Got my server up, disks pre-cleared and formatted and now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to set up shares.  My file structure is pretty simple compared to others, but I can change it IF it makes sense to do so.  Now would be a good time to do it before I start copying data to it, but since this is going to act as a backup to another drive array they both need to have the same structure.

 

Current structure:

 

MediaRAID Drive array

>movies

>>movie folder

>>>movie files

>tv

>>tv series folder

>>>tv files (all seasons in the series folder root)

 

I was going to set unRAID up in the same way, but with one folder to contain them.  So it would look like this and what I think the levels should be:

 

>TV and Movies (level 1)

>>movies (level 2)

>>>movie folder

>>>>movie files

>>tv (level 2)

>>>tv series folder

>>>>tv files (all seasons in the series folder root)

 

All the movies and tv folders are going to be created when I copy the data up and then keep everything synced up with a script of some sort.

 

With all this in mind, am I going to run into any issues with this setup?  Will the tv files be forced to stay on one disk and is that good or bad?  Somehow I think that might be a bad thing and I should create season folders at which point the "tv" share needs to be level 3 - I think.

 

I thought this was going to be as simple as just creating the same folders on each drive and dumping files to it, but apparently I need to think more about it!  Which is fine.  Better now than later.

 

Thanks in advance.

And another related question... What's the best allocation method?  I was thinking it should be "most-free".

 

Also, I do have a cache drive installed (120GB SSD) which will be used for some apps (like plex).  Should I be setting these shares up to use the cache drive anyway?  I have no idea how much space I'll use with apps, but I doubt it will be too terribly much.

I'm using High water....

I was concerned about my drives not being "balanced", but Garycase explained it was not important to have my drives balanced

So you could use Most free as well

Now that I think about it, I think movies should be level 1 and tv level 1 IF I leave it as is, but if I use season folders it should be level 2. Yes? No?

 

 

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Could be too much overthinking.

For Movies, 'split level' might be of interest if you are ripping entire DVD's whole and are keeping all the individual VOB files.

IF you do that, then when you play back, there could be a 'pause' if the VOB's are on different physical disks and you have to wait for the new disk to spin up.

BUT, if you rip your DVD's into a single MP4, MKV, etc., then the whole file will be on one disk and there is no spin up.

 

TV episodes are similar. The thing to consider with episodes is: Does it really matter if there's a 7 second pause as episode 9 spins up while episode 8 finishes? That's not nearly as noticeable (or objectionable) as spin up in the middle of the action movie. (or the big romance scene  )

Agree r.e. over-thinking split levels.    As noted above, if your media is stored in a container that holds an entire movie in a single file, the split level is really irrelevant -- UnRAID never "splits" a file ... the split level simply controls the files within a folder.

 

Split level 2 works well for DVDs stored in their original format (VOBs) ... but most other media is likely to fit the "one file per movie" mold; and for those it simply doesn't matter.

 

 

Could be too much overthinking.

For Movies, 'split level' might be of interest if you are ripping entire DVD's whole and are keeping all the individual VOB files.

IF you do that, then when you play back, there could be a 'pause' if the VOB's are on different physical disks and you have to wait for the new disk to spin up.

BUT, if you rip your DVD's into a single MP4, MKV, etc., then the whole file will be on one disk and there is no spin up.

 

TV episodes are similar. The thing to consider with episodes is: Does it really matter if there's a 7 second pause as episode 9 spins up while episode 8 finishes? That's not nearly as noticeable (or objectionable) as spin up in the middle of the action movie. (or the big romance scene  )

 

Oh I'm sure I'm over thinking it!

 

I don't rip full DVD or BR, only single files. I sure as heck don't want a movie file split in half though. I was hoping that would never happen actually. As for spin up in series, I could care less about that. I won't mind that I think. And keep in mind that initially this is going to be a backup, but I'm quickly thinking this is going to be the primary.

 

 

 

 

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Agree r.e. over-thinking split levels.    As noted above, if your media is stored in a container that holds an entire movie in a single file, the split level is really irrelevant -- UnRAID never "splits" a file ... the split level simply controls the files within a folder.

 

Split level 2 works well for DVDs stored in their original format (VOBs) ... but most other media is likely to fit the "one file per movie" mold; and for those it simply doesn't matter.

 

So set everything to level 1 or just it to level 0 and let the system worry about it? 

 

 

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Actually you should just leave the split level blank.    Then UnRAID will manage it just fine.

 

 

Actually you should just leave the split level blank.    Then UnRAID will manage it just fine.

 

Ahhhh. That's what I needed. I thought it was smart enough to do that.

 

And that's what happens if you set up shares via Finder correct?  As long as the same folder is on every drive UnRAID handles it automatically.

 

What about my follow question(s) allocation and cache?  And since you helped me finalize my build (you helped a ton, thank you) you pretty much know what I have!

 

 

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Allocation method is entirely a personal choice.  As you know, there are 3 choices:

 

(1)  Fill-up.  Write everything to one disk until that disk is full; then start using the next disk and repeat the process.

 

(2)  Most free.  Write to the disk with the most free space.    This will give you the most "balanced" set of drives, as they'll all have roughly the same amount of free space.  [Note that if your drives are of varying size, the smaller drives won't be used at all until all of the larger drives have been filled up to the point where their free space matches the smaller drive's size.

 

(3)  High-water.  Write to one disk until it's 1/2 full;  then repeat for the next drive; etc.  This results in less "spreading" of files than "most free"; but also less switching between disks as you write new files.

 

The reality is it simply doesn't matter which you use.