I'm not sure what I should be picking for share settings. I've read about high-water, most free, and fill up but I'm not sure which would be best. I'm also not sure what I should do for split level and min. free space. I'd guess min free space = 0

Min free spave should not be zero. Set it to twice the size of the largest file that you anticipate writing.

typically 1080p video will be the max so, 2gb should do it. Why not set it to zero? Also, regarding high-water, most free, and fill up, which has the fastest r/w speeds?  I'd guess if you put data across multiple drives it'd slow things down and be more prone to data loss. I'd guess 'most free' would work best but I'm not sure.

The one is not better then the other, it is a matter of taste.. Also speed is not an issue, although when you use the defaullf REISERFS there is a speed decrease when you fully fill up drives..

 

So you could say that with REISERFS as a filesystem using FILL UP should be done with  a large enough "minimum free space" .

 

In reality I think you will not see a difference..

 

It is mostly a matter of taste and there are pros and cons to all scenarios, example:

 

Lets say (to make it easy) that a disk has a 1 in 100 change of failing.

 

Then, when you have a share on 2 disks, you have a 2 in 100 chance of a failure, if you have 1 disk you have a 1 in 100 chance of failure, so it is better to have less disks right ? So use fill-up .. Otherwise your risk is twice as high

 

However... When everything is on one disk and you loose that disk you loose 100% of the data, if you have your data on 2 disks you only loose 50% of your data.. So use two disks in stead of one, otherwise your risk is twice  as high..

 

You see ? It adds up to the same thing..

 

Personally I use fill-up because in my head it means that less disks are spinning (only the disks that is currently getting the writes), on ther other hand that means that that disk gets most read and write requests and that could have impact on performance..

 

(some people might now argue that " loosing a disk" is not an issue due to parity, I took that out of the explenation to keep it simple, addition of parity decreases the risk the same way in every scenario, so it does not change the comparison),