I just installed a Cache Drive and enabled User Shares, but I have no idea how the two work together.  I have a parity drive, 5 disks, and the cache disk.  I use disk one the most, for all my docs and data.  Disks 2, 3, 4, and 5 are being use as locations for taking data of of dvds, cds, and older drives (they will most likely not get used much, but are there when I need to gain access to my archives.  I am trying to understand if I have to change the way I copy/create new files, folders, now that I have a cache disk.  I currently copy/create files to a networked drive called o:\ (which is really \\tower\disk1).  What I don't know or understand is weather there are extra steps that I have to take to make sure I am taking advantage of the cache disk.  I do have "User cache disk" for the folder I am writing to set to "yes", I have the "comments" blank, I have "allocation method" set to "High-water", I have no info in split level, included disk(s), excluded disk(s), and I have export mode set to "Export read/write"

 

Share name:          Backup

Comments:            (I left this blank)

Allocation method:  High-water

Split level:           (I left this blank)

Included disk(s):    (I left this blank)

Excluded disk(s):    (I left this blank)

Use cache disk:      YES

Export mode:     Export read/write  (I did not select Export read/write hidden)

 

My understanding is if I write a new file to O:\ then the file actually gets written to the cache drive and then at the designated time the MOVER moves the file to o:\ (disk1)

If I am assuming correct, then I would think that I would see the files appear on the cache disk, but they would disappear when they are moved by mover.

I set up the cache disk as a mapped network drive to test this out, but I was unable to see the newly created files.

 

Can someone help with explaining Shares to me or can someone point me to a thread that explains shares.  I have looked and can not find anything that explains shares in conjunction with the cache drive.

It seems that I have to have shares enabled to take advantage of the cache disk.

 

Thanks for any help you can give.  (by the way I am running Win XP Pro)

 

I just tried something else that got me a little further, which was to access the user share by going to \\tower\Backup and I attempted to create a file there and by doing it this way the newly created file is showing on the cache disk.

 

Do I have to access the drive via \\tower\backup in order to use the cache disk? It looks like I need to disconnect all my mapped network drives seeing I mapped them via \\tower\disk1 etc, and remap them as \\tower\Backup (or share name.)

 

It looks like I answered my question, but I still don't know what to do with :

Split level:           (I left this blank)

Included disk(s):    (I left this blank)

Excluded disk(s):    (I left this blank)

 

Nor do I know how to allow a whole drive to have access to the cache drive.

 

:)Thanks for any help, and I hope the above helps someone else.

 

cache doesn't work with DISK shares, works with USER shares

 

even if you activated the use of cache for share "backup", by using O: (which is mapped to a DISK share), will not make use of cache

 

you have to map "backup" to make us of it

 

 

cache doesn't work with DISK shares, works with USER shares

 

even if you activated the use of cache for share "backup", by using O: (which is mapped to a DISK share), will not make use of cache

 

you have to map "backup" to make us of it

 

 

 

Thanks for the quick response.  So mapped disk share don't work with the cache.  I guess the only way around this is to have all files and folders for a given disk within a folder and then share that folder.

For now I am going to create some mapped network drives that point to user shares instead of DISK shares. So one of the maps I created was V:\ is mapped to \\tower\backup, which should take advantage of the cache disk.  I am assuming that any sub-folders under "backup" will take advantage of the cache disk also.

 

 

Any comments or tips on what to do with the following options:

 

Split level:              (I left this blank)

Included disk(s):    (I left this blank)   

Excluded disk(s):    (I left this blank) 

 

 

Thanks again for the quick response.

 

what to do with those options is to understand them

 

there is no "correct" way for US to setup YOUR array

 

you need to understand what these values do and then decide yourself on the proper way to configure your unRAID

to understand those terms there is proper documentation

 

my only advice is to separate the meanings of "disk" and "share" in your mind (a disk can hold many shares and a share can span on many disks - how you do it, your choice)

 

 

a disk can hold many shares and a share can span on many disks.

 

This is really an excellent way to describe it. It should probably be in the manual.

Thanks again NLS for expaling the difference between Disk and Share.  I found the documentation I was looking for and regarding includes and excludes.