Ability to Disable Mover Schedule

[mifronte]

Please add the ability to disable the mover scheduler so that it does not automatically move files and folders from the cache drive to the array automatically.  This is not the same as disabling the mover function.  I would like the ability to execute the mover on demand only and not have it run automatically.

 

Prior to version 6, the mover can be prevented from automatically running by scheduling a fictitious date like annually on Feb 30.  This ability has been removed in V6.

[BobPhoenix]

I would like this feature also.

[scottc]

All you have to do is set your share to "cache only" and mover will not touch it.

[ijuarez]

All you have to do is set your share to "cache only" and mover will not touch it.

 

ive done that before and mover still moved files

 

[BobPhoenix]

All you have to do is set your share to "cache only" and mover will not touch it.

I disable mine.  I don't use a cache normally but it gets in the way when I consolidate my folders on my drives.  They get this way because I move my files en-mass from a recording drive on my recording server (with tuners) to a drive share on unRAID.  But each series being recorded ends up scattered to multiple drives (and no that is NOT adjustable for me to not do that).  I move a drive at a time to unRAID so then my series ends up scatter on multiple drives.  I like to keep them on the same drive so that once the drive is spun up I can get all episodes without having to spin up another drive.  Especially since I have to wait for that just paging down through the episodes not just when I want to play them back.  Oh usually when I move files to unRAID it is 10-12TBs at a time and I don't want to leave them unaccessable for too long so that is why I end up using my cache drive to consolidate each series before moving back to array drives.  To make sure mover doesn't run (I never use it anyway) I have a GO file edit that renames the mover script so it won't execute - NOW would rather just disable it like I could with earlier versions of unRAID.

[jonp]

All you have to do is set your share to "cache only" and mover will not touch it.

 

ive done that before and mover still moved files

 

Not on unRAID 6.0.1.

 

A few changes have been made over time.  Last year we implemented a change during the beta where we made it so cache only shares ignored the mover entirely.  That change is still present in 6.0.1 today.  In 6.1-rc6, the mover will ONLY operate on shares where cache is set to "yes" (so it will ignore "Only" or "No" shares).

[mifronte]

Please do not recommend a cache only share because this would defeat one of unRAID goal of transparency to the user regardless of where items are located.  So for files that are not ready to move to the array, users would have to know to look for it in one share and for files that are in the array users would have to look in another share.  To the users, they don't care where the files are located.

 

Keep in mind there is a need to have items on cache and then moved to the array on request and not on a timer.  The on request Move now button is there, now we just need the ability to disable the mover scheduler.  I don't know if the V6 Mover scheduler is using cron, but a disable option can easily set a fictitious date.

 

Technically, this should be a bug report since the feature is there prior to V6 by (specifying a fictitious date) and now it is not.

 

[scottc]

Setup a cache only share & a user share with the EXACT SAME name

 

Then you put your "Staging" stuff in the cache only share and mover will not touch it.

 

Then you could move stuff from the cache only share to the user share manually and it should accomplish what your wanting

[mifronte]

So two shares with the same name will not have naming conflicts and to a Samba client like Windows or streaming device, the two shares will appear as one?

 

I will have to test this out.  If they have the same name, when I copy something to the share, which one will it go to?

 

I don't want to move the files manually, I want the mover to move it when I click Move Now.  This way, I can execute the move from non PC devices like a smartphone.

 

Edit:

Unless I am doing it wrong, but I cannot create two shares with the same name, one that uses mover and one that does not.  Does SMB allow two shares with the same name?

[jonp]

Ok, think there is some confusion here.  Let's say you have a share called my_share.  You set it to cache only and write some files.  All files will write to the cache and the mover will ignore this share when run.

 

Now you edit that same share and set it to not use the cache (use cache = no) and write some files to it.  The files will write to the array, but the files that were written to the share previously will stay on the cache.

 

Now you browse to the share over the network directly.  All the files that live in /mnt/cache/my_share and /mnt/diskX/my_share will be displayed (/mnt/user/my_share = aggregate view).

 

Now if you then turn the setting to use cache = yes, the mover WILL move all the files in cache to the array.

[mifronte]

Ok, think there is some confusion here.  Let's say you have a share called my_share.  You set it to cache only and write some files.  All files will write to the cache and the mover will ignore this share when run.

 

Now you edit that same share and set it to not use the cache (use cache = no) and write some files to it.  The files will write to the array, but the files that were written to the share previously will stay on the cache.

 

Now you browse to the share over the network directly.  All the files that live in /mnt/cache/my_share and /mnt/diskX/my_share will be displayed (/mnt/user/my_share = aggregate view).

 

Now if you then turn the setting to use cache = yes, the mover WILL move all the files in cache to the array.

 

So to move the items in the cache only share to the array when they are ready, not only do I need to click on the Move Now button, but I also have to go change the share setting first?  Then I have to make sure the share setting is back to cache only when the move is done?

 

With the previous version, all I have to do is disable the mover scheduler once and then anytime I needed to move files to the array, I just click the Move Now button.

 

Edit:

The more I think about it, the more I realizes that this should not be a feature request, but a defect report.  Basically the ability to disable the mover scheduler is broken in V6 compare to previous versions of unRAID.  Would it better to move this thread to the defect forum?

[scottc]

basically what i did to test this was created a cache only share called "TestingIt"  then using SSH i created "TestingIt" ( named exactly the same as the cache only share ) on a few different disks like so

 

/mnt/disk1/TestingIt

/mnt/disk2/TestingIt

/mnt/disk3/TestingIt

 

 

Then i created a text file on the cache share and could view it over /mnt/user/TestingIt

 

then using ssh i moved the file to one of the disk shares with  mv testfile.txt /mnt/disk1/TestingIt/  double checked it was not on the cache anymore and could view it over /mnt/user/TestingIt with no issue, then i moved it from disk1 to disk2 share & disk2 to disk3  and it did not matter where it was,  when i used /mnt/user/TestingIt i could view the file.

 

so with this type setup,  you could decide which disk(s) on the array you wanted to move the data to

[mifronte]

So all you are doing is creating one share and a bunch of directories.  You are not creating two shares.

 

What you are describing is exactly what disabling the mover scheduler accomplishes with the exception that you don't have to manually move the files yourself.  So in essence, prior to V6, all we have to do was click the Move Now button (after disabling the scheduler) and let unRAID determines which disk(s) to move the files based on our allocation and split level settings.  One of the great benefit of unRAID is I specify my allocation method and split level and just copy files to a share.  Why would I want to do it manually?  My split level of "manual" determines what disk get use based on my directory structure and the space allocation settings.

 

So it sound like we are speaking about the same thing, except you are suggesting to move the file manually, when I have been accustomed to letting unRAID do it for me at my request and not based on a scheduler.

 

Edit:

On another note, for those that do not use the mover scheduler (no cache disk or cache only shares), then why would you want it running?  Wouldn't you want to disable it?

[BobPhoenix]

So all you are doing is creating one share and a bunch of directories.  You are not creating two shares.

 

What you are describing is exactly what disabling the mover scheduler accomplishes with the exception that you don't have to manually move the files yourself.  So in essence, prior to V6, all we have to do was click the Move Now button (after disabling the scheduler) and let unRAID determines which disk(s) to move the files based on our allocation and split level settings.  One of the great benefit of unRAID is I specify my allocation method and split level and just copy files to a share.  Why would I want to do it manually?  My split level of "manual" determines what disk get use based on my directory structure and the space allocation settings.

 

So it sound like we are speaking about the same thing, except you are suggesting to move the file manually, when I have been accustomed to letting unRAID do it for me at my request and not based on a scheduler.

 

Edit:

On another note, for those that do not use the mover scheduler (no cache disk or cache only shares), then why would you want it running?  Wouldn't you want to disable it?

That's what I've done.  In my GO file I rename mover to something else then it never runs.  But that does make the button useless as well which is why disabling the schedule is a better option.  I've thought about putting an edit for the chron schedule in the GO file but that is harder to do when you are not really familiar with linux.

[bonienl]

For your go file ...

rm /boot/config/plugins/dynamix/mover.cron
/usr/local/sbin/update_cron

 

[mifronte]

Thank you bonienl! You have saved me a lot of alphabeting or ABCing (just doesn't sound the same as googling).

[TheWombat]

I too would like to have an option via the GUI to disable the mover schedule.

 

thanks

 

Alex

 

[Porterhouse]

Me too, and the reason for me is that although there are other ways to stop files being moved, permanently, there are times when you want to just want to pause/stop mover running for a while - in my case this was while moving data & shares between disks, while testing a VM, and to develop/test a script to run against the files on cache, BEFORE mover runs.

Thanks