Hi,

 

I've never understood why I would want to use split level folders. Maybe because I actually don't need this feature, but wanted to post here so I can be educated to see what I'm missing.

 

All I want from my unRAID, is big blob of storage. This is how I have it setup currently, no split folders and all my media etc. just stored on it, over 3 drives (1 parity, 2 data). If I lose a drive, I'd just replace it and get everything recovered. If I want to extract some specific content onto a drive to transport somewhere, I'd plug it into my main PC and copy the selected data onto it.

 

I can only think that people use split folders so that their content is kept on a specific disk so that they can transport the disk if needed?

 

Have I missed anything?

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

You're absolutely right that from a logical perspective it makes no difference.

 

The primary reason to keep content "together" on a single drive is so the entire contents of a specific media item can be accessed without the need to spin up multiple disks.    For example, if you're playing a movie, and an hour or so into it the next "VOB" file is on a different disk that's not currently spun up, there will be a short pause in the movie while the other disk spins up.

 

In reality, this doesn't happen often even without split levels unless you're using the "most free" allocation method.    With "fill up" or "high water" allocation methods the disk in use doesn't change all that often anyway.

 

Ah, I see, I had over looked the "wear and tear" side of things. Thanks garycase.

It's not really a "wear and tear" issue.  It's just the frustration of a 5-10 second delay during a movie while a drive spins up => it's just as if you'd hit a Pause button, waited a few seconds, then un-paused it.

 

... and while I don't know which players do and which ones don't, some players actually buffer 20-30 seconds ahead while they're playing content => and if you're using one of them you won't even notice the spin-up delay, as it will only impact the buffering ... not the actual playback [by the time the content from the 2nd drive is needed, it's already available].