I'm in the middle of a rebuild of my server, so task one was to upgrade the old drives, convert to XFS and clean up my file structure, before I upgrade the hardware and build my VM.

 

The drive upgrade went OK and the conversion to RFS is done (TG), but one of my new shares is messed up. It's set to High Water, Incl Disks 3 and 4, excl everything else. I originally just changed the original share, which I get why it did not work. So I created the new share and moved the files from the old share to the new share, but the physical disk locations are 3, 7 and 9? WTF

Not completely clear on the details of what you have done, but here is the way user shares work "under the hood".

 

Any top level folder on cache or array drives is a user share.

 

If you create a user share unRAID will create top level folders named for the user share on cache or array drives as needed according to the user share settings you make.

 

Even if you don't explicitly create it as a user share, any top level folder on cache or array drives is a user share named for the folder. If you don't configure a user share it has default settings.

 

unRAID never moves files after they are written. User share settings are only applied as a file is being written. unRAID will only write to a user share based on the user share settings, but when reading a user share, all top level folders with that name from all drives are included.

 

If you move things around on drives, that will not change any user share settings you have made, so if you have any includes/excludes for a user share, but you move the files yourself to different drives, those include/exclude settings are not automatically changed for you.

Another point that often gets missed is if you move (rather than copy) a file in one User share to another User share it stays on the same drive regardless of what drives are specified for the target User Share.  This is a by-product of the way the move command is implemented in Linux which effectively gets implemented as a simple rename of the file to its new location if Linux thinks it is on the same file system (and all User shares are logically at /mnt/user). 

 

Since it is not always obvious when a move rather than a copy will take place this can lead to some confusion.

Also, if you have added any drives during all this check your Global Share Settings in case you have made any includes/excludes there that need to be updated.

Another point that often gets missed is if you move (rather than copy) a file in one User share to another User share it stays on the same drive regardless of what drives are specified for the target User Share.  This is a by-product of the way the move command is implemented in Linux which effectively gets implemented as a simple rename of the file to its new location if Linux thinks it is on the same file system (and all User shares are logically at /mnt/user). 

 

Since it is not always obvious when a move rather than a copy will take place this can lead to some confusion.

 

This sounds like the winner, as the move took place instantly. So if I copy from the Disk Share where the files reside to the user share, I gather this will 'move' the files, once I delete them from the original disk. I'll also have to check to make sure I don't have any top level folders with the same names as my user shares.

 

Thanks

 

 

Be very, very, very careful when copying/moving files between user and disk shares ..... There is potential for data loss unless you known what you are doing.  It is too easy to make a mistake in this area and could end up with the files being zero length!

 

I would recommend that you move files directly between the disk shares to get the files onto the disks you want.

 

.... So if I copy from the Disk Share where the files reside to the user share, I gather this will 'move' the files, once I delete them from the original disk.

As remotevisitor said, you definitely don't want to move from disk to user share, or from user share to disk. Move only from disk to disk or user share to user share. And when you have finished moving disk to disk, disable disk shares. That is the default setting for a very good reason.

 

I'll also have to check to make sure I don't have any top level folders with the same names as my user shares.

You will definitely have top level folders with the same names as your user shares since that is what user shares are. Perhaps you meant you will make sure those folders are only on the disks you want the user shares on.

You will definitely have top level folders with the same names as your user shares since that is what user shares are. Perhaps you meant you will make sure those folders are only on the disks you want the user shares on.

 

Yep, folders with the same name other than on the disks where they belong.