them to \\tower\library. Since \\tower\library is set to use cache, it will use it as it sees fit.

[*]And that's it.

Yes.  Exactly.

I am on 5b11. Can I also use part of the drive as a temporary staging area to download the files? Once the files are downloaded and renamed as I need them, I just copy them to \\tower\library. Right?

Yes.

Fantastic. Thanks for your help.