Shares Across Discs (Solved)


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I have shares setup across all my drives. Movies, Music, Pictures, TV Shows.

 

Noting how you worded this, do you have all of the drives listed as "Includes" for each of these shares?

 

That's okay, but it's simpler to just leave the Includes (and Excludes) blank -- then any new drives will automatically be part of the share as well.    You should only use the Includes if you want to limit the shares to specific drives;  or the Excludes if you want to specifically exclude certain drives from the share.  ... and in general you should NEVER use both the Include and Exclude settings.

 

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Yes the includes and excludes are all blank. I only asked because when I setup the first two disks I was writing to disk1 via the movie share and it went to 2.2TB on a 3TB drive with High Water Allocation. It was only when I manually added the folders, i.e. Movies, TV Shows etc to disk2 did it start copying to it. And before you ask I was copying to the Movie share assigned to both disks and not direct to the disk1 Movies folder. I suppose I will have to watch it again when I get my Server Pro license through and add the rest of the discs to the server.

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The writes are also impacted by the split level.  This can cause writes to continue beyond the point in time when the allocation method would have caused a switch in target disks.

 

Yes this is what I was thinking, my server is setup with the movies shares as Movies/Edge of Tomorrow/Edge of Tomorrow.mkv with a split level of 1 to keep all the individual films and fan art e.t.c. in the corresponding movie name folder but allowing different Movies to be spread across disks but with all of them in a top level folder called Movies. My TV Shows are TV Shows/24/Season 1/ 24 - S01E01.mkv split level 2. I don't mind the seasons going across disks but keeping all shows for that season in one folder so with say 24 season 8 being Blu-ray I have setup 220GB as reserve. This is how the wiki says to do it but some other guides say level 2 for movies and 3 for TV Shows so maybe I have it wrong.

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Yes, that's my understanding.  Mine are at split level 2, and after 6+ years and over 4,000 movies I've never had a problem  :)

 

If I go into the movie share and look at split level 1 it says "Combine files to top level share subfolders within the share Movies". So if I add a folder to the Movies share called High Five with all the artwork and MKV file inside this folder and there is not enough room to write it won't it keep the artwork in this folder but add another folder called High Five to my Movies share on disk2??

 

Thanks

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I'm going to take your advise Gary and make the Movies split level 2 and change all my other shares. The unRAID guide for setting up shares didn't say that the user level share, i.e. Movies is Level 1, therefore my Individual movie named folders are split level 2. This is where I was getting thrown as the unRAID guide I was reading said the User level Share is Level 0.

 

Thanks for your help.

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So I was using this page: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Split_level

 

Its says:

 

For Movies use a split level = 2. This allows the "SD Movies", "HD Movies" and "Kids Movies" folders to be placed on every disk and it keeps each individual movie folder on a single disk. This way, any single movie folder and the contents of the movie folder will remain on a single disk.

 

For TV_Shows use a split level of either 1 or 2. A split level of 1 will keep each TV series on a single disk and split level of 2 will keep each season on a single disk. The split level of 2 means that the complete TV series can be stored on multiple disks, however each individual season of that TV series will be on a single disk.

 

As I didn't use separate folders for SD Movies, HD Movies and alike I presumed I would use split level 1, and with the TV Shows I used a split level of 2 so that each individual season of that TV series will be on a single disk.

 

It really is a mix and match of information. Assassin HTPC Guide to unRAID is much clearer and follows what you say but I thought the official unRAID user guide for be 100% accurate.

 

So Split Level of 2 for Movies and 2 or 3 for TV Shows Im really not sure anymore. my structure will be TV Shows share, so TV Shows/24/Season 1/S01EP01.mkv

 

I don't mind the TV Show spreading across my disks but the individual .mkv files must stay in the same season.

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I agree the documentation could use some improving -- I wasn't certain about what to use either, but my understanding was the "Movies" was "1", and the name of the movie was "2" -- so that's what I used ... and it's worked perfectly as near as I can tell [Can't absolutely guarantee there's not some movie that's been spread across a couple disks, but I certainly haven't noticed any ... and I watched it very closely for the first few months (but don't anymore).

 

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Yes it looks like from further forum reading that split level 2 is correct and if I want all my TV Show seasons to be kept together I use split level 2 and the same goes for my music which is Music/Artist Name/Album name.

Im sure someone will correct me if Im wrong although the post on the forums seem to suggest TV Shows and Movies at level 2, just not sure about music as I would like to keep the artists name/album name/files to one disk, I don't mind the different artists being spread across disks but not the albums, they need to all stay with the artist and as I never have anymore than 5 albums per artist I doubt this will affect my disc space if I set the reserve at 100gb as they are flac files.

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I actually think that a split level of 1 for Movies is what is wanted here?   

 

I always think of the split level (ignoring 0) as the number of folder levels that can be replicated across drives.  A split level of 1 would mean Movies can be replicated, but nothing under that.  The example in the wiki uses 2 because it has an intermediate level before the folder containing the actual film.

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Ha Ha now Im even more confused.

 

So my Structure is like this:

 

Shares:

TV Shows

Movies

Pictures

Music

Kids Movies

Concerts

 

Inside Movies I have folders titled by the name of the movies and all the files and fan art in this folder. I don't mind the Movie say Bourne Identity being on disk1 and Bourne Supremacy on disk2 but the artwork and .mkv must stay in the named folder of the film, Im having so much fun at the moment from my old WHS setup as I have a Bourne Identity folder on all of my old 10 discs with disc.png in one, .mkv in another, fan art in another and its a nightmare sorting them out, I never want to have to do this again, hence my post on the forum.

The same with TV Shows, I don't mind having a folder called 24 on disk1 and disk2 as long as all the Season 1 files are in that folder and not spread with 24 - S01E02.mkv on disk1 and 24 0 S01E02 on disk 2, they must all be in one season 1 folder on any disc.

Music can spread different artists across discs but must keep all the albums from that artist under the artist name.

 

So guys what do I do as there are conflicting views here.

 

Thanks

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I actually think that a split level of 1 for Movies is what is wanted here?   

 

I agree the documentation indicates that ... but actual experience seems to show differently.

 

For example, megalodon noted that UnRAID has filled 2.2TB on a 3TB drive with his current setting.  With high-water allocation, the system should have started using another drive at the 1.5TB point ... unless split level was forcing it to continue writing to that drive.

 

I don't recall for sure, but I seem to remember trying 1 as the split level ~ 6 years ago, and decided it wasn't doing what I wanted, so I switched to 2, which has worked perfectly.

 

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Inside Movies I have folders titled by the name of the movies and all the files and fan art in this folder. I don't mind the Movie say Bourne Identity being on disk1 and Bourne Supremacy on disk2 but the artwork and .mkv must stay in the named folder of the film, Im having so much fun at the moment from my old WHS setup as I have a Bourne Identity folder on all of my old 10 discs with disc.png in one, .mkv in another, fan art in another and its a nightmare sorting them out, I never want to have to do this again, hence my post on the forum.

That is why in your case I think you want  a level of 1.    If you tried 2 then you are saying that the folder named after the movie can also be replicated across drives.  On my own system I use a value of 2, but I have an intermediate level;

 

[1uot3]The same with TV Shows, I don't mind having a folder called 24 on disk1 and disk2 as long as all the Season 1 files are in that folder and not spread with 24 - S01E02.mkv on disk1 and 24 0 S01E02 on disk 2, they must all be in one season 1 folder on any disc.

In this case you want 2.  That means that the 'TV Shows' and the 'Show name' folders can be replicated across drives, but seasons (which are at level 3 cannot).

Music can spread different artists across discs but must keep all the albums from that artist under the artist name.

Sounds like you want a value of 1 here so that the 'Music' share can be replicated, but the next level (Artist) cannot.

 

If you ever introduce another level (e.g. perhaps a level to split by first letter) then you would need to increase split levels accordingly.

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Ha Ha all this stuff makes me wonder why the mods don't setup a New Users Heading so stickies can be added to help people like me with split levels, what is Dynamix, unmenu, VM's, Docker etc.

There is just to much information on the web that relates to older versions of unRAID and the forum should be up to date as much as possible while still helping New Users to unRAID. The headings in the forum are confusing enough to a new user.

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itimpi, This is exactly how I originally had it setup and by the look of the diagram when you select the share levels in Dynamix you are correct. I will change the settings back and monitor the high water as I add movies to the movie share and not the disk share and if it doesn't move over to the next disc I will change the level like Gary suggested.

 

Thanks You for your help Guys.

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