I am seeing something weird with rc12a

 

If I go to my share of \\Tower\Data and copy a file to a folder below the structure and then I go to the disk share of \\Tower\disk4\Data (which is the same location of the first share) the file is not there. This does not happen all the time but I find that weird because they are the same location. If I put the file in the disk share path (\\Tower\disk4\Data) then it is always fine and can be seen by both share paths)

 

I have also noticed that sometimes when I access the \\Tower\Data share folders they take forever to update in Windows Explorer but if I access it using the disk share (\\Tower\disk4\Data) then it is fast.

 

Is anyone else seeing this?

Maybe I have an incorrect settings somewhere.

 

Update: I should note that I am using rc12a which I just upgraded from rc11.

 

Thanks

It might be worth providing a screenshot of your settings for the Data share so we can see how you actually have it set up.  That way any guesses are likely to be more informed.

 

Also, do you have a cache drive - it could be the file is going there until the mover gets around to moving it to the disk shares.

 

As to speed, going via the user shares may involve spinning up all your drives whereas going directly to the disk share will only ever involve the single drive.  You might want to to look at using the cache_dirs plugin as a way of improving speed of access at the directory level to shares.

If I go to my share of \\Tower\Data and copy a file to a folder below the structure and then I go to the disk share of \\Tower\disk4\Data (which is the same location of the first share) the file is not there. This does not happen all the time but I find that weird because they are the same location. If I put the file in the disk share path (\\Tower\disk4\Data) then it is always fine and can be seen by both share paths)

 

I have also noticed that sometimes when I access the \\Tower\Data share folders they take forever to update in Windows Explorer but if I access it using the disk share (\\Tower\disk4\Data) then it is fast.

 

A couple of thoughts: 

 

First, is disk4 the ONLY disk that's "Included" in the "Data" share?  If you haven't excluded other disks, perhaps some of the files are on another disk that's part of the share.

 

If it IS the only disk included, do you have a cache drive?  If so, it's likely that the file is on the cache drive for a while (until the Mover script runs) ... and that's why you don't see it on the disk share (as itimpi noted above).    Writing it to the disk directly bypasses the cache.

 

As noted above, access to a share can require spinning up several drives;  accessing just one drive will involve at most spinning up just that drive.    If you go to the Web GUI and click "Spin Up" ... and wait for it to refresh;  THEN your Windows Explorer access should be quick no matter which path you use.

 

Cache_Dirs (suggested above) won't make it "always quick" (a drive may still need to be spun up) ... but it will limit the spin-up requirement to at most one drive.

 

Here are the settings for my Data share. It is disk4 only.

I do not have a cache drive

Since disk4 is the only disk included in the Data share I would expect it to only spin up disk4 and not the others.

Should I be excluding the rest of the disks for each share?

Here are the settings for my Data share. It is disk4 only.

I do not have a cache drive

Since disk4 is the only disk included in the Data share I would expect it to only spin up disk4 and not the others.

Should I be excluding the rest of the disks for each share?

 

You do not need to exclude the other disks => if you list specific disks in the Include, then those are the only ones considered when allocating space for that share.

 

Note that the Include and Exclude parameters only apply to allocations for WRITING data to the shares.  UnRAID will still check all disks for folders that are part of a specific share.

 

In other words, if you were to manually create a "Data" folder on a different disk (e.g. Disk 3) and write some files to it;  they would be accessible via the "Data" share.    Because of this behavior, UnRAID needs to spin up any disk(s) it doesn't have current directory info for when you access a share.

 

Even though only disk4 is included?

That does not make sense to me.

 

Even though only disk4 is included?

That does not make sense to me.

 

Remember what I said:  "Includes" and "Excludes" ONLY apply to choosing where UnRAID can WRITE data for the shares.    They do NOT limit where the shares can actually be if you manually create the folders.  One can debate whether or not this is how it should operate -- but the simple fact is that's how it works.

 

 

Is this something that Tom plans to change because I think that it is wrong to be checking other disks if they are not in the "included" list

Tom, can you comment please?

 

Can't speak for Tom, but I doubt this will change.

 

If you run the Cache_Dirs plugin it will retain directory information, and then won't require any disks to spin up except the one you actually need.

 

This is probably done so you can remove nearly full disks from the list of drives that can be written to. 

 

Sent via a phone. Sorry for any typos.

 

 

Ok going to try cache_dirs plugin.

Are the recommended settings listed in the screenshots of this thread:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=19789.0

 

Or are there other settings I should be using?

 

This is the actual Cache_Dirs thread by the author (Joe L)

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4500.0

 

Note it includes a pointer to the implementation details in the wiki:

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Improving_unRAID_Performance#Keep_directory_entries_cached

 

 

The one you listed is a "wrapper" that tries to put a GUI-like interface on Cache_Dirs.  I don't think you need that ... the single-line entry in your startup script (shown in the Wiki) is all you need.

 

 

Ok going to try cache_dirs plugin.

Are the recommended settings listed in the screenshots of this thread:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=19789.0

 

Or are there other settings I should be using?

Unfortunately, no, those shown in the screen capture  are NOT the recommended settings.

 

The min and max seconds per scan should be 1 and 10  The actual values dynamically adjust themselves, so constraining them to a smaller range will not help much.

 

Most people do not need to populate anything in the "Include" or "Exclude" directory fields.  In fact, the example shown would ONLY scan

"tmp" and ".apps"

and that is probably not where all the media lives on that user's server.  (They are illustrating a bad set of settings)

 

Apparently, the person who copied the cache_dirs code into a plugin does not know much about using it.

 

Joe L.

Listen to Joe => he's the author of Cache_Dirs and by far the most knowledgeable guy on this forum wrt UnRAID !!

 

The thread I linked above is his write-up on it ... and as he noted you don't need the "wrapper" plug-in.

 

I agree... Joe is the man.

OK I will remove the plugin and just use the one line in the go script

 

Joe, What is the best command line options for the cache_dirs script to place in the go script?

 

Thanks for your help

I agree... Joe is the man.

OK I will remove the plugin and just use the one line in the go script

 

Joe, What is the best command line options for the cache_dirs script to place in the go script?

 

Thanks for your help

I personally use

cache_dirs -w -e "data"

OK sorry for the question Joe but I am new to cache dirs.

 

Can you explain what that command line would do? I assume "data" is my share name. Would I have to include that line for each one of my share names on the tower?

 

OK sorry for the question Joe but I am new to cache dirs.

 

Can you explain what that command line would do? I assume "data" is my share name. Would I have to include that line for each one of my share names on the tower?

NO, data is MY share name I wish to exclude from cache_dirs.  It has a great number of small files from old Microsoft backups and linux source trees.

 

You should start by reading the cache_dirs thread, or at least the post where it is introduced.  By default, it will operate on all of your user-shares with just:

cache_dirs -w

 

Typing

cache_dirs -?

will give you the possible options.  (nearly all of which you can ignore)

Usage: cache_dirs [-m min_seconds] [-M max_seconds] [-F] [-d maxdepth] [-c command] [-a args] [-e exclude_dir] [-i include_dir] [-w]

      cache_dirs -V      = print program version

      cache_dirs -q

      cache_dirs -l on  = turn on logging to /var/log/cache_dirs.log

      cache_dirs -l off  = turn off logging to /var/log/cache_dirs.log

-w      =  wait for array to come online before start of cache scan of directories

-m NN    =  minimum seconds to wait between directory scans (default=1)

-M NN    =  maximum seconds to wait between directory scans (default=10)

-F      =  do NOT run in background, run in Foreground and print statistics as it loops and scans

-v      =  when used with -F, verbose statistics are printed as directories are scanned

-s      =  shorter-log - print count of directories scanned to syslog instead of their names

-d NN    =  use "find -maxdepth NN" instead of "find -maxdepth 999"

-c command  = use command instead of "find"

              (command should be quoted if it has embedded spaces)

-a args    = append args to command

-u      =  also scan /mnt/user (scan user shares)

-e exclude_dir  (may be repeated as many times as desired)

-i include_dir  (may be repeated as many times as desired)

-B      =  do not force disks busy (to prevent unmounted disks showing as unformatted)

-S      =  do not suspend scan during 'mover' process

-z      = concise log (log run criteria on one line)

-q      = terminate any background instance of cache_dirs

 

As Joe noted, the -e means "exclude" => he outlines that nicely in the thread on Cache_Dirs

 

I agree that you likely just need "cache_dirs -w" however.

 

On my media server, I use

 

cache_dirs -w -e "backups"

 

That caches my "DVDs" share and my "Music" share, but doesn't cache my Backups share, which has tens of thousands of files in it from all of our PC's and isn't accessed by any of our media clients.

 

Thanks. I will try it tonight