Hello,

 

New (Basic) user, long-time lurker here.

 

At present, I have edited ReplayTV files on a RAID5 server running Windows 2000, accessed either through SMB or DVArchive (www.DVArchive.org). DVArchive appears to clients as a ReplayTV, and provides metadata and search/sort facilities not otherwise available. AFAIK, it uses (possibly not-quite-standard) UPnP.

 

Since DVArchive is a Java application, I hope it can run under unRaid, after installing JRE for Slackware. (Others have been able to run wizd, for example.)

 

Have I missed something?

 

Thanks,

Lee

 

P.S. Didn't know which forum this belonged in.

lsarver,

 

I'm not sure I can help, but am very interested in your progress.

 

If I understand correctly, you're running DVArchive on the same server as you store your movies/shows (i.e., turning it, in effect, into an all-in-one video server), but want to switch from a Win2K setup to a unRAID setup.  At the present time I run DVarchive on my PC (WinXP), but store all my video files on my unRAID server, which I then serve up to my ReplayTV unit.  Unfortunately, this means that every time I want to dig into the movie archives, I have to also fire up the PC and load the software.

Bill,

 

You understand correctly. I've been aware of unRAID for some time, but stayed with the RAID server because of (1) the convenience you noted and (2) the fact that earlier versions exposed up to 11 individual shares (messy!). I still don't see the point in running two machines when you can accomplish the same with one. The server runs 24/7. (Don't want to have to explain the need to boot to my wife.) It serves other PCs, Xboxes, PhotoBridge, AudioTrons. (A second, nearly identical system runs only to back it up.)

 

I've gotten more interested in unRAID lately. The 2.0TB array is filling up--actually there is also 1.5TB of overflow space nearing the top,too. So I'll have to tear down the array, replace the drives and reload the data. Not looking forward to that at all. Hence, unRAID.

 

I've played with 3.0. It works, but I can't install Java. The Slackware package install generated insufficient space errors, which made no sense. So I tried manually. After I ran down all the silly errors in the installation script (sheesh!), it ran, but can't create symlinks ("Operation prohibited"). Maybe permissions? (I know enough about Linux to get in trouble.)

 

I found some discussion of running DVA headless under Linux at DVArchive.org. Evidently, it's not trivial. Gerry discouraged it, but there is a how-to.

 

I'll try a bit longer, but am getting frustrated. After all, I do have a system that works, but needs enlargement. (Also, I am still concerned about unRAID's lack of security.)

The current version of unRAID still exposes drives individually, so no change there.  The idea of an concatenated parity drive is on the "Ye Old Laundry List (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=266.0, but not for data drives.  The closest thing I've seen discussed is the use of symbolic links to create a single pseudo drive with multiple directories (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=73.0)

 

As for installing Java, I'd have to defer to others (Tom, Joe L., etc.) who are far more knowledgeable than I.

 

And, as you can see from the "Ye Old Laundry List", additional security is a feature that many people are asking for.

The current version of unRAID still exposes drives individually, so no change there.  The idea of an concatenated parity drive is on the "Ye Old Laundry List (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=266.0, but not for data drives.  The closest thing I've seen discussed is the use of symbolic links to create a single pseudo drive with multiple directories (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=73.0)

 

As for installing Java, I'd have to defer to others (Tom, Joe L., etc.) who are far more knowledgeable than I.

 

And, as you can see from the "Ye Old Laundry List", additional security is a feature that many people are asking for.

Check out the "User Shares" feature.  It is way better than the symbolic links to the other drives.  I've turned off the individual drives and only use the "User shares".  Basically, a share is automatically created for each top level directory on the data drives and the contents merged in the share.  So, each of my data drives has a "Movies" folder.  The contents of all the movies folders appears as a single read-only "Movies" share for my media players to browse.

 

Check out the "User Shares" feature.  It is way better than the symbolic links to the other drives.  I've turned off the individual drives and only use the "User shares".  Basically, a share is automatically created for each top level directory on the data drives and the contents merged in the share.  So, each of my data drives has a "Movies" folder.  The contents of all the movies folders appears as a single read-only "Movies" share for my media players to browse.

 

So...let's see if I have this right.

 

Scenario #1

Say I have four drives - - one parity and three data with the following configurations:

 

1.  Parity

2.  Data #1 has a top level directory called "Movies" which contains 100 B&W movies.

3.  Data #2 has a top level directory called "Movies" which contains 100 Color movies.

4.  Data #3 has a top level directory called "Shows" which contains 100 TV shows.

 

Does that mean if I use "User Shares" that I'll end up with two directories, one called "Movies" with 200 movies (100 B&W & 100 Color) and one called "Shows" with 100 TV shows?

 

Scenario #2

Say I have four drives - - one parity and three data with the following configurations:

 

1.  Parity

2.  Data #1 has 100 B&W movies in the "root" or top level directory.

3.  Data #2 has 100 Color movies in the "root" or top level directory.

4.  Data #3 has 100 TV shows in the "root" or top level directory.

 

Does that mean if I use "User Shares" that I'll end up with one virtual drive with 200 movies and 100 TV shows?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Bill

 

Scenario #1

 

That's correct you'll have the 2 folders show up in windows explorer.  So basically you'll see disk1, disk2, disk3, Movies, and Shows

 

Scenario #2

 

Same as above except disk1, disk2, disk3, and root

 

You could also go to the shares tab and don't export the disk shares so you would have just Movies and Shows show up in windows explorer.  The only thing that is not set up yet is a rescan of the user shares.  So if you create a new sub folder under Movies for instance, you would have to hit the rescan button on the webpage to see the folder.  Also if you do this just make sure the user shares is both read/write.  I'm not to sure about the hidden options or what the write* is about.

 

Maybe some else could answer this question for me.  If you hide all the disks and make user shares read/write how do you know what disk your files are getting copies to?  Say I have a 5 gig file and am using user shares option read/write.  I have a folder called movies, if I copy the file to the movies directory what drive will it write to?

Scenario #1

 

That's correct you'll have the 2 folders show up in windows explorer.  So basically you'll see disk1, disk2, disk3, Movies, and Shows

You can elect to not share the disk1,2,3 or as I did, share them as hidden shares. (You don't see them in explorer, but can still get to them if you know the full path name)

That way, you only see the Movies and Shows folders in your media player.  With Movies having 200 files.

Scenario #2

 

Same as above except disk1, disk2, disk3, and root

If you do not use the "high level" folders they do not become user sharers.  Thus, your files will ONLY be visible in disk1,2,& 3.

I originally had my files all at the root of my disks.  When I created user shares I made the same 4 top level folders on each disk and moved everything into them to result in 4 user shares. (I used Movies, TV, Music, and data.  Data has my backups from other machines)

Maybe some else could answer this question for me.  If you hide all the disks and make user shares read/write how do you know what disk your files are getting copies to?  Say I have a 5 gig file and am using user shares option read/write.  I have a folder called movies, if I copy the file to the movies directory what drive will it write to?

Tom has not yet described how space will be allocated.  He could either pick the first one with sufficient space, or pick the one with the most space, or the least space where the file will fit, or randomly pick one where it will fit.  As I said, he has not described his logic.  I hope it is NOT random.

 

Joe L.

Thanks erikatcuse & Joe L.!  My collection of movies/shows from DVArchive had just passed 400GB and I was beginning to wonder if/how I was going to be able to "span" hard drives.  User shares seems to be the ticket!