June 30, 201214 yr (Edit: after post was split to a new topic.) Ok, here's my situation. My unRAID server will be used as 99% media storage. I'm using XBMC for watching movies/TVshows. XBMC is probably one of the "coolest" programs I've used, but at the very same time it is most definitely one of the most annoying and frustrating as well. The thing about XBMC that drives me totaly crazy is it's library handling and that it keeps spinning-up drives on many occasions, that it should not (imho). That is the second most important task I hope to achieve using unRAID (first being parity protection). [glow=red,2,300]Task: to minimize drive spin-ups by XBMC.[/glow] cache_dirs. 99% of the server is gonna be filled with movies and TV shows. 20 (max) 3TB/2TB drives, which I'm gonna upgrade to 4TB as soon as/if unraid supports them. The server will be filled straight away, I have tons of offline drives full of media. All my media files are manually scraped and have all XBMC metadata files (nfos, posters, fanart, logos, clearart, thumbs, extrafanart, etc).1. How much memory cache_dirs uses? I can get 16GB. 2. Is it possible to cache ALL the media directories in unRAID. >70TB of media (with metadata files). 3. If I run XBMC library update or library clean-up, would XBMC spin up the drives? Or using cache_dirs unraid has all the needed stuff in ram, XBMC uses cached info and drives stay spun-down? [*]User Shares and Samba User Shares are explained quite good in the wiki, but smb-extra.conf, though - pretty much zilch. I've actually been scouring the forums and wiki about this the whole night, but I could not find a proper guide or comparison. 4. What are the advantages/disadvantages between using User Shares vs smb-extra.conf? 5. Is this true: I can use User Shares without using smb-extra.conf? 6. Is this true: an use smb-extra.conf with User Shares, to "fine-tune" additional options? 7. Can smb-extra.conf be used without/instead User Shares? 8. If I use smb-extra.conf can I achieve same results as using User Shares? ie: consolidation of folders, split levels, allocation rules, etc [glow=red,2,300]Folder structure plan: can this be done?[/glow] =============================== array drives (media files) =============================== disk1 Movies Best Avatar avatar.mkv avatar.nfo disk2 Movies Best Whiteout whiteout.mkv Sets Bourne Bourne2 bourne2.mkv bourne2.nfo disk3 Movies Sets LOTR LOTR1 lotr.mkv Normal disk4 Movies Crap New Dredd dredd.mkv disk5 TVShows CSI CSI-Miami Season1 episode1.mkv CSI-NY Season2 episode1.mkv Fringe Season1 episode1.mkv disk6 TVShows Archer Season1 episode1.mkv episode2.mkv Fringe Season3 episode1.mkv episode2.mkv disk7 Music OtherCrap =============================== cache drive (metadata files) =============================== cache Movies Best Avatar extrafanart extrafanart1.jpg extrafanart2.jpg extrathumbs thumb1.jpg thumb2.jpg fanart.jpg folder.jpg movie.nfo movie.tbn TVShows Fringe extrafanart extrafanart1.jpg extrafanart2.jpg Season1 episode1.nfo Season3 episode1.nfo episode2.nfo banner.jpg clearart.png fanart.jpg folder.jpg logo.png season01.tbn season02.tbn season03.tbn season04.tbn season-specials.tbn tvshow.nfo =============================== User Share =============================== Movies Best Avatar extrafanart extrafanart1.jpg extrafanart2.jpg extrathumbs thumb1.jpg thumb2.jpg avatar.mkv avatar.nfo fanart.jpg folder.jpg movie.nfo movie.tbn Whiteout whiteout.mkv Sets Bourne Bourne2 bourne2.mkv bourne2.nfo LOTR LOTR1 lotr.mkv Normal Crap New Dredd dredd.mkv TVShows CSI CSI-Miami Season1 episode1.mkv CSI-NY Season2 episode1.mkv Fringe extrafanart extrafanart1.jpg extrafanart2.jpg Season1 episode1.mkv episode1.nfo Season3 episode1.mkv episode1.nfo episode2.mkv episode2.nfo banner.jpg clearart.png fanart.jpg folder.jpg logo.png season01.tbn season02.tbn season03.tbn season04.tbn season-specials.tbn tvshow.nfo Archer Season1 episode1.mkv episode2.mkv Music OtherCrap Keeping all metadata files, especially extrafanart, separately from media files. Maybe it's crazy, please comment.9. Is there any real benefit to this? My thinking is, if I used an SSD as cache drive, the extrafanart in XBMC would work without freezes and drive spin-ups? 10. When XBMC is updating/cleaning the library, does it "need/use" the media files (scans for codecs, etc?), or just uses file's type/name and checks if metadata exists? If so, having metadata on ssd would help to keep drive spun-down on library scans? 11. Methinks, keeping all the small files off the main array drives would keep the drives less fragmented over time. I tend to edit xmls, add/remove/change fanart, etc, but I rarely replace the media files themselves. I usually move the movie or season, when I have the "final" version I want to keep. 12. The files on cache are not protected, so I would need to sync metadata files to some location on the array? Bah, two copies of tens of thousands small files - kinda don't like this bit 13. To have metadata this way, would need some special doing. Is there by any chance any option in unraid settings, user shares or smb-extra.conf options to allocate files by size/type filter? ie: video files go to array's disks, metadata - to cache? I could always write my own "mover" progy to move the files from my windows machine using teracopy and filter out and place the files on appropriate disks... Though if there's no way to autofilter on unraid's side, I gather I would be stuck always writing to disk shares, rather than user shares? [*]Difference in split levels. Movies have an extra level in Sets and TVShows have an extra level in CSI. 9. First of all - can this be done at all? ie: different levels? Looking at the wiki explanation, it seems the split level x must always be the same? (except Split By Character) 10. Is Split By Character the only way to have multiple split levels? I would rather not rename my folders. 11. Can this be done by using smb-extra.conf? 12. Are there any good guides to smb-extra.conf? [*]Other 13. How about using stupid simple directory tree: disk/Movies/Movie, disk/TVshows/tvshow, etc and no "sorting" subfolders. How does windows cope with a single Movies folder with thousands of movie folders inside? 14. Methinks it should be really uncomfortable to browse through that huge Movies folder? 14. Any time proven tips on directory structure, having XBMC in mind? PS. Total unraid and linux newb, please be gentle.
June 30, 201214 yr I split this into its own topic. (and changed the title to reflect the question) My answer... they do different tasks. Most people do not need to use smb-extra.conf unless sharing sub-directories only. You can do the same with a symbolic link to the subdirectory from a top-level directory and not involve smb-extra.conf at all.
June 30, 201214 yr Author @Joe L. thank you Edited the first post, to ask all the questions there instead in this 3rd post...
July 1, 201214 yr I use cache_dirs, user shares and use Ember to do my scraping, artwork, NFO files etc. I have my stuff split up as a example "BD Movies", "DVD Movies", "TV Shows" etc, and under TV Shows I have folders for show name, then season X, then indv mkv files there. I put 1 move per folder, and keep all the extra files in the folder. Been doing this for about 6 months with 12TB of data and XBMC has been happy as a pig in mud, cant say so much for my boxee tho. There will be a slight pause upon playback startups for drive spinup etc - XBMC does not have a problem with this delay. As far as movie listings etc in XBMC - mine have been instant because of cache_dirs. Hope this helps a bit... Myk
July 1, 201214 yr I wouldn't do the things like make a CSI folder for the different CSI series. Just keep them all in the main directory. The unRAID user share settings and the scraper software will both like it better. You can put the metadata onto the cache disk but then you'd have to turn the mover off or else it would be moved to the array. This means you can't use the cache disk for normal data. Not sure how you'd get it there either. Running the scraper program on the share would store the data on the share using the array disks. It could be done but you'd have to do it all manually. I don't see a need to go beyond user shares for your usage. Split level 0 actually allows some very unique situations if it becomes necessary. A little more manual work but it mostly handles the mixed split level situations for you. Here's how you use it. Say you start with a TV share. So, you create a "TV" directory on 2 or 3 or multiple array disks. Each new sub-directory placed into this TV share will be created using the allocation method to decide on a disk and then only exist on that disk where it was first created. However, say you want the new season of a TV series to start on a new disk since the current one is close to full. Then, just create the Show directory on another disk and the new season will go to it. Another example using your CSI structure. Create the TV\CSI\CSI-Miami and TV\CSI\CSI-NY on 2 disks. All the seasons will go to those disks according to the allocation method.
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