ok, so I'm getting a handle on this.  I freed up that 8.36gb from my old plex folder, and i'm finding stuff to clean out, but...why does Windows see these folders as like..the entire array?  if I browse to it and use Windirstat a 32gb folder shows up as hundreds of gb before I cancel it....

 

it seems weird....I'm more comfortable deleting this stuff from Linux where it accurately reports the size...but i'm still curious WHY it does that....

 

Thanks

 

Hmmmm....

There was an old old bug kind of like this.

Turned out that the 'free space' was being calculated against a user share's total potential empty space across all disks.

 

Not sure why you're seeing what you're seeing, though.

 

alright guys, thanks a bunch.  I've done a ton of housecleaning here.  I manually deleted almost everything, as I determined it wasn't stuff that was in use anymore.  I hope to not run into this issue again, as I now have a much better understanding of how the cache drive works. - thanks again for that!

 

I don't want to start another thread for this simple question:  How do you install plugins and stuff, but not have them interfere with the array starting up properly?  when I reboot it seems like after I install plugins everything get's all jacked.  I was freaking out because every time I'd try to start the array it'd hang.  Finally started over by following the instructions in dgaschk's sig:

Revert to stock system:

1. Rename the /boot(flash)/config/plugins directory.

2. Rename the /boot(flash)/plugins directory.

3. Rename boot(flash)/extra/.

4. Use the stock go file (boot(flash)/config/go).

 

Stock go file:

#!/bin/bash

# Start the Management Utility

/usr/local/sbin/emhttp&

#The following line is not stock; but it makes safemode work with go file additions.

if grep -wq unraidsafemode /proc/cmdline ; then exit ; fi

#Additional go file modifications below this line.

After that everything is back to normal.  I've always seemed to have this problem, but never see anyone else asking about it.  and all the search terms I can think of seem too vague.

 

Stuff I run on my unraid server:

Sabnzbd

sickbeard

couchpotato

plex

subsonic

unmenu

edit - and Crashplan!

not sure if anything sticks out there..but....how do I ensure nothing interferes with starting the array?

This is easiest to see from the console...

at boot up time, from a standing start, your screen starts out black, then the BIOS will run as the computer boots, then unRAID will begin to boot and it will offer you 3 choices: (Normal, 'SAFE BOOT', and MemTest).  If you select Safe Boot, no extensions are loaded...if you select nothing, 'Normal' will continue on.

 

Another possibility is to have a 'clean backup' of your flash drive on your PC. One that contains no extensions, but does include your KEY and your config files.  I've actually got eight archived flash drives.  If I get into trouble, I just reload the last working Flash Drive by copying it back to Flash and then popping the flash back into unRAID.

 

This is easiest to see from the console...

at boot up time, from a standing start, your screen starts out black, then the BIOS will run as the computer boots, then unRAID will begin to boot and it will offer you 3 choices: (Normal, 'SAFE BOOT', and MemTest).  If you select Safe Boot, no extensions are loaded...if you select nothing, 'Normal' will continue on.

 

Another possibility is to have a 'clean backup' of your flash drive on your PC. One that contains no extensions, but does include your KEY and your config files.  I've actually got eight archived flash drives.  If I get into trouble, I just reload the last working Flash Drive by copying it back to Flash and then popping the flash back into unRAID.

 

Afraid I can't really help you with the plugin conflicts...I only track the ones that I use. Check the forum threads on each for clues. Different packages install different versions of Linux Software Libraries...sometimes these conflict.

You might just try installing one thing at a time and test before installing another and if you break something go back to a previous point as suggested by DaleWilliams and try and figure out what went wrong.

 

Also, go ahead and spend some time looking at your syslog and others that get posted in the forum. There is a lot of stuff in there and I don't really understand some of it, but after you have seen enough of them you start to get some idea what is going on. In particular, you can see the progress of plugin installation. Many plugins download a lot of stuff, and some of them may even overwrite stuff that other plugins have installed. It can be a mess.

 

I have tried all of the addons you mentioned, but maybe not all at the same time. I eventually ended up with just a few that I really used. For example, with plex installed I ended up not using subsonic. Do you need both? Is there something it can do that plex cannot? I don't know.

 

Anyway, take it slowly and maybe look at your syslog to see what's going on with the plugins. And continue to ask questions.

awesome!  thanks so much guys!

 

edit:

I hate Plex for music.  Subsonic makes more sense to me for music.  I like playlists.