February 16, 201016 yr Without going into the pain & torture I went through here - I'm done tearing my hair out on HTPC's - I want to buy a media player/streamer & I'm looking at the Dune 3.0 base at the moment. To support this I thought it would be a good idea to set up user shares on my Unraid - this is a feature I've not used yet. I read about it in the wiki, and am fairly comfortable with how it would work if I was setting it up from scratch, BUT.... ...if I set up user shares on my current Unraid server, what happens to all the stuff I've already got there? As an example - I've currently got 7 data disks on the server. Here's the top level directories on them... disk1 - music - dvd - photos disk2 - hdtv - nextgen disk3 - dvd disk4 - tvondvd disk5 - dvd - nextgen disk6 - nextgen disk7 - nextgen There are other directories, but these folders contain the bulk of what's on the server. What I'd like to know is, if I set up user shares what the same names as the existing top-level directories, will these directories & their content show up in the new user shares of the same names? What if I didn't set up a share directory called "photos" - what would happen to the content? Also, I'd prefer to have all the files in the next layer of sub-directory on the same disk. Does this mean I should choose a split-level value of 1? Any information on this would be greatly appreciated! Finally, as an additional task, I'd like to upgrade to a newer version of Unraid. I'm currently using version 4.3.3 - which version is recommended? Would it be better to set up the user shares AFTER the version upgrade? BTW... the main reasons for upgrade is to ensure I have more up-to-date functionality & I don't want to get left too far behind! Again - any advice is appreciated!
February 16, 201016 yr You can access to share like this: \\tower\dvd \\tower\photo If You do not split files then set split-level to 999. You can set EXCLUDE and/or INCLUDE discs in share setting too. Which You specify for every share where discs may be used for this share.
February 16, 201016 yr If you enable user-shares right now, the top level folders you currently have will automatically become user shares. Therefore you would have user-shares present on the LAN for music dvd photos hdtv dvd tvondvd nextgen The "dvd" share would have present in it the combined contents of the two dvd folders on disk3 and disk5 The "nextgen" user-share would have the combined contents of disk2,5,6 and 7. User-shares a just another way of looking at the existing files, the existing files are still where they used to be, but it is as if new folders were magically created named after the top level directories on each of your data disks and then links (or shortcuts) created to point to the actual files on the individual disks. So... you don't need to set up any user shares, but you'll want to configure the ones that are created for you. I might suggest a split level of 0 for your pictures. It will keep files on the set of disks that have a similar named directory. (and if you only have a "photos" folder on one disk, all your photos will be on that disk.) Split level 0 will never create a directory on a disk, but will use the ones you configure. If under it you have sub-directories, as an example "Vacations" and "Kids" you could, some day when the disk fills, put a photos/Kids folder on a different physical disk using the disk share and see the combined view in the one user-share and still keep complete control where you put your files. You can make the disk-shares hidden, but writable and make the user-shares read only. (It is how many users have them configured to keep from accidentally erasing precious media files) A split level of "1" would also work ... but it would create a new "Photos" folder on a different disk where it does not currently exist if it ever needed and ran out of space on the first disk. (The way split level "0" works changed several times over the past few years in different releases. I described the current behavior) The "split level" only is used if you write to the user-shares. It has no effect when writing to the disk shares. There have been so many advances in unRAID. Upgrade to 4.5.1. Yes, enable the user-shares after you upgrade. To upgrade you only need to replace two files on your flash drive. You can even rename the two existing files in case you need to revert to the older release for any reason. If you count the beta releases, you are 21 releases behind right now. rename bzroot to bzroot.433, bzimage to bzimage.433. Then unzip the 4.5.1 release on your PC and copy the bzroot and bzimage files from it to the flash drive. Then, when you reboot you'll be on 4.5.1. No other files need to change, you do not even need to unplug the flash drive from the server as you can do all this on the \\tower\flash share on the LAN. You don't need to re-format the flash drive to upgrade. If you cannot boot for some reason, rename the old files to their original names and you are back on 4.3.3 when you next reboot. Oh yes, the 4.5.1 release also has a newer version of the memory test program, so copy "memtest" from the un-zipped 5.6.1 folder to the flash drive too. (You don't need it to upgrade, but it will probably do a more through test of the memory if you ever need to run it) You can enable and disable the user-shares as desired, even now. The folders and "links" to the files it presents is entirely in memory and does not affect the actual files on the disks in any way. If you do not "configure" a user-share it will assume a "default" configuration for it. Joe L.
February 16, 201016 yr If You do not split files then set split-level to 999. 999 would allow the creation of a directory on any disk at any level. You can set EXCLUDE and/or INCLUDE discs in share setting too. Which You specify for every share where discs may be used for this share Yes, this is true, and probably the reason you think 999 will not split.
February 16, 201016 yr If You do not split files then set split-level to 999. 999 would allow the creation of a directory on any disk at any level. You can set EXCLUDE and/or INCLUDE discs in share setting too. Which You specify for every share where discs may be used for this share Yes, this is true, and probably the reason you think 999 will not split. I think that split-level setting to 999 prohibit to split file (large file) more that on one disk. This is not true?
February 16, 201016 yr If You do not split files then set split-level to 999. 999 would allow the creation of a directory on any disk at any level. You can set EXCLUDE and/or INCLUDE discs in share setting too. Which You specify for every share where discs may be used for this share Yes, this is true, and probably the reason you think 999 will not split. I think that split-level setting to 999 prohibit to split file (large file) more that on one disk. This is not true? It means that a split may occur at any level up to 999 levels deep. At one point (prior to 4.3), split level 0 indicated to never split. Then, in a subsequent release (4.3 I think) it changed to be the equivalent of 999. Today, on 4.5 this post describes the current split level "0" behavior: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3644.msg31751#msg31751 (Use disks where directory already exists based on the other allocation rules, but do not create new directories on other disks unless you are explicitly creating a directory and the parent directory already exists on that disk.) Split level 999 is described in this post by limetech: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1886.msg13412#msg13412 where Tom explicitly states If you set it (split level) to a very high value now, e.g., 999. ... any time any object is created at any level of the share directory hierarchy, the disk it will be created on will be selected according the current 'allocation method'. This way, shares will fill up across disks without additional user intervention, and the only time you have to worry about split level is for special circumstances such as wanting to guarantee keeping all files of media directory on the same disk. In other words, with 999, splits will occur at any level up to 999 levels deep, across the disks if needed based on the other allocation criteria. Joe L. PS. if you have directory hierarchies deeper than 999 levels, you probably need to reorganize. I think most earlier versions of windows limited the entire path to a file to under 256 characters.
February 16, 201016 yr Joe L., very thanks for further explanation. I do not have depth of subdirectories more than 5-8 "floors" Yes, max size of path in Win API (constant MAX_PATH) is 256 characters. Limits in W9x and WinNT4.0. Next limitations are in some file systems.
February 16, 201016 yr Joe - I think 0 used to mean that files can go wherever they wanted to, basically the same as 999. Here is a description of the new split level 0 from this thread; http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3760.msg32737#msg32737 "In addition, brought back new-and-improved "split level 0" functionality. I will be posting a more comprehensive write-up on User Shares and Split Level on the web site and wiki soon, but in the meantime here's how it works. If you explicitly set a share's Split level to 0 (that is, not blank, but actual numeric value 0), then when a new object (file or directory) is created, unRAID will form the set of disks where the parent directory of the object already exists; and, then the actual disk to use from this set will be selected according to the current share allocation method. (Still subject to included/excluded masks.) Example, assume you created this folder structure: disk1/Video/Movies/Action disk2/Video/Movies/Action disk3/Video/Sports Now suppose on the Video user share you create "Movies/Action/Braveheart" folder. With split level 0, even though the Video share spans disks 1..3, since the parent of "Braveheart" only exists on disks 1 and 2, unRAID will create "Braveheart" folder on either disk 1 or 2, according to allocation method. If no space is available on disk 1 and 2, then operation will fail. In this case if you want to add more storage for "Movies/Action" folder, you would have to explicitly create "Movies/Action" on some other disk. Similarly, if you create "Sports/soccer-2009-05-02.avi", the soccer-2009-05-02.avi file could only be created on disk3. Along with split0 feature, added also a new allocation method called "Fill up", which will cause disk space to be allocated from the lowest numbered disk provided the amount of free space remaining is greater than "Min free space" (a new share config parameter which also applies to the other allocation methods). Min free space units are in 1024-byte blocks." I think that split-level setting to 999 prohibit to split file (large file) more that on one disk. This is not true? Files can not be split between disks on unRAID. Peter
February 16, 201016 yr Joe, I thought split level = 0 was changed back to mean the same thing as using 999... I definately remember reading a post from Tom about 0 being changed to mean no splits were allowed but later on in a newer release note I recall something posted that he changed it back again. An explicit split level of "0" changed to the current behavior in 4.5beta5. According to that release note, a "blank" split level is now equivalent to 999. See the detailed description of split level "0" in the release notes here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3760.msg32737#msg32737 Oh yes, as mentioned by lionhurtz, any individual file will never be split across disks. So if you have two disks with 4 Gig free each, and you attempt to write a single 6 Gig file, it will fail as there is not enough space on a single disk for it. If you attempt to write a collection of smaller files in a single directory that in total are greater than 4Gig, they might be split between the two disks if you have the split level set to allow it. Joe L.
February 16, 201016 yr Oh yes, as mentioned by lionhurtz, any individual file will never be split across disks. So if you have two disks with 4 Gig free each, and you attempt to write a single 6 Gig file, it will fail as there is not enough space on a single disk for it. If you attempt to write a collection of smaller files in a single directory that in total are greater than 4Gig, they might be split between the two disks if you have the split level set to allow it. Joe L. Yes, exactly that and so I was thinking for split level setting to 999.
February 16, 201016 yr Oh yes, as mentioned by lionhurtz, any individual file will never be split across disks. So if you have two disks with 4 Gig free each, and you attempt to write a single 6 Gig file, it will fail as there is not enough space on a single disk for it. If you attempt to write a collection of smaller files in a single directory that in total are greater than 4Gig, they might be split between the two disks if you have the split level set to allow it. Joe L. Yes, exactly that and so I was thinking for split level setting to 999. I think you are confusing the splitting of a collection of files in a single directory (example, related chapters/episodes of a given movie/tv show) with the splitting of a single large file between disks. unRAID will never split a single large file between disks. Any given single file must fit in the file-system on a single disk. Split level has nothing to do with the splitting of a single file. It has to do with distributing related individual files to directories on different disks (or not) based on how far down the directory hierarchy they are.
February 16, 201016 yr Author If you attempt to write a collection of smaller files in a single directory that in total are greater than 4Gig, they might be split between the two disks if you have the split level set to allow it. Joe, this is exactly the behaviour I am trying to avoid. For example, if I have a ripped bluray in folder format under the top-level directory "Nextgen", I want to avoid the contents of that bluray movie folder (which may be MANY files) from spanning 2 disks. I ALWAYS want the contents of a movie folder (under the Nextgen directory) to be on one disk. I don't mind if there are a large number of bluray movies that may span a number of disks but I want the contents of EACH bluray set of files to ONLY be on one disk. That's what I was trying to get at by setting the split file level to 1. However, you've already stated that I could choose to WRITE files to whatever disk I want and that was ensure I maintain the control. The main reason for me implementing user shares is that, for my media player, I can simply point that at the correct share and have it automatically pick up all sub-folders that are applicable regardless of which physical disk they're on. BTW....thank you very much for such a comprehensive answer!
February 16, 201016 yr From what you describe, a split level of "0" will work for you. You get to create the directories where you want them, and all the files in a given directory will be on the same disk unless you manually create a parallel directory on a different disk by using the disk shares.. A split level of "1" would work. If you write to the disk shares, ANY split level setting will work, since they have no effect at all if writing to the disk shares. You put the files where you want. (I use my server this way. i put the files on specific disks.)
February 19, 201016 yr Just be careful using "fill up" method. I think it's broken. I have a share "Movies" and then I put subdirectories into the "Movies" share for different series of movies (for example, "James Bond Movies", "Die Hard Movies" etc). I just ran into a case where using split level of 1 and "Fill-Up" caused those movies subdirectories to be created on multiple drives. I upgraded and then changed the share setting from "high water" to "fill up" and unRAID created blank directories for each of the above mentioned movie series. Something like 10 or 15 unwanted directories in all. I think I'm at 4.5 beta 11 but there are no notes for 4.5 final that indicate a problem with this or a fix and no notes in 4.5.1 either. Peter
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