After 4 days of preclear and parity building /checking i'm ready to rock but i want to do it right hehe....

 

First question.. Why does it mater? Isn't the point to have a large pool of storage? Who cares where it goes? Only thing i can think of is drive spin up but i plan to keep mine spinning. Not trying to be a jerk i really wana know.

 

Second question.. Assuming i do care (lol) is this correct?

 

Share

--Folder

 

^Split top level dir as required? So, the share dir can be on all drives and individual folder dirs can go on any drive under it. But anything actually in a folder dir stays together in that dir/drive?

 

Share

--Folder1

---More

--Folder2

---More

 

^Split top 2 dir levels as required? So, the share dir can be on all drives and individual folder dirs can go under it on any drive. But anything actually in a more dir stays together in that dir/drive?

 

Seems so simple but it makes my head hurt.

 

Third question.. If i mess it up is it as easy as making a new share with the correct setting and putting everything from the messed up one into it?

 

Third question.. I did a test with the first of the 2 scenarios above. I used some test folders with txt files in them.. with allocation set to most free and no cache selected.. and it made folders but files in them were all over the place. Didn't really follow the rules. What gives?

 

Thanks

After 4 days of preclear and parity building /checking i'm ready to rock but i want to do it right hehe....

 

First question.. Why does it mater? Isn't the point to have a large pool of storage? Who cares where it goes? Only thing i can think of is drive spin up but i plan to keep mine spinning. Not trying to be a jerk i really wana know.

Many simply do not use Split level and let unRAID put files on any drive.  However there are those who are bit more OCD about where files are placed, and in this case Split level needs to be used.

 

Second question.. Assuming i do care (lol) is this correct?

 

Share

--Folder

 

^Split top level dir as required? So, the share dir can be on all drives and individual folder dirs can go on any drive under it. But anything actually in a folder dir stays together in that dir/drive?

 

Share

--Folder1

---More

--Folder2

---More

 

^Split top 2 dir levels as required? So, the share dir can be on all drives and individual folder dirs can go under it on any drive. But anything actually in a more dir stays together in that dir/drive?

That sounds correct if you mean that Folder1 and Folder2 can exist on multiple drives, but sub-folders of these cannot.

 

There is another option that you have not mentioned in that can give a lot of control - and that is the Manual option.  In that one you can create folders (on one or more) disks and let unRAID only create folders inside those you create.  unRAID will never then automatically put the same folder on multiple disks.  If you want a folder to span multiple disks then you simply start by creating that folder on the disks you want it to exist on.

 

Seems so simple but it makes my head hurt.

 

Third question.. If i mess it up is it as easy as making a new share with the correct setting and putting everything from the messed up one into it?

The Split Level settings only applies to new files, so it is perfectly feasible to change the split level at any time.  However doing so will not cause existing files to be moved - that is a manual process if you want to do it.

 

Third question.. I did a test with the first of the 2 scenarios above. I used some test folders with txt files in them.. with allocation set to most free and no cache selected.. and it made folders but files in them were all over the place. Didn't really follow the rules. What gives?

Not sure - it should work if everything was set up correctly.

 

We can only give some idea of what went wrong if we know what the Share settings were, what the folder structure on the various disks was before you started copying file to the array and details of where the files  ended up, and the ones you think are wrongly placed.

Thanks.. i dont remember exactly it was a few hours ago heh.

 

Id love to try some more tests but i can't get unRAID to stay online for more than a few seconds.. Guess im not ready to rock.. :'(