I have found lots of info here about moving files from disk to disk, but none about shares. Seems to me this should take almost no time at all but I can't figure it out.

 

I have a share named "Movies & Shows". In there are directories, movies, videos, tv shows, music etc.

 

I created a new Share "TV Shows"

 

I want to move all of the files in "Movies & Shows\TV Shows" to the "TV Shows" Share.

 

Is there an easy way to do this?

 

Thanks in advance.

use midnight commnader. Type mc in a command shell.

 

Kryspy

 

I found this quick and easy summary of Midnight Commander usage:

http://www.nawaz.org/media/docs/mc/mc.pdf

 

If you access via Disk share you can drag and drop on the client.

If you access via Disk share you can drag and drop on the client.

True.  By using disk references from your PC/Mac, you 'ensure' that you are accessing files on a physical drive, and not their 'virtual locations' in a SHARE that can span multiple drives. 

(To get to the 'disks' directly, GO:/Connect to server... and type in /smb://Tower/disk1/ , etc.  (The disks must be Exported for access. I use 'hidden' so that I can see them, but nobody else can.) Open one finder window for each disk, and it's obvious.)

 

The OP asked about 'easy'.

If I connect directly to the disks as suggested by dgaschk, the files are copied FROM unraid TO mac and BACK to the new unRaid place.  =Simple

If I use MC, that all happens on the unRAID box, (and perhaps with simple directory changes and no file moves)  =Fast

 

So I guess 'easy' could be 'fast', or 'simple'. If I were better at MC it could be both!

If you access via Disk share you can drag and drop on the client.

True.  By using disk references from your PC/Mac, you 'ensure' that you are accessing files on a physical drive, and not their 'virtual locations' in a SHARE that can span multiple drives. 

(To get to the 'disks' directly, GO:/Connect to server... and type in /smb://Tower/disk1/ , etc.  (The disks must be Exported for access. I use 'hidden' so that I can see them, but nobody else can.) Open one finder window for each disk, and it's obvious.)

 

The OP asked about 'easy'.

If I connect directly to the disks as suggested by dgaschk, the files are copied FROM unraid TO mac and BACK to the new unRaid place.  =Simple

If I use MC, that all happens on the unRAID box, (and perhaps with simple directory changes and no file moves)  =Fast

 

So I guess 'easy' could be 'fast', or 'simple'. If I were better at MC it could be both!

 

The file should not be copied over the network if a disk share is used. As long as the file is moved on the same disk it should happen almost instantly. Moving from disk to disk should take the same amount of time regardless of how the copy is done if you have a Gig-E network. The bottleneck will be writing to the array.

If you access via Disk share you can drag and drop on the client.

True.  By using disk references from your PC/Mac, you 'ensure' that you are accessing files on a physical drive, and not their 'virtual locations' in a SHARE that can span multiple drives. 

(To get to the 'disks' directly, GO:/Connect to server... and type in /smb://Tower/disk1/ , etc.  (The disks must be Exported for access. I use 'hidden' so that I can see them, but nobody else can.) Open one finder window for each disk, and it's obvious.)

 

The OP asked about 'easy'.

If I connect directly to the disks as suggested by dgaschk, the files are copied FROM unraid TO mac and BACK to the new unRaid place.  =Simple

If I use MC, that all happens on the unRAID box, (and perhaps with simple directory changes and no file moves)  =Fast

 

So I guess 'easy' could be 'fast', or 'simple'. If I were better at MC it could be both!

 

Ill have to play with MC. Copying from and back is taking forever. Thx

Ill have to play with MC. Copying from and back is taking forever. Thx

From my list of 'DOH' moments comes this concern:

Windlasher, what I meant to say earlier was:

1. Open two windows on your PC

    - one showing the disk #1 and the unraid files you want to MOVE

    - one showing the other disk #2  and location to which you want to move the files.

2. Drag and drop between the two windows.

 

You don't have to explicitly copy FROM unraid disk #1 TO your PC and then a second copy FROM your PC to unraid disk #2.

You have to keep your PC running while the files are copied of course.

This just uses your PC as the intermediate 'brains' of the copy. Its slower than using MC directly, but as dgaschk points out, the speed limit is probably your parity drive.

 

OK, open 2 Windows Explorer windows on your PC.

 

#1 - \\Tower\disk1\Movies & Shows\TV Shows

#2 - \\Tower\disk1\TV Shows

 

Select the files in window #1, right click down and hold on the mouse and drag to window #2. Release and select the Move option. You are moving the files on the same disk so just the file pointer table will get updated and it will happen very quickly. The files are not transferred over the network to the PC and back to the server.

 

Change to disk2, disk3, disk4 etc and repeat.

 

You can also try starting at;

 

#1 - \\Tower\disk1\Movies & Shows

#2 - \\Tower\disk1

 

In #1 you can select the whole "TV Shows" directory and Move it to the #2 window in 1 go. This will both create the share on that disk and populate it.