Plex and Folder Access (Individual Disk Folders vs. /user)

[TDD]

Hi all.  Question for those in the know.

 

Many of my Plex libraries and spread across multiple disks.  For TV shows for example, I have Plex set to access each folder separately from the disk level shares:

 

/disk1/TV

/disk3/TV

/disk4/TV

 

etc.

 

One can access the entire structure from the /user/TV folder as well, presenting one listing of everything of course.

 

My question is:

 

With Plex knowing the exact location of every show in situation 1 above, specifically which disk any show resides in, I imagine it doesn't need to spin up any of the other disks to access it.

 

If I remove the disk level paths and replace it with the /user/TV path, will Plex (and unRAID) spin up *all* the drives to access any particular show on one disk?

 

The /user paths are great in that any future additions/edits are done in the unRAID domain so one never needs to touch Plex by editing paths.  The disadvantage would appear to be unnecessarily spinning up disks.

 

Is there a better way?  Should one always use the /user area?

 

Kev.

[interwebtech]

User shares is way to go. It will simplify your volume mapping in Plex. One library for all of that type.

 

Plex asks unRaid for the file /share_name/file_name.vid, unRaid spins up the disk it is on and sends it out.

 

If you're still on v5, I recommend upgrade to v6 and switch to using a Docker. Simplifies managing shares on the unRaid end.

[TDD]

I moved to 6 some time ago and set up dockers...love it.  Makes 5 seem very archaic!

 

For some reason, I completed overlooked the convenience of user shares from Plex.  In fact, everything that I set up that was accessing data (Sonarr, etc.) with /diskX shares.  Even all my directory setups for Docker are in /diskX format.  Old habits die hard.

 

I will move all references towards the /user space and hence manage all real folders within unRAID.  I agree that it makes *much* more sense...I won't forget to keep editing the applications and their paths.

 

So...all positives here and no negatives at all?

 

Also, how do I shell into a Docker to see just what filesystem it is seeing?  I have mappings in my Dockers for /mnt <-> /mnt/ but are they needed with this setup?

 

Kev.

[trurl]

...

Also, how do I shell into a Docker to see just what filesystem it is seeing?...

Don't really understand this question, seems to be an unconventional use of the term filesystem, which normally means how a disk is formatted, such as ReiserFS, XFS, btrfs, NTFS, etc. You can get a shell inside a docker if you want but I don't see any need for the things you are discussing in this thread.

 

Also, to answer a question in your OP, see the wiki about split level. What you want to do is configure the split level of your TV share so related files will stay together on one disk so the others don't have to spin up. You can make all episodes of a particular show stay on the same disk, for example, or all episodes for a single season for the show, etc. based on how your subfolders are setup.