How to configure folder on cache to stop from moving help needed

[mrlittlejeans]

I've got an SSD I'm using for a cache.  I would like to have my Zappiti index stored on the cache drive to make loading faster on my Dunes.  The structure is as follows:

 

                                                                                      Media (top level user share)

                                                                                    /                  |                \

                                                                            Movies          TV Shows          Zappiti

 

The Zappiti index has to be in the same share as the media or the Dunes can't open the files from Zappiti.  The Dunes can only open one share at a time I think.  Can I set up a folder on the cache drive for the Zappiti folder that won't get moved by the mover?  If so, how would i do it?

[JonathanM]

I can't think of a way to do it without reprogramming things, or using the share a little differently than normal.

 

Maybe someone else has a better solution, but here is what I came up with that doesn't involve significant changes from stock.

 

1st, understand that a user share is a collection of identically named top level directories on all the disks. Setting "Media" to cache only shouldn't exclude the contents of the "Media" folders on the array drives, only force all new content copied to the "Media" share to stay on the cache drive. So, theoretically you should be able to use the disk shares to copy new content into the "Media" folders on the array disks, and as long as the only thing written to the "Media" share directly was the zappiti content, it would act like you intend. If you accidentally write something directly to the "Media" share that should be on the array, you could move it to an array drive manually using the cache and disk shares.

[trurl]

I don't know the details of how unRAID actually implements a cache-only share.

 

If you look at the mover script (in /usr/local/sbin) there isn't anything about cache-only shares. It just rsyncs from user0. Apparently this does not move cache-only shares because cache-only shares are not in user0. Exactly how they are excluded from user0 is not clear to me.

[mrlittlejeans]

Would it be possible to set something like this up?

 

Media/.Zappiti

 

Or would the "." need to be for a User share and not a folder underneath the user share?

[trurl]

I don't know the details of how unRAID actually implements a cache-only share.

 

If you look at the mover script (in /usr/local/sbin) there isn't anything about cache-only shares. It just rsyncs from user0. Apparently this does not move cache-only shares because cache-only shares are not in user0. Exactly how they are excluded from user0 is not clear to me.

I mention this because I don't know if a cache-only share that also has top level folders on array drives would similarly be excluded from user0. I think there is some chance that they would not be excluded from user0, and so the method outlined by jonathanm would not work.

 

Also, the method of making a folder hidden by putting a '.' at the start of the folder name only makes mover ignore it if it is at the top level (see the mover script), and I suspect many would complain loudly if this were not the case. So the method suggested by mrlittlejeans would not work.

 

Let us know what you find out.

 

[itimpi]

The only way I can think of that MIGHT work is to make the zappitti folder a soft link to another folder on the cache drive that is set as cache only.  I was thinking of something like:

ln -s /mnt/cache/cache-only-folder /mnt/user/media-folder/zappitti

where cache-only-folder is a share (or part of a share) that is set as cache only.  I am not sure if the mover program moves links or not, but even if it did the underlying physical folder would then remain on the cache drive.

[dgaschk]

Write to disk shares and have zapitti write to a cache-only share as jonathanm described.

[mrlittlejeans]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I didn't want to lose the benefits of the SSD cache drive (90MB/s write speeds) for transferring files to the User share which I believe would have happened if I wrote directly to the disk shares for non Zappiti transfers.  I did some more research and the Dune can open up multiple NFS shares so I created a User share on the SSD only for Zappiti and access it from the Dunes via NFS.  The movies and tv shows are still accessed via SMB. 

 

With this set up, I get awesome write speeds when transferring ripped movies to the server and exporting Zappiti only takes a few seconds now.  In addition, I think that viewing the index on my Dunes is now faster than it would be if the index were on an array non SSD drive.