Currently I have all my movies in a share.  The share has no disk inclusions or exclusions.  I am about in bring on a new disk.  I want to put all the movies onto that disk.

If I now assign that disk as the only 'included' disk on the share,  will UNRAID move all the files across automatically ?

 

No.  It will not move the files (automatically) from one disk to another.  If you want the files moved you will have to do it manually with a disk-to-disk move (and it will take a long time to actually do it). 

 

Be careful removing a disk from a share while there are still files in the share on that disk.  I am not sure exactly what will happen...  I would empty the share first and then proceed. 

Nothing will happen. The include and exclude configuration options are only used whenever a new file is written.

 

Whenever you view the contents of a user share unraid will display all data in that share as it sits on all drives, the include and exclude statements are not used then.

 

So you can include, exclude all you want, it will only do something to the next file you copy, not to everything allready there.

Agree with Frank that it's best to move all the data from a share to another drive before removing a drive from a share.

 

Note that if a drive is assigned to a share, there will be a folder with the share name on every disk assigned to the share that has data written to it (the folder isn't created until needed).

 

So, for example, if you have a "Movies" share that can use any disk, then the disks it's actually using will have a "Movies" folder on them.    So if you now want all of those movies on Disk 3, I'd do this:

 

(a)  Create a "Movies" folder on disk3.

(b)  One-at-a-time, MOVE all of the content from the "Movies" folder on each of the other disks to the Movies folder on disk3 -- deleting the empty Movies folders after the moves are complete.  [As Frank noted, these moves can take a LONG time.]

©  When you've finished (b), no disk will have a "Movies" folder except Disk 3.    So you can now list "disk3" as the only "Included" disk for that share, and the system will behave like you want in the future (ONLY using that disk for the "Movies" share).

 

I fairly certain UnRAID would not delete any data from your other disks if you simply set Disk3 as the only "Included" disk for the share ==> the other disks that still have Movies folders would still have those folders and their contents.    I'm not sure whether or not they'd be shown as part of the Movies share, however -- I think they would, but simply don't know for sure.

 

Helmonder's post confirms what I THOUGHT would happen is indeed how UnRAID behaves.  Nice to know.  I was fairly sure that was how it would work, but as I noted I wasn't certain.

 

so.. in order to MOVE files, it would be better idea to set up a new share name on the new disk (disk3),  then from within Windows, move files from the existing share to the new share ?

Thanks for the help.

so.. in order to MOVE files, it would be better idea to set up a new share name on the new disk (disk3),  then from within Windows, move files from the existing share to the new share ?

Thanks for the help.

 

Even in Windows, you can move Disk-to-Disk.  To make the individual disks 'visible' on your desktop, you have to click on the disk ID (ex: Disk 1) and set SMB export to 'Yes'. 

Nothing will happen. The include and exclude configuration options are only used whenever a new file is written.

 

Whenever you view the contents of a user share unraid will display all data in that share as it sits on all drives, the include and exclude statements are not used then.

 

So you can include, exclude all you want, it will only do something to the next file you copy, not to everything allready there.

 

I agree with this. In fact, excluding a disk is a great way to fill a disk and then stop unRAID from trying to place a new file on it.

Excluding a disk will indeed stop UnRAID from trying to write to it.  But you can also effectively doing this by simply manually writing to the disk's share until it's full => then the disk allocation algorithm will never try to use it 

 

... I don't think it really matters which approach you take, as even if a disk is "excluded" from a share, if there is a folder on that disk with the share's name, it will be included in listings of the share contents (and can be accessed just fine).

 

Excluding a disk will indeed stop UnRAID from trying to write to it.  But you can also effectively doing this by simply manually writing to the disk's share until it's full => then the disk allocation algorithm will never try to use it 

Unless the split level is set incorrectly. Split takes precedence over allocation.

Split takes precedence over allocation.

 

Interesting -- I wasn't aware of that.  In fact, I'm surprised I've never had a problem because of that.  I'll have to do a bit of experimenting ...