Maybe I figured out my slowness issue but maybe not, which is why I am creating a new post.

 

Currently I have a user share called DVDs. Inside that share I have 2 folders, one for dual layer DVDs and one for single layers. Inside there I think have the title to each movie with their respective files inside. My user share is set up for split level being 2 and the min free space 20000000, which I am assuming is 20 gigs. I also have it set to high water. Currently I am copying files over, total is about 10 gigs, but it is trying to write to the drive with the least amount of free space, which is about 2 gigs free. Because of that, I am getting 1 MB transfers and I am sure it will error out here shortly because of lack of free space. Is there something I am missing to get it to say hey, I need 20 gigs min free space to copy to the drive and this drive only has 2 gigs.

Error just came up saying there is a problem accessing the drive and to make sure I am connected to the network and try again. The drive it was copying to now shows 900 free. I don't get why it won't go to another drive.

I think your split level is too low.  Change it to 4 and try again.

But wouldn't that brake up the movies? My file structure is:

-DVDs

--DL

---DVD Title

----The files

---DVD Title

----The files

---DVD Title

----The files

etc.......

--SL

---DVD Title

----The files

---DVD Title

----The files

---DVD Title

----The files

etc...

 

DVD Title is the actual title of each DVD and I want to keep everything together inside of that folder. My understanding is that I want to use a split level of 2 as it splits it at the DVD title.

I'll be honest, Split Levels confuse the crap out of me.  However, I think in your case 4 is the right setting.

 

-DVDs (1)

-- DL (2)

---DVD Title (3)

----The Files (4)

 

Hence, a split level of 4 will allow your DVD Titles to split across disks, but not the actual DVD files (so each movie will be contained to a single disk).

 

Change the setting to 4 and try copying over one movie.  See what happens.  If I'm right, the movie should all go to one disk.  If I'm wrong, the movie files will be split up across different disks.  If this is the case, then try 3, or 5, etc.

 

Changing the split level will only affect future transfers, it won't change anything about how your data is currently organized.  So feel free to play with it until you find the right setting.  As long as you are only moving one movie at a time, you aren't going to wreak any serious havok.

I thought 1 was the folder directly under the user share, in this case then it would be DL or SL. But I can see being wrong with that. So with that, I would think I want to use 3 to retain that the DVD Title will keep everything under it in the same drive. But I will test it out.

 

Question though, would having 20000000 set as the min space stop it from writing on a drive with just a few gigs free? I understood it as it would reserve 20 gigs and if it couldn't, it would then go to the next drive.

I believe you have that right.  A min free space setting of 20 GB (which is what you have) should prevent a write to any drive with less than 20 GB of free space.  However, that doesn't mean that every drive will end up with 20 GB of free space.  Say you have a drive with 60 GB of free space and you are writing a 50 GB BluRay .iso file.  The write will complete successfully since when it started there was over 20 GB of free space, and there's enough total space on the drive.  So you would end up with only 10 GB of free space on the drive, which I believe means that no other write to that drive will succeed.

I tried setting it to 3 and 4 and it still keeps trying to copy on that first drive.

Is the share set to Fill up or High-Water?  I've read previously of people having issues when using Fill Up.

-DVDs (1)

-- DL (2)

---DVD Title (3)

 

The above numbering is correct. You want DL to split so 2 is the split level setting you want. If you use 3 or higher than the "DVD Title" folder can be split to multiple drives, which you do not want to happen.

 

You must be using "Fill up" as the allocation method. Try using "high water" as the allocation method. From what I could figure, "Fill up" is broken. It seemed to cause my server to ignore the split level setting.

 

Another issue could be that the copy first created the empty directories and then it couldn't fill them. These empty directories now exist on the server and they will not be automatically removed or moved to another drive. So, you have to manually delete them.

 

If you post again then list all of your share settings so we actually know what you are using instead of having to guess.

 

Peter