I'm running short of space on a couple drives, so upgrading one to a new 5TB drive.  Is there a way to have unRaid autobalance files allocated across a share?  I know I can add a drive to a share, but is there a way to have unraid move files around to free up space on the congested drives.  If I change the minimum free space on a full drive, will it move files around the share?

I'm running short of space on a couple drives, so upgrading one to a new 5TB drive.  Is there a way to have unRaid autobalance files allocated across a share?  I know I can add a drive to a share, but is there a way to have unraid move files around to free up space on the congested drives.  If I change the minimum free space on a full drive, will it move files around the share?

No, unRAID will never move files by itself.  I am afraid you will have to do it manually.  The min free space is only used when determining if new files will fit.

I'm running short of space on a couple drives, so upgrading one to a new 5TB drive.  Is there a way to have unRaid autobalance files allocated across a share?  I know I can add a drive to a share, but is there a way to have unraid move files around to free up space on the congested drives.  If I change the minimum free space on a full drive, will it move files around the share?

No, unRAID will never move files by itself.  I am afraid you will have to do it manually.  The min free space is only used when determining if new files will fit.

This is correct, but you might not have to do it manually. I think someone wrote a script / plugin for this.

 

I don't recall if it was unBalance or diskmove or something though. Look into user customizations / plugins and you might be able to find it.

I think unBallance will do the opposite. It's intended to move all files off of a drive to empty it.

You can use the diskmv script, won’t autobalance the disks but you can move entire folders from a share easily, or use consld8 to move for example an entire tv show to the disk with most free space.

 

https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=36201.0

There is a way, but you really need to know what you are doing. This method won't strictly "balance" your data equally across your drives, but it will redistribute your data using whatever unRAID allocation method you choose. There is risk of data loss if you mess up, but if you do it right you will be fine.

 

The solution is to create a temporary share that uses the split level and allocation method you are interested in, and that spans the disks you want the data balanced across. There are two methods of telling unRAID which disks to use for the new share: 1. use Include Disks in the share settings, or 2. use manual split levels and put the new temporary share name only on the disks you want. Then move your data from the original share to the new share. While the move is occurring, unRAID will be balancing your data according to the allocation method set. When you're done, rename the temporary share to the original share name. There will be a time, while the move is executing, that some of your data will exist on the old share, and some will exist on the new share, so you still can get to it all.

 

I avoided giving you a step by step, because if you are going to do this, you need a good enough understanding of what goes on under the hood to fill in the blanks.

 

EDIT: Oh, also I should mention there is a way to do this all within the existing share, without having to create a temporary share. What you do instead is rsync everything within the share to a temp directory within that share, then when the rsync is done, rename (mv) everything back to its original location. It is important to do an rsync and not a mv during that first step, otherwise none of your files will physically move and therefore won't be reallocated. Again, proceed with caution.