I'm still in the process of making my first copy of data to my unRAID server and something odd is happening.  I made one share, media, and set it to High-Water with everything else blank so UR handles thing automagically.  All 3 HD's are 4TB.  The first one filled up to 2GB mark and then the second one took over, just like it was supposed to.  But for whatever reason there are 20 empty folders now on disk1 with corresponding full folders on disk2.  With the exception of one folder that has an .nfo file left behind.

 

A) Is this a problem or normal?

B) Can I just remove the duplicate folders or more importantly, SHOULD I remove them?

 

I haven't assigned a Parity drive yet since data is still copying and will be for a while.  I'd like to make any changes like the above prior to firing that up though.

 

This last question isn't necessarily related, but figured I'd ask anyway.  At the root of the server when looking over SMB I have a "Network Trash Folder" and "Temporary Items" folder.  Also have the same thing on disk2 under the "media" root folder, but not disk1.  I'm guessing these have something to do with AFP?  Problems here or is this normal?

Do you have a specific problem with the function of the server?

If all this is "normal" than no. Being new to unRAID I can't say if it is or isn't.

 

 

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If you've done 'deletions' on the server from your Mac, then its possible that the Network Trash came from that.

If you're copying files from your Mac (or using the Mac to run the copying actions), then you'll find the Mac does make some 'litter'...usually these are invisible files.

 

I suggest you finish copying files. (do not delete your source files) Then check to be sure they are all on the array. If you see duplicate files on different physical disks then that could be an issue. Otherwise, it sounds like its just artifacts of the way the Mac allocates/assigns space on a network target.

 

Also, Try not to run multiple copy commands simultaneously...queue them up.

(one 'drag and drop' copy of a thousand files to the array is fine...but don't quickly do 50 drag and drop copies of one file each to the array, to the point where they are all running simultaneously (and slowly )

The reason for this is not unRAID, but rather the way the Mac (and Windows without Teracopy) determines if there is space available for the copy command. If there are too many simultaneous copies underway, the available space on the target drive can become incorrect for the still running copy commands.

Thanks Dale. I kind of figured that about those folders. I should of run the duplication command from the server, but since I had Carbon Copy Cloner I just used that. I'll likely use rsync in the future though. But if they are left, will they cause issues or should I just remove them when I can and start doing the sync from the server in the future?

 

So far it doesn't look like files are duplicated and if I understand how unRAID works, it sort of makes sense why there are empty directories which should have been made about the time the array switched drives. It probably created a block of directories waiting for files and then switched disks when it hit the threshold. I'm sure I can just leave the directories where they are, but it seems silly to leave an empty directory when the chances are it isn't going to change.

 

 

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...It probably created a block of directories waiting for files and then switched disks when it hit the threshold.

Yep.

 

You can clean them up if they annoy you...but wait 'til you're done with the bulk copying, because they may just come back again! Don't hesitate to ask for info or help if things don't seem to work right.

...It probably created a block of directories waiting for files and then switched disks when it hit the threshold.

Yep.

 

You can clean them up if they annoy you...but wait 'til you're done with the bulk copying, because they may just come back again! Don't hesitate to ask for info or help if things don't seem to work right.

 

Ok...  I obviously have NO idea what is supposed to happen behind the scenes cause now I'm seeing even stranger things happen.

 

Before I get to that, for my initial question/problem, after everything finished copying I went into drive 1 and removed the blank folders.  I know I didn't need to, but didn't see a point of them being there.

 

Now for the new issue.  After my initial clone completed I wanted to run it again to pick up any new files that were put in prior to starting the sync.  These should have ONLY been TV shows.  Right when I started the sync and it started comparing files, it picked up on a Movie that was already there (on disk 1) and proceeded to start putting it in again (on disk 2).  I stopped the sync and started to do some manual compares of things.

 

After this I shut down CCC and started it again and then tried the process on a single folder that I knew had a new episode on it.  That worked perfectly and unRAID created a new folder on disc 2 and placed the episode in there.  Great.

 

So I decided to run it on the entire TV directory which should have added about 6 or 7 new shows.  Well...  unRAID instead is moving files around from one drive to the other and I have no idea why.  Example:

 

Criminal Minds Season 2 - all episodes existed on disk 1.  There should have been no need to add any files. Now there is one episode that got placed on disk 2 and the one on disk 1 removed.

 

This is completely baffling behavior considering CCC is just a frontend for rsync and I know others are using that here.  What in the world is going on here?  Syncing up should only be adding/removing changed files, but that is absolutely not what's happening.  Maybe it's a timestamp thing?  Size thing?  I have no freaking clue.

 

I am wanting to get this array 100% up so I can enlarge my current drive array (which means destroying all the data) and use this as the main in the interim.  All this behavior is making me very nervous.  How the heck can I tell if everything is synced up 100% if every time I sync it's adding files it shouldn't?

 

HELP?!

Ok... so after that sync finished copying files it shouldn't have, I set about using rsync from the command line and the same damn thing is happening.  As soon as I run a command it's trying to copy files that are already there.  I'm at a loss here guys.  None of this is making any sense.

 

I'm randomly checking timestamps and everything looks identical.  So why can I perform a simple sync from my Mac to unRAID without sending the same files over and over?  I don't get it...

 

It's a good thing I haven't setup the parity drive.  All the back and forth I'm doing would be brutal.

I'm marking this as solved and moving the new problem to a new thread since I don't think it's related.