Title says it all.

Title says it all.

disk shares correspond to each of the physical disks in your array.  If you have 5 data disks you will see as "disk shares" the following names:

 

\\tower\disk1

\\tower\disk2

\\tower\disk3

\\tower\disk4

\\tower\disk5

 

User shares, if enabled, will be created for each top level folder on your disks.  If you have 'Movies','Music','Photos','Data' as the names of top level folders on your disks then "shared folders" will be available on your network with those same names.  These

'user shares' are special.  If each of your data drives has a Movies folder, then all of the files in those folders will be available in the single "movies" user-share. 

 

Joe L.

thanks

 

I'd just add a little bit, because of the way the contents of user shares can span multiple HDDs there is an issue when it comes to writing to them.  How would you choose which physical HDD the file will write to?

 

User shares are great for reading but you'll most likely need to keep the Disk shares visible for populating your UnRaid.

 

Does anyone know... If a User share folder is only present on 1 of your HDDs (eg. the folder "Music" is ONLY on disk1) can you write to a User share inthe same way as a Disk Share?

 

Mark.

I'd just add a little bit, because of the way the contents of user shares can span multiple HDDs there is an issue when it comes to writing to them.  How would you choose which physical HDD the file will write to?

User shares are read-only "shortcuts" to the files stored on disk1,2,3 etc.  The set of shortcuts in user-shares (actually called "symbolic links" under Linux) are currently created upon demand when using the admin interface.

User shares are great for reading but you'll most likely need to keep the Disk shares visible for populating your UnRaid.

I set my disk shares to be hidden, but read-write.  That way I can open up file explorer and type

\\tower\disk2\  to get to a physical drive.  Then I can manage the files on that disk using explorer.  After moving new content into place I use the unRaid web-interface to re-scan the drives and re-create the symbolic links in the user-shares.

Does anyone know... If a User share folder is only present on 1 of your HDDs (eg. the folder "Music" is ONLY on disk1) can you write to a User share in the same way as a Disk Share?

I think that user-shares are read only at this time.  Writable user-shares are supposed to be in the next release.  Tom has not described how they will allocate which physical disk a file will be written to.

 

Mark.

I'm not sure what you mean by user shares are created on demand when using the admin interface. I don't see anything in the admin interface except what rights to grant to user shares. I assumed that just creating a directory on a disk share is what is creating a user share. I'm confused.

 

I'm writing to a user share. At least I think I am. I created a directory called movies on \\tower\disk1 . I then mapped a drive M: to that directory (user share?). I then had no problem copying a DVD to M: from my PC. This is copying to a user share isn't it?

Here is how it looks in the unRaid web-interface on the "shares" page, and also, on the right, in file-explorer.

My top level directories are "Movies","Mp3", "TV", and "data"

They physically are on 6 different disks on the unRaid server, with most having a data folder, several a Movies folder, and one an Mp3 folder.  Notice the \\tower\disk1,2,3 are not visible as they are hidden from file explorer.  They can still be accessed by typing

\\tower\disk1 in file explorer to manage the files on the unRaid server.

 

I have not mapped any drive letters to folders on the unRaid server. (you could, but then it is easier for a family member to accidentally erase a file)

 

Joe L.

 

Here is how it looks in the unRaid web-interface on the "shares" page, and also, on the right, in file-explorer.

My top level directories are "Movies","Mp3", "TV", and "data"

They physically are on 6 different disks on the unRaid server, with most having a data folder, several a Movies folder, and one an Mp3 folder.   Notice the \\tower\disk1,2,3 are not visible as they are hidden from file explorer.  They can still be accessed by typing

\\tower\disk1 in file explorer to manage the files on the unRaid server.

 

I have not mapped any drive letters to folders on the unRaid server. (you could, but then it is easier for a family member to accidentally erase a file)

 

Joe L.

 

 

 

Just curious but why don't you just make the user shares read only?

At the current time, limited"write" capabilities exist for user shares.  You cannot create a new file in an existing folder, nor delete a file, However... if you think of the user-shares as 'shortcuts' to the files, then you can open a file in an editor, make changes, and save it back to the same file on the disk. 

 

So to answer your question, no good reason why I left them configured as writable when they really are not, but it makes it easier on me in my situation. I do not have kids in the household that would accidentally delete files.

 

More important to me was to allow my network media player to only see a few folders for my movies, etc and not have it have to deal with disk1, disk2, disk3, disk4, etc to find a specific movie...  (the MG-35 network media player has no write capabilities, so it is not an issue) The consolidated view of the folders on the different drives made user-shares a very nice feature for my family.  they don't care which physical disk a movie is on, just that they want to watch it.

 

Joe L.

 

At the current time, limited"write" capabilities exist for user shares.  You cannot create a new file in an existing folder, nor delete a file,

 

Hmm, are you sure about that? I'm doing both every day on my user shares.