Hi

 

I'm a new Unraid user so please bare with me and my stupid questions.

I'm planning to build a server that will replace my old Synology box. The setup is quite different so I would like to ask some questions before I fudge everything up.

 

So here it goes:

 

- I'm planning to transfer all my data from Synology to Unraid. The shares will be similar but the new server will have more hard drives. I have read about split levels. Am I correct that I would need to create a split level 2 if I wanted my individual shows to remain on the same hard drive (as in the individual folder containing a single show would remain on the same drive).

 

The folder structure would be /series/showname/shows.avi

 

- This next one is a bit harder... I will use a torrent client (transmission) to download shows. Is it better to cache it first (I'll be using two SSD drives for that) or just download it straight to my shares. If it's better to cache how would I do that? Would I have to create a share (let's call it /in_progress) and have it cached and then have transmission move the files to my /unsorted folder (for Sickrage processing) or is there another method?

 

- What does copy-on-write setting do? It's found under shares.

 

Sorry for this many questions but I'm still learning and I would like to get it right the first time. I have searched the forums, googled, youtubed and read the whole official and parts of the unofficial wiki but couldn't find the answers.

 

Cheers and Merry Christmas

 

- I'm planning to transfer all my data from Synology to Unraid. The shares will be similar but the new server will have more hard drives. I have read about split levels. Am I correct that I would need to create a split level 2 if I wanted my individual shows to remain on the same hard drive (as in the individual folder containing a single show would remain on the same drive).

 

The folder structure would be /series/showname/shows.avi

 

Split shares confuse the hell out of me, I'm going to leave this one...

 

- This next one is a bit harder... I will use a torrent client (transmission) to download shows. Is it better to cache it first (I'll be using two SSD drives for that) or just download it straight to my shares. If it's better to cache how would I do that? Would I have to create a share (let's call it /in_progress) and have it cached and then have transmission move the files to my /unsorted folder (for Sickrage processing) or is there another method?

 

You don't have a cache share, but a cache disk(s) It's better to cache downloads as it saves powering up drives on the protected array and also means the write speeds are better as there is no writing to the parity disk.  At a user defined interval, a mover function will move the data from cache to the protected array (unless the share is set to use cache only)  So in your example it would be downloaded to /in_progress then moved to /unsorted (which I would keep as cache only) then once it's processed to, for arguments sake, /distros which I would set as a share that uses both cache and protected array.  Then when the mover function runs, anything in /distros on the cache drive will be moved to a disk on the protected array (but kept in /distros)

 

- What does copy-on-write setting do? It's found under shares.

 

I can't find a copy-on-write setting on my setup.  The only copy-on-write reference I know about is to do with docker & btrfs and it's implementation.  The wikipedia page does a way better job explaining it than I ever can...

 

Sorry for this many questions but I'm still learning and I would like to get it right the first time. I have searched the forums, googled, youtubed and read the whole official and parts of the unofficial wiki but couldn't find the answers.

 

To be honest, you warmed my heart on a cold Christmas night with the lines... 

I have searched the forums, googled, youtubed and read the whole official and parts of the unofficial wiki

 

I think you'll fit in really well here! We like people like you... 

 

Cheers and Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas to you too...

Hey thanks for the answer.

 

Yeah I know that I have a cache disk not a share but it's sometimes confusing as I still see them as folders on a drive and not as a transparent thing that works in the background.

 

I have read your answer and it seems logical but I have one last question (about this topic, I'm sure that you'll be seeing/reading more from me ).

 

Basically I would like to avoid having my cache drive full (it's only a 120gb drive at the moment although they'll be paired for safety reasons). Am I correct in assuming that torrents should be preallocated?

 

My main usage is for pictures but since they are small I suspect that if I fill up my cache (which I will on my first transfer from my current server) they will just move to my storage drives bypassing the cache. Torrents are a different beast because they can just keep growing. So what would happen if my cache has 10gb left and the torrent (or any other file that is downloaded on the fly) becomes too big for the drive to handle?

 

I'll leave cache enabled for unsorted but not in cache only mode since I do share some of my larger torrents quite often (wedding video which I'm yet to edit is over 15gb but I'll get too it since it's only been about 5 years now) and it would probably eat up my SSD space.

 

 

Again thanks for all the help I can't wait for my CPU to come so that I can start tinkering

Why bother caching torrents anyway? Are your torrents coming in so fast that the write speed to the array is an issue? Same with NZBs. I personally don't cache any writes since almost all of the writes to my server are automated and unattended. I have 2 x 120GB SSDs cache and only use it for apps.

The only reason I cache things is so the array doesn't keep spinning up.

Why bother caching torrents anyway?

You do make a fair point. I wanted to spare my drives so that they wouldn't be spun up constantly but using high-level I suspect that most of the time only one of my drives (excluding parity) will be spun up. So basically I can use my cache only for VMs, appdata, dockers and regular shares (those including images and other stuff).

 

Thanks for the help and explanations guys/girls. I really appreciate it.