August 24, 200916 yr Greetings, I just today set up my very first unraid system, and have been reading the tons and tons of posts/walkthroughs/etc to guide me and get me where I am now, but have come across a seemingly simple roadblock and want to make sure I get it right before I move on. Here is where I am at: Was able to install, set up system, boot, and log into the mgmt console....all drives are being reported accurately. Currently, I have 4 1.5 tb Seagate drives, one of which is being used for parity. Everything looks great and I am about to move over some files, but not sure what to do about shares. Here are my few questions: I THNK I'd like my directory to be set up as follows: 0 Videos 1 Movies 2 Title 3 Audio/Video 4 sample movie.xxx 1 Home Videos 2 Title/Date 3 home movie.xxx 1 Other 2 Title 3 other movie.xxx Given all that, how do i go about setting this up properly? I am very cloudy as to what the settings would be for disk shares, split level, included disks, etc. Here is what I was thinking, but I am pretty sure it is wrong.... Share name: Videos Comments: Allocation method: High water Split level: 3??? Included disk(s): n/a? Excluded disk(s): Export (SMB): r/w Export (NFS r/w Share name: Movies Comments: Allocation method: Highwater Split level: 3??? Included disk(s): n/a? Excluded disk(s) Export (SMB): r/w Export (NFS r/w Can anyone please help me???
August 24, 200916 yr Share name: Whatever you want Comments: Whatever you want (blank is fine) The following items guide unRAID when it decides where to put a movie that you've just transferred to the 'Movies' share. They do not apply to Disk Shares: Allocation method: High water - in most cases, this is the best option, as it helps your disks not spin up as much (hence, saves power and wear and tear) Split level: Depends on what you want. Your movies will be 4 levels deep at most [Movies(1), Title(2), Audio/Video(3), samplemovies.xxx(4)], so a split level of 1 or 2 would mean that everything in your Movies share will reside on a single disk. A split level of 3 would mean that your movies could scatter around to any disk in the array, but they would still be under the directories Movies, Title, and Audio/Video. These directories would be recreated on each disk as needed. I know the split level setting is a bit confusing at first (it sure was for me), so see this thread for a more detailed breakdown. The following items are useful in preventing disks from spinning up needlessly: Included disk(s): Blank means that every disk is eligable to be used for the Share. Or you can list particular disks you want the share to reside on, such as disk1, disk2, disk3, etc. Excluded disk(s): Blank means that no disks are excluded (all are eligable). Or you can list particular disks you don't want the share to reside on, such as disk1, disk2, disk3, etc. Export (SMB): r/w Read/Write means you can play movies from the share, and transfer movies to the share. Read-only means you can play movies from the share, but you cannot transfers movies to it. Write only is just the opposite. Some people make their Shares Read-Only so that they can't accidentally delete their movies while browsing through them. In that case, the only way to transfer movies to the share is to do it via the disk shares, not via the user share. This also means that you can't use a cache disk (well, you can, but it would be worthless since it only applies to the User Shares). Export (NFS): r/w I would turn NFS off unless you are actually using it, most people don't. After much research and trial and error, I figured out the almost-perfect setup for my needs. Note: This requires the Pro version of unRAID to work. My goal was to make it difficult for me to accidentally delete movies from my server, but I still wanted to be able to reap the performance benefits of using a cache disk. So what I did was turn on User Level Security, add two users, 'admin' and 'guest'. 'admin' has a simple password, 'guest' has no password (left it blank). I then made all my User Shares export Read-Only, and added an exception for the user 'admin' (once you turn on User-Level Security, you'll see some new fields show up on the User Share edit page). So...if I only want to watch movies, I sign in as guest, and there's no risk of accidentally deleting something; I can also let my roommate sign on as 'guest' and not have to worry about him accidentally deleting something. If I want to transfer new stuff to the server, I sign in as 'admin' and just remember to be careful. The only problem with this system is that if I were signed in as 'guest', then wanted to switch to 'admin', the only way I know how to do this is to restart the server. Not the end of the world, but an annoyance. For some reason I find this funny: if you were to list a generic porn video as your example, you could call it 'xxx.xxx'.
August 24, 200916 yr Author Awesome, awesome, awesome reply, Rajahal. I dont claim to understand it 100% but at least I think I get the main idea behind this split level ideology...for the time being. I have a couple of, hopefully easier, questions that have since come up since I have tirelessly been working on this to get my server up and transferring data. 1. Transferring of files... a. Is the quickest way to do large amounts of data (bluray rips) going to be where you connect the actual drive to the unraid system and transfer it via telnet/putty/command line? Probably not a good idea to do so over gigabit network, and based on everything I have read, that is the case. Ive never used linux before so the CL is like Chinese to me. b. Other than BR rips, what about other files - such as photos, etc. All in all, Ive probably got a good 2tb of photos (my profession) Would the same apply for these as well? 2. Lastly, when I look in my network places, I see the various disks disk1, disk2, etc then Video, Music, etc. Should I be moving the data to the actual Videos folder (for movies) or to disk1, etc...? I think this has to do with disk share or user share. I guess I just wasnt sure if I should be moving data to the disks, rather than to shares. Are they (the disk1, disk2 folders) there simply so I could check and see where data has been copied to? 3. How do you measure what your actual read/write rates are ? Is there an addon or some type of utility that is used to do so? I just wanted to be sure things were working in an optimal manner. Thanks again...you rock !
August 24, 200916 yr 1. Transferring of files... a. Is the quickest way to do large amounts of data (bluray rips) going to be where you connect the actual drive to the unraid system and transfer it via telnet/putty/command line? Probably not a good idea to do so over gigabit network, and based on everything I have read, that is the case. Ive never used linux before so the CL is like Chinese to me. "Ive never used linux before so the CL is like Chinese to me." I sympathize, and I'm in the same boat. There are various ways to transfer large amounts of data quickly, it all depends on your prorities (speed vs. safety). For me, safety is more important than speed, so I transferred all my stuff (~3 TB) the slow way - via Windows explorer to the parity protected array. It was naturally broken up into chunks (movies, TV, pictures, etc), and it took me..oh, probably 3 days of overnight transfers. This was all without a cache drive, so literally the slowest method. Still, it was hassle-free, and for me, it was worth it since I wasn't in a hurry. Based on my CL inexperience, and it sounds like you are in a similar situation, there's only one other method that I would consider: temporarily disable the parity drive. Go to the devices page, and unassign the parity drive. This will put your data at risk, since if any drive were to fail, unRAID wouldn't be able to recover from it. However, since you still have all the data on the computer you are transferring it from, there isn't really any risk. By disabling parity, you can copy all your data over to unRAID at full speed, about 30 - 40 MB/s, instead of the normal speeds you would get with the parity drive enabled (~14 MB/s). Then, once all your data is on the unRAID server, go back to the devices page and re-assign the parity drive. unRAID will then calculate new parity (another over-night operation) and from then on you'll be set. There are other options that may be a bit faster, but in my opinion, they aren't worth the hassle. b. Other than BR rips, what about other files - such as photos, etc. All in all, Ive probably got a good 2tb of photos (my profession) Would the same apply for these as well? Yes, all the same rules apply to your photos. To unRAID, data is data, it doesn't know or care if you use it to store movies, photos, .pdf files, anything you like. I would suggest creating a User Share with the name 'Photos' or similar. The split level setting for that share would depend on how you organize your photos, so I can't help you there without having more information from you. 2. Lastly, when I look in my network places, I see the various disks disk1, disk2, etc then Video, Music, etc. Should I be moving the data to the actual Videos folder (for movies) or to disk1, etc...? I think this has to do with disk share or user share. I guess I just wasnt sure if I should be moving data to the disks, rather than to shares. Are they (the disk1, disk2 folders) there simply so I could check and see where data has been copied to? Under My Network Places you will see your Disk Shares (disk1, disk2, etc.), your User Shares (Video, Music, etc.), your Flash Share (flash), and your Cache Share (cache), assuming you have all of them enabled. Every one of those is optional, you can individually turn them on and off as you like; doing so will not affect your data, only how your data is displayed. At this point, you only care about your Disk Shares and your User Shares, the others you shouldn't need to use directly. Which one you want to transfer files to depends on how your server is set up. If you are using a cache drive (and have the cache drive enabled for each User Share), then transferring data to the User Share will appear to be faster (about 35 MB/s), but in reality it is only delaying the inevitable slow write to the parity protected server. So for your initial transfer of many TBs, a cache drive won't help you too much. You can also transfer data directly to the Disk Shares. If you don't have a cache drive enabled, then this will be slightly faster (by maybe 2 MB/s) than transferring data to the User Shares, but at the disadvantage that unRAID won't have the chance to decide where to put stuff (remember that the split levels only apply to User Shares, not to Disk Shares). So if you know that you want all of your movies to reside on Disk1, then there is nothing wrong with dragging and dropping them all into the appropriate folder on the Disk1 Disk Share. Conversely, if you want to be able to drag and drop your entire 2 TBs of photos in one go, and presumably none of your disks are individually large enough to hold it all, then you will want to transfer your photos to your 'Photos' User Share, so that unRAID can decide where to physically store the data. That was a bit long-winded, but hopefully it makes sense. If not, just ask me to clarify. 3. How do you measure what your actual read/write rates are ? Is there an addon or some type of utility that is used to do so? I just wanted to be sure things were working in an optimal manner. I just base it on the Windows explorer dialog box. I'm using Windows Vista, so I have to click the little 'more info' arrow to see my write rates. The same goes for read rates (if I'm transferring data from the unRAID server to my computer). As far as read rates while actually playing something back (like streaming a movie from the unRAID server through my computer and onto the TV) I don't know how to check it, and as long as the video isn't stuttering or anything, I don't really care. Concerning network performance, here's a lesson I learned first hand: not only do the unRAID server, your computer, and your router/switch all have to be Gigabit LAN capable (a.k.a. Gig-E), but you have to have Cat5e or better cables running between them all. I used to be using Cat5 cables, and all my transfers were bottlenecked by them. I have since upgraded to Cat6 cables (only $20 for a 10 footer and a 100 footer from monoprice.com), and I've seen my transfer speeds increase because of it. Thanks again...you rock ! You are very welcome. I have to kill time at work somehow...
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