Say I have a share which is formed like called movies formatted as such:-

 

.\Movies\{FOLDERNAME}\{FILESRELATEDTOIT}

 

and I chose an allocation method such as "Free space", say I have two drives, drive A at 60GB, drive B at 61GB, and I copy (in order) a 5GB movie and a 10KB subtitle file, it'd go along the lines of:-

 

1. Copy file to .\Movies\Bob's Movie\Bob (1980).mkv

2. Find drive with most free space

3. Drive with 61GB selected (B)

4. Create folder "Bob's Movie" on that drive

5. Write Bob (1980).mkv to it

 

Now, drive B is at 56GB (61-5) and drive A is still at 60GB. When I then copy over the subtitles file, which rule with it follow, A or B?

 

A:-

1. Copy file to .\Movies\Bob's Movie\Bob (1980).srt

2. Find drive with most free space

3. Drive with 60GB selected (A)

4. Create folder "Bob's movie" on that drive

5. Write Bob (1980).srt to drive A

 

---

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B:-

1. Copy file to .\Movies\Bob's Movie\Bob (1980).srt

2. Folder already exists on one of the drives that is still above minimum storage & has enough space to write this file, ignoring looking for file with least space

3. Force write to drive with 56GB left (B)

4. Write Bob (1980).srt to drive B

 

Sorry if this is a poor example/poorly explained, best I could come up with.

 

In this case:-

What happens if I select split level 1?

What happens if I select split level 2?

 

Here's my guess, but, not sure (Why I'm asking for a verification):-

 

1. If I select split level 1, the .mkv and .srt will be written the same drive

2. If I select split level 2, the .mkv and .srt will be written to different drives

With a split level of 1:

- Case B applies.  Only the first level can be replicated across drives.  Once any folder has been created under Movies, then once the 'Bob's Movie' Folder has been created on a drive all subsequent folders/files under that folder go to the drive on which it was created (i.e. the Free Space setting is not relevant).

 

With a Split level of 2:

- Case A applies.  Two levels of folder can be replicated across drives.  This means that anything stored directly under "Bob's Movie" will go to the drive with the most free space.    However if you create a further folder under Bob's Movie any files/folders it contains are constrained to the disk where "Bob's Movie" folder was created.

 

In other words if you think of Split Level as the number of folder levels that can be replicated across drives, but anything that exceeds that level is constrained to the disk where the level above was created it should be easy enough to work out where things go.

 

Note that these rules only apply to file/folder creation.  Once a file/folder is created on a drive it is never moved even if you subsequently change the Split Level or free space method to be used (for new files/folders).

 

I hope that helps.

split 1 is B

split 2 is A

With a split level of 1:

- Case B applies.  Only the first level can be replicated across drives.  Once any folder has been created under Movies, then once the 'Bob's Movie' Folder has been created on a drive all subsequent folders/files under that folder go to the drive on which it was created (i.e. the Free Space setting is not relevant).

 

With a Split level of 2:

- Case A applies.  Two levels of folder can be replicated across drives.  This means that anything stored directly under "Bob's Movie" will go to the drive with the most free space.    However if you create a further folder under Bob's Movie any files/folders it contains are constrained to the disk where "Bob's Movie" folder was created.

 

In other words if you think of Split Level as the number of folder levels that can be replicated across drives, but anything that exceeds that level is constrained to the disk where the level above was created it should be easy enough to work out where things go.

 

Note that these rules only apply to file/folder creation.  Once a file/folder is created on a drive it is never moved even if you subsequently change the Split Level or free space method to be used (for new files/folders).

 

I hope that helps.

 

Thanks, that was what I presumed happened (As you can see by my guess in font-sized 4 text at the bottom of my original post). Seems like I'll have to make two shares then, for movies/TV shows.