It would make more sense to just cache above the split level.  Since once you are below the split-level, you are going to be guaranteed to be on only 1 disk, so only 1 disk need spin up... and it is flexible so if someone uses a different split level, it will work for them the same.

IMO if caching is going to be developed it should be for entire file listings. The reason I say this is that for me at least it is essential. To update my media library my media app needs to have access to a complete file listing.

 

Also IMO you should only spin up a disk when reading or writing data.

Also IMO you should only spin up a disk when reading or writing data.

 

That's nice in concept, but the way some people use unRAID, it would quickly exhaust memory to do that, and take buffers away from writes and readaheads.  There could also be a big benefit to implementing such caching above the splitlevel, since it could be handled differently (and very possibly easier).

Quick question just to make this issue clear.  This problem gets resolved if you do not use a shared drive name and just copy the files into one drive?  I do not use ISO for my HD movies, I actually use the files and directories.  Each movie containes many files and many directories. What is stated below I do not think would work for my situation.

 

MOVIE1.ISO = /mnt/disk1/movies/MOVIE1.ISO

MOVIE2.ISO = /mnt/disk1/movies/MOVIE2.ISO

MOVIE3.ISO = /mnt/disk2/movies/MOVIE3.ISO

 

Quick question just to make this issue clear.   This problem gets resolved if you do not use a shared drive name and just copy the files into one drive?  I do not use ISO for my HD movies, I actually use the files and directories.  Each movie containes many files and many directories. What is stated below I do not think would work for my situation.

 

MOVIE1.ISO = /mnt/disk1/movies/MOVIE1.ISO

MOVIE2.ISO = /mnt/disk1/movies/MOVIE2.ISO

MOVIE3.ISO = /mnt/disk2/movies/MOVIE3.ISO

 

 

Correct but yours could be modified slightly so that it would work.  Somthing like this might work:

SUPERMAN_RETURNS = /mnt/disk1/movies/SUPERMAN_RETURNS/
BATMAN = /mnt/disk2/movies/BATMAN/

 

This is assuming that all the files needed to play the movies SUPERMAN_RETURNS and BATMAN are contained within that one folder.

I did move some of my movies from my shared movie folder moved them into one disk.  This did stop the problems I had with stuttering of playback.  The problem I have is now is moving the files from my shared directory to each drive.  What is the safest, fastest and easiest way to move my files.  I have over 11 TB of data to allocate and just moving a few took quite a while.  Thanks for any help in advance.

This will only help in the case where your media player device does not attempt to browse the network share in a background process.  Apparently, my popcorn hour likes to see what's on the network drive on a regular basis, resulting in multiple spin ups during movie playback.  My Vista MC machine isn't quite as nosey. I've set my spin down to never for the time being. It's kind of cold in the server room this time of year anyway; I just need a patch before the warm season gets here.

I had another thought inspired by something grimm2000 said.

 

If you are using user shares, and your split level allows different files from the same movie to be placed on different physical disks, than you are going to have pauses (stuttering) as it transitions and tries to read files from spun down disks.  Split levels are a little confusing, but should normally be set so you don't have files from the same movie split across drives.

 

I had another thought inspired by something grimm2000 said.

 

If you are using user shares, and your split level allows different files from the same movie to be placed on different physical disks, than you are going to have pauses (stuttering) as it transitions and tries to read files from spun down disks.  Split levels are a little confusing, but should normally be set so you don't have files from the same movie split across drives.

 

bjp999's comment applies if your movies are split into individual files for chapters, and those files are not all on the same disk for a given movie...  They would not apply if the entire movie is in a single .ISO or .AVI file.

 

If a single movie has it's .VOB files split between disks, then it is guaranteed you will have a pause when a subsequent disk is spun up as you get to the chapter it holds.

 

Joe L.

I did move some of my movies from my shared movie folder moved them into one disk.  This did stop the problems I had with stuttering of playback.  The problem I have is now is moving the files from my shared directory to each drive.  What is the safest, fastest and easiest way to move my files.  I have over 11 TB of data to allocate and just moving a few took quite a while.  Thanks for any help in advance.

 

  Transferring Files Within the unRAID Server

 

Please see the 'How To' above.  Please be aware though that using MC will save the time lost in transferring files across the network, but there is no way to speed up the time it takes to save files to a parity protected drive.  There is too much I/O involved.  Setting up batches to run each night is probably your best course.

I did move some of my movies from my shared movie folder moved them into one disk.  This did stop the problems I had with stuttering of playback.  The problem I have is now is moving the files from my shared directory to each drive.  What is the safest, fastest and easiest way to move my files.  I have over 11 TB of data to allocate and just moving a few took quite a while.  Thanks for any help in advance.

 

   Transferring Files Within the unRAID Server

 

Please see the 'How To' above.  Please be aware though that using MC will save the time lost in transferring files across the network, but there is no way to speed up the time it takes to save files to a parity protected drive.  There is too much I/O involved.  Setting up batches to run each night is probably your best course.

 

Interestingly, my experience has been that copying a file from Windows to the array is slightly faster than copying from disk to disk on the unRAID server.

 

As I think about how I'd try to fix this problem if I had it, I am left wondering what would happen if you tried to move files from the user share to a specific disk, if that specific disk already contained SOME of the movie's files in the same place you were trying to move them to.

 

I think I'd run a quick test to make sure this worked.  If so, that would likely be the least complex way.  Otherwise it becomes more complicated.  I'd probably move it in a two step process.  (i.e., move the movie files from the user share to the cache disk, and then move them from the cache disk to the specific disk I wanted it to live on).

You guys will have to forgive my ignorance on this, but I see that I am going to have a delimna after a while moving my my movies to seperate drives.  I really liked the use of the user share drive because I only had to point my HTPC to one location to access my movies.  Now I can honestly see that I am going to run out of drive letters pointing to each individual drive.  My current UnRaid system is close to full so I plan to purchase/build a new one (not yet sure which way I will go), and my movie/music/picture library is not even close to done. 

 

My movies have multiple files and directories when I put them on my server.  Is there anyway to have the folders/files be forced on to one drive, but still be part of the user share drive so I can only point to one place to see all my movies?  Or is there anyway to create one location point to so I can see all of my movies over various drives and map that to only one drive on my HTPC?

 

My expertise is SAP and excel and not servers.

Someone will no doubt tell you the technical way to set your share level to do what you want, but I keep my movies (direct DVD rips keeping the file structure intact) on one disk by ripping to the network share name (//tower1/disk3/Video/DVD/MovieName). Then I point the media center app to X:/DVD/MovieName, where X: points to the Video user share.  It's a very manual way of balancing the disks, but I don't add content very often now that the server is in production.

You guys will have to forgive my ignorance on this, but I see that I am going to have a delimna after a while moving my my movies to seperate drives.  I really liked the use of the user share drive because I only had to point my HTPC to one location to access my movies.   Now I can honestly see that I am going to run out of drive letters pointing to each individual drive.  My current UnRaid system is close to full so I plan to purchase/build a new one (not yet sure which way I will go), and my movie/music/picture library is not even close to done. 

 

My movies have multiple files and directories when I put them on my server.   Is there anyway to have the folders/files be forced on to one drive, but still be part of the user share drive so I can only point to one place to see all my movies?  Or is there anyway to create one location point to so I can see all of my movies over various drives and map that to only one drive on my HTPC?

 

My expertise is SAP and excel and not servers.

 

Short answer - you will not have to give up user shares.

 

READING from user shares is very easy.  Once you get each movie on its own directory, your user shares will look EXACTLY the same way it looks today and reading from them will work just fine.

 

WRITING to user shares is the more complicated part.

 

Some users choose to use user shares for reading only, and pick and choose which disk to write their data.  This is a perfectly valid use of unRAID.

 

But if you want unRAID to do the writing, it is going to demand that you store your data in a consistent hierarchy.

 

You should NOT have folders called

"/Movies/Action/Stalone/Rambo/..." for your action movies and

"/Movies/Drama/TermsEndearment/..." for your drama movies. 

 

This is because the former stores the movies at the 4th level (level1=Movies, level2=Action, level3=Stalone, level4=Rambo) while the latter stores the movie at the 3rd level.

 

In order to write to user shares, ALL of your movies need to be stored at the same level, or you may get unexpected file placement.

 

If you can pick a hierarchy that works for you, and tell unRAID the split level, unRAID will place files and not split movies across disks.

 

If you set the split level too low, you will start getting messages that you are out of space, because unRAID is trying, for example, to put all of your action movies on the same disk.  Once that disk is full, unRAID has no option to put them on another disk because of your split level.

 

Set it too high, and your movies will start getting split across multiple disks.  For example, setting to 99 will basically say that each file can be placed on any drive up to 99 levels deep!  Level 99 is okay if you are manually writing your files to disks and using shares only for reading, but if you write with the level set at 99 files can be placed anywhere and the stuttering effect described in this thread will occur if disks are spun down during playback.

 

Read this post for instructions on picking the right split level.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks bjp999,

 

I actually went back to the user manual and your posting and I realize that I did set my split level too high.  Some of my movies were spanned across a few disks, while some other were not.  Last night I was watching a movie while looking at my unraid server for the first time and every time there was a switch of a drive it would pause or stutter.  I never noticed this before since my HTPC is in the living room and my server is in the den.  I will create a new directory structure this weekend as to make sure that the movie is all recorded on one drive but still part of of my user share to make sure this works.  I have been banging my head against the wall for the last few months trying to figure out what was causing the stuttering.  After two new HTPC motherboards, 2 new NIC cards and a power supply later I finally believe this might solve my riddle.

I would also suggest that using a genre based approach is limiting and something best done by the end video playing client. Never mind the fact that it usually takes more than 2 genres to define a movie it is subjective per user i.e. i may go to romance to find something you have filed under adventure.

 

My movie structure is:

 

\\tower\movies\a\moviename\

 

i do the letter folders as once you get enough folders performance drops.

 

Also since i use XBMC i can use the movie.nfo technique, meaning that the folder "moviename" can be named anything and XBMC still gets it 100% correct and it also automatically gets genres and artwork etc

 

So essentially your client software choice has a huge part to play in this.

I may go to romance to find something you have filed under adventure.

Is "Mr & Mrs Smith" a Romance? or an Action-Adventure?    ;)

Thanks bjp999,

 

I actually went back to the user manual and your posting and I realize that I did set my split level too high.   Some of my movies were spanned across a few disks, while some other were not.  Last night I was watching a movie while looking at my unraid server for the first time and every time there was a switch of a drive it would pause or stutter.  I never noticed this before since my HTPC is in the living room and my server is in the den.  I will create a new directory structure this weekend as to make sure that the movie is all recorded on one drive but still part of of my user share to make sure this works.  I have been banging my head against the wall for the last few months trying to figure out what was causing the stuttering.  After two new HTPC motherboards, 2 new NIC cards and a power supply later I finally believe this might solve my riddle.

 

No problem.  Glad I was able to solve the mystery.  Hope you can now enjoy unRAID stutter-free!