Hi,

 

After attempting to install sabnzbd, sickbeard and couchpotato onto my new unraid server I quickly realised that I would be better off getting a cache drive and using it for these apps. What should I be looking for in a cache drive? How big does it need to be? I am trying to keep costs to a minimum as I feel like I have already spent a lot on this server.

 

Thanks in advance.

I have Sabnzbd, Couch Potato, Sickbeard , Headphones and Ps3ms on a 80 gig cache drive which set me back about $20 (at Microcenter.)  They use a little over 2 gigs of space. I'm primarily using the cache for these programs, (not to increase transfer speed to the array) so if disk speed is important to you, you may want to spend a little more for a faster drive.

Cheers for the reply. I don't really care about increasing speed so I think I will just buy something similar to what you have.

It depends on your usage, how much do you D/L and how often you want to move it. My cache drive is 1.5TB green drive, Why, cause I download and move a lot of files (plus it is what I had laying around) for me personally I would not use less than a 500gb with the amount of files I move. Any thing less and I could on some days have to run the mover twice.

 

I think that I would download maximum 100gb in a day. What do you mean by how often will I move the data. From my understanding the data would be downloaded to the cache drive and once completed sickbeard or couchpotato would process it and move it into the array, so it would only ever be moved once. Am I missing something?

It depends on your usage, how much do you D/L and how often you want to move it. My cache drive is 1.5TB green drive, Why, cause I download and move a lot of files (plus it is what I had laying around) for me personally I would not use less than a 500gb with the amount of files I move. Any thing less and I could on some days have to run the mover twice.

 

Same reason why I use a 1 TB drive. Lots of downloads that take a lot space. I just let the mover run at night.

Can I get away with using a smaller drive if I am just letting the post-processing of sickbeard and couchpotato move the files into the array?

I use a 500gig drive. I allow the shares to use the cache drive so I process and put all the files onto the cache drive first and then I have the mover set to move the files to the array once a week. I haven't come close to filling it yet. I seem to typically download between 150gig and 250gig a month.

 

Looking at Newegg, it's like $5 more to step from say a 160gig drive to either a 250gig or 500gig drive. So, it doesn't make much sense to go smaller than 500gig. I guess you could also go with a 60gig SSD for about the same cost if you move directly to the array when processing. Otherwise, try to find a used or clearance disk and hope for the best. Maybe try a local computer shop and see if they have an old drive lying around they'd sell to you cheap.

Ok I think I am finally understanding how I should set this up. I will go for a 500gb drive. One question though, what do you use to schedule the moving?

The mover schedule is on the shares page when you have a cache drive.

I think that I would download maximum 100gb in a day. What do you mean by how often will I move the data. From my understanding the data would be downloaded to the cache drive and once completed sickbeard or couchpotato would process it and move it into the array, so it would only ever be moved once. Am I missing something?

 

What i meant was if you are using the cache drive for downloading as well as allowing the user shares to write to the cache drive to speed up copying to the array from your PC, you might have to run the mover more than once a day to prevent a smaller drive from filling up.

 

If you currently have a drive laying around that your thinking of using, try it out rather than buying a new one, you will quickly find out if it is large enough for your needs.

 

I run my mover every morning at ~4am and I have a 150GB cache drive (old raptor). Ocasionally I need to manually run the mover so the drive doesn't fill up but more often then not this is enough space. If you want to monitor how quickly your cache drive fills up (easily) and you are running Windows 7 you can map it as a network drive (see attached).