Hi

 

Been running for a while now, with 3 1tb disks and a 1tb for parity. Had all my shares spanning all of the disks which has worked fine for me.

 

Ive decided to use time machine to backup to the Nas, and read that i should set it so that the Time Machine share only uses one disk.

 

So, i have gone though all my shares, and set all other shares to exclude disk 3, and then the time machine share to only include disk 3.

 

The issue i see, is that only new files will follow these new settings, so how do i go about moving all the stuff from disk 3 that now needs to be distributed between disks 1 and 2 only?

 

Thanks

If you want to re-organise the existing content then I am afraid that you will have to do it manually by copying items directly between the disk shares.  Note do NOT mix using disk shares and user shares when copying as this can lead to data loss - you must only use one or the other.  However this is probably not very urgent as existing items are found regardless of the include/exclude settings (which are only used for new files).

 

Note that you could set up time machine to use a disk share directly rather than going via the user share.  This restricts it to a single disk regardless of the include/exclude settings on the share.  Going directly to a disk share is slightly more efficient so this is a good case for doing that.

 

Just a note - you should only ever use either include OR exclude settings on a share - never both as using both seems to give unpredictable effects.

many thanks for coming back to me.

 

Im just in the process now of moving my stuff from Disk 3 into disks 1 and 3 and this will free up disk 3 for me.

 

Good idea on the direct to disk, will go for this method thanks.

 

with the Include/Exclude, I'e gone into all existing shares and told them all to exclude disk 3. I assume that if i wanted one share to have include settings, and another to have exclude settings, this would be OK? As long and include and exclude are not used on the same share?

 

with the Include/Exclude, I'e gone into all existing shares and told them all to exclude disk 3. I assume that if i wanted one share to have include settings, and another to have exclude settings, this would be OK? As long and include and exclude are not used on the same share?

That is correct.

 

I have seen people thinking that including both settings is a good idea.  It is not clear why including both causes problems, but that is what is reported.