When initially setting up my unRAID 4.5 server, I did not use the "Management Utility" to enable and create any shares on data "disk1" or "disk2". Instead, I simply created a folder on each drive and started batch copying my high def and standard def movies from my Ubuntu system to the corresponding folders on the unRAID drives.

 

The drive/folder layout is as follows:

 

disk1:

          /HD-Films

 

disk2:

        /SD-Films

 

After reading the entire unRAID manual I am not entirely certain that "shares" are necessary for my situation. However, if I do decide to implement "shares" I am unclear about how the following would work on an unRAID server:

 

1. Will the Management Utility permit me to select and use the existing folder names (HD-Films and SD-Films) for the new shares without effecting the existing data in any negative way?

 

2. If I must create new and different share names, for example, "/HDfilms" on "disk1" can I simply move all of my movies from "/disk1/HD-Films" into the newly created share "/disk1/HDfilms" without any negative effects to the existing array structure and then simply delete the old folder name?

 

3. If the answer to quesiton 2 is YES, does moving 1.5TB of data from the original folder to the new share folder take a long time because of the parity checking and creation, or is it very fast process?

 

Thanks in advance for clarification.

 

3. Can I then simply delete the original "HD-Films" folder?

When initially setting up my unRAID 4.5 server, I did not use the "Management Utility" to enable and create any shares on data "disk1" or "disk2". Instead, I simply created a folder on each drive and started batch copying my high def and standard def movies from my Ubuntu system to the corresponding folders on the unRAID drives.

 

The drive/folder layout is as follows:

 

disk1:

          /HD-Films

 

disk2:

         /SD-Films

 

After reading the entire unRAID manual I am not entirely certain that "shares" are necessary for my situation. However, if I do decide to implement "shares" I am unclear about how the following would work on an unRAID server:

 

 

3. If the answer to quesiton 2 is YES, does moving 1.5TB of data from the original folder to the new share folder take a long time because of the parity checking and creation, or is it very fast process?

 

Thanks in advance for clarification.

 

There is nothing wrong with what you did, nor any reason to move anything.

 

If you enable user-shares, your existing folders will ALSO be visible as two new automatically created shares named automatically after the existing top-level directories on your disks.  In other words, you'll magically have a share named "HD-Films" and another named "SD-Films" and in them you see what you have in the "disk" shares.  I've does exactly that, and made my disk shares exported as read/write but hidden.  That way they do not clutter up the listing of shares on my media players. (Only the user-shares show, and you can set their visibility individually)

 

The special magic occurs if you had a "SD-Films" directory on both of disk1, and on disk2.  Then, in the user-share named SD-Films you would see the combined listing of all of the files on both disks in their SD-Films folders.

 

You do not need to move anything to use user-shares.

 

So... To answer your questions:

1. Will the Management Utility permit me to select and use the existing folder names (HD-Films and SD-Films) for the new shares without effecting the existing data in any negative way?

The names will be the same (and in fact, can't be different, at least not easily if using the management utility)  You can continue to use the disk shares and/or the user shares.  You can use the management utility to set the allocation rules for the user-shares if you desire to write files via that path.  Without rules, I think it will just use the directories you created manually. 

2. If I must create new and different share names, for example, "/HDfilms" on "disk1" can I simply move all of my movies from "/disk1/HD-Films" into the newly created share "/disk1/HDfilms" without any negative effects to the existing array structure and then simply delete the old folder name?

No need for new names

3. Can I then simply delete the original "HD-Films" folder?

No need to delete, since no rename needs to be done... (unless you decide to rename the folder for some other reason)

 

Actually, if just re-naming a folder in an existing file system, you will find it nearly instant, as not files are moved at all, and just the directory entry pointing to the files modified.

 

If moving 1.5TB from one physical disk to another, then you are at the mercy of the rotational speed of your disks. (rotational speed will probably limit your copy speed unless on a PCI based computer where the PCI bus will limit you as well.)

 

when copying from one disk to another you will be reading 1.5TB from the source disk, reading 1.5TB from the parity disk, and reading 1.5TB from the target disk in addition to writing 1.5TB to the target disk and writing 1.5TB to the parity disk.  In between reading and subsequently writing each set of disk sectors on a disk (a "stripe") the parity and target disk must BOTH rotate to put the sectors back under the write head after reading a stripe. The process of reading a stripe and writing back the same stripe with the new contents continues alternating until the copy operation is complete. The slowest disk involved that is being written to sets the overall speed unless the PCI bus bandwidth doesn't get you first.

 

Joe L.