Hi All - new user so please be gentle with me!

I know this has been posted about a lot, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Mover isn't moving files from the cache to the array. I've disabled docker, checked with the files in use plugin that the files in question aren't open, stopped and started the array just to make sure - but mover doesn't move the files. It doesn't actually seem to do anything - invovking the mover just logs a 'mover started' and 'mover stopped', with no other info.

The share is set with the array as primary storage. I don't see any other options that I can change there. I've attached my diagnostics - can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong?

TIA

Si

nc11-unraid-diagnostics-20260222-1103.zip

You have no shares configured to move from cache to array. For that to happen the share needs to be configured with Primary=cache, secondary=array, mover direction=cache->array.

I notice the 'domains' share is configured to only have files on the 'vm' pool, but actually has some files on the 'cache' pool - is that intended?

In addition the 'cache' pool has no value set for the Minimum Free Space. You want that set so that the if the 'cache' pool gets below that amount while caching a share it starts bypassing the cache and writing directly to the array. Typically you want that to be set to something like twice the size of the largest file you expect to cache.

This is probably a stupid question, but at the moment the share (data) is set to primary = array, with no option for secondary - so I'm confused how any files ended up on the cache in the first place? These are new items created after the initial data load.

Changing the setting on the share to primary = cache and secondary = array, with mover set to cache->array has fixed it, thank you. I'm assuming it's best practise to have the cache as primary with the mover configured unless there's a good reason not to?

I've updated the minimum free space on the cache as well. When I first set up the server I had a single pool drive (the 1TB) and I created a VM which (I thought) I subsequently deleted when I added a second nvme and moved the domains share to that. I'm assuming it's doing no harm there so will leave it as is

2 minutes ago, Simebaby said:

cache as primary with the mover configured unless there's a good reason not to?

There is a good reason to keep some shares off the array.

Post new Diagnostics and we can work through that.

Thank you :) These are the current diags - I've changed my array shares to be cache -> array, but can change them back if that does end up being the better option. As reading or writing these shares isn't going to get close to saturating the SATA connection, I initially thought just bypass the cache entirely.

nc11-unraid-diagnostics-20260222-1227.zip

1 hour ago, Simebaby said:

This is probably a stupid question, but at the moment the share (data) is set to primary = array, with no option for secondary - so I'm confused how any files ended up on the cache in the first place? These are new items created after the initial data load.

If you are copying files to your server over the network they should not end up there.

However if you have docker containers running (e.g. the ‘arr’ suite) they may not be respecting User Shares settings when moving/renaming files which can mean files end up on the cache unexpectedly.