fishface Posted November 22, 2010 Share Posted November 22, 2010 Proposed share and allocation strategy Ok, I'm nearly ready to go with unRAID, but just thought I'd run my share and allocation strategy by you folks. Config. 4 disks total 1 x 2TB parity 1 x 2TB data 2 x 640GB data 1) I plan to fill each disk up as I go, starting with the 2TB disk, so I guess I use 'high water' allocation method? I do not need to store DVD or Blue Ray (VOB etc) 2) I want the file system presented as one volume to the guest OS with multiple shares (a mixed bunch of machines, XP, Linux) Share 1 = Video (admin+torrent_user full access - everybody only read access) Movies (admin+torrent_user - everybody only read access) TV Shows (admin+torrent_user - everybody only read access) Share 2 = Music (admin+torrent_user- everybody only read access) Share 3 = Photos (admin+torrent_user- everybody only read access) Share 4 = Torrents (admin+torrent_user full access - everybody else hidden) 3) I planned to use 'User level' security to enable the above shares, but on further reading I guess I could use the 'Exceptions' method instead of the 'Valid/invlaid users' lists? Link to comment
kenoka Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 High water would use your largest disk, until it got to less than 640GB remaining, at which point it would start to use all three. If you just want to completely fill up disk1 first, then I'd suggest you initially set your shares to only see that disk. I don't know why you'd do that, but it's up to you. If you want the least work, just set a single share across all disks and forget it. If you want to minimize disk spin up, then you'll have to work at it a little bit. You can set a single share at the root level of all disks. To network users, they can connect to that single share and see everything under that share folder. This would be easiest, since all the permissions seem to be the same. So if you create a share called "Media", then put "Video", "Music", "Photos", and "Torrents" under that, your users just need to link to "Media", and they can access everything. Link to comment
fishface Posted November 23, 2010 Author Share Posted November 23, 2010 Thanks for the feedback. The only reason I thought of filling each disk at a time was to ease recovery in the event of a catastrophic failure, but you are right, it does some what defeat the point of me using unRAID - if I don't use this strategy what method would you recommend? Custom high water setting? Setting a single share at root across all disk is nice, the only odd one is the torrent share, the torrent/client will connect as user 'torrent' and need r+w permissions for all of the shares, looks like it will work fine. Link to comment
kenoka Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 User shares allow you to have as much or as little input as you like. The lowest maintenance option would be to have a single share across all disks, set it to high-water, and forget about it. Personally, I'm a little anal about organization and disk spin-up, so when I move files, I generally do it directly to a disk share, so I know where everything is. I have about 3 TB of television files, for instance, spread across five disks. I could just as easily let unRAID manage where all the files go, but instead I have all of the comedy files under one disk, all of the drama on another, and so on. This isn't necessary, but I feel better because I know what's on each disk in case of a data recovery. If unRAID works properly, it should be a moot point, because I should be able to just stick another disk in and be fine either way. My shares are: "Movies" (2x 1.5 TB disks), "Television" (2x 1.5TB disk & 3 1TB disks), and "Media" (1 TB disk), which has music, photos, audiobooks, and also program source files. I have each share mapped on my computers for direct access. I'm also slowly playing with various HTPC front ends, to eliminate all the explorer browsing, or at least make the experience prettier. I've played with XBMC and Boxee the last couple of months, and now I think I might give MediaPortal another chance. I last tried that about a year ago, and it was nice, but a bit buggy, and I couldn't get the TV portion to work. I have a TV tuner card, and neither XBMC nor Boxee deal with that at all, which is a shame. Link to comment
fishface Posted November 23, 2010 Author Share Posted November 23, 2010 I like the idea of low maintenance and the set and forget approach...but like you I can be a little anal... - probably start of with the simple approach until I get more familiar with unRAID. My media needs are very simple, unRAID will mostly feed a single video stream (currently over WiFi) to the CinemaTube (http://www.brite-view.com/cinemago.php), it has its quirks and limitations, but it has worked great for over a year now, it makes zero noise, its simple and has been reliable, all for $90 on special last year! I briefly tried a few HTPC front ends, MythTV...worked but had various codec/decode issues, and XBMC...can't remember what happened with that one, the only one that worked out-of-the-box, so to speak, was Orb, but it is Windows based and does send certain info back and forth between you and Orb Networks, there are ways to limit this, but it is a worry, but having said that, it worked perfectly and took about 20 minutes to set-up. Link to comment
kenoka Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 Your library is relatively limited at this point. You may want to rethink your strategy once you start getting into the 5+TB range, but for now, it really doesn't matter all that much. One easy split would be your largest library on the 2TB disk, and everything else on the 640GB disks. Do keep in mind too that you need a little bit of free space (equivalent to the largest file you write) for the ReiserFS journaling to work properly. In general, it's best to keep a drive as empty as possible. Drives write from the outside in, and the further out you are, the faster the effective spindle speed, and the greater the areal density, so you get the best performance there. I've generally found that drives seem to slow down noticeably once you get more than about 2/3 full. Link to comment
fishface Posted December 1, 2010 Author Share Posted December 1, 2010 Ok, this is what I would like to achieve and am I on the right track? 1) I want all video to go onto disk1, and then onto the other disks when the high-water is reached, i.e. disk2 and soon to be installed disk3. 2) Music, Photos and torrents onto disk2 3) Everybody has read only access to everything with the exception of torrents which I want to be hidden. 4) I want admin to have full access to all shares 5) I want torrent_user to have full access to the torrent and Video share only, not Music and Photos 6) I will leave reserve space later on From your comment 'when I move files, I generally do it directly to a disk share, so I know where everything is.' am I correct in thinking that you are over-riding unRAID and managing it yourself, and it doing so this gives you more control over spin-up? Does my share strategy above along the same lines? I like the idea of just letting unRAID get on with it, but if I understand correctly this makes the the spin-up/down disks feature tricky to implement. Am I correct in thinking that just having a single share across all disks, for example 'Media' would not allow me to restrict access or hide a folder within that top level share? Also what is the difference between "Exception' and 'Valid users'? I apologise in advance for so many questions and changing the goal posts, unRAID does give you many options and some the issue is deciding what is the best option for me. 1 x 2TB disk1 (Video) 1 x 640GB disk2 ( Music, Photos and torrents) Share name: Photos Allocation method: High-water Included disk(s): disk2 Export: Read only Exceptions:admin Valid users:admin All other fields blank Share name: Music Allocation method: High-water Included disk(s): disk2 Export: Read only Exceptions:admin Valid users:admin All other fields blank Share name: Torrents Allocation method: High-water Included disk(s): disk2 Export: Read only hidden Exceptions:torrent_user,admin Valid users:torrent_user,admin All other fields blank Share name: Video Allocation method: High-water Included disk(s): disk1 Export: Read only Exceptions:torrent_user,admin Valid users:torrent_user,admin All other fields blank Link to comment
kenoka Posted December 1, 2010 Share Posted December 1, 2010 Let's say you have the users admin, dave, and jenny. You have the shares videos, photos, and music. You want admin to have r/w access to all shares, dave to have read only to all shares, and jenny to have read only to the videos and photos share, but not music. videos, you want admin to have r/w, everyone else to have read only. You could either set permissions to be read write for all, and dave and jenny as the exceptions, or read only for all, and admin as the exception. Valid users would be admin, dave and jenny. photos, you want admin to have r/w, and dave and jenny read only. Permissions would be exactly the same as for videos. music, you want admin to have r/w, but only dave to have read only. Again, you could go either way. The difference is that you don't want jenny to see the share at all, so she shouldn't be on the list of valid users. Link to comment
Joe L. Posted December 1, 2010 Share Posted December 1, 2010 Let's say you have the users admin, dave, and jenny. You have the shares videos, photos, and music. You want admin to have r/w access to all shares, dave to have read only to all shares, and jenny to have read only to the videos and photos share, but not music. videos, you want admin to have r/w, everyone else to have read only. You could either set permissions to be read write for all, and dave and jenny as the exceptions, or read only for all, and admin as the exception. Valid users would be admin, dave and jenny. photos, you want admin to have r/w, and dave and jenny read only. Permissions would be exactly the same as for videos. music, you want admin to have r/w, but only dave to have read only. Again, you could go either way. The difference is that you don't want jenny to see the share at all, so she shouldn't be on the list of valid users. You have "valid" users set to admin for Photos and Music. That indicates ONLY admin will have access. I'd leave that field blank, or add in the list of specific users requiring access. Link to comment
fishface Posted December 2, 2010 Author Share Posted December 2, 2010 Thank you both, think I've got it know One more question, when I created a new file (as user that I had granted r/w access) the date for the newly created file is incorrect, I created a file today at 20:05 CST and the time and date are totally out of whack, it reports it as 2008-01-04 17:54. UnRAID time zone is correct, NTP is enabled and is set to the default pool.ntp.org, why are the file creation date/times out? 'date' at the command line it reports the correct time and date. Link to comment
Rajahal Posted December 2, 2010 Share Posted December 2, 2010 Did you create the file on the server (via telnet, system console, etc)? Otherwise, I would expect that the problem is on the end of your client computer. Link to comment
fishface Posted December 3, 2010 Author Share Posted December 3, 2010 Nope, just created blank .txt file via mapped drive ona XP machine who's time is correct, I repeated it several times but cannot get it to do it today... Link to comment
fishface Posted December 4, 2010 Author Share Posted December 4, 2010 Ok, I have have things working more or less but have a permissions issue with some of the shares, I simplified things to jsut cover the shares I have issues with and the user 'admin' has been replaced by 'fishface' aka me. All users have username and password on unraid, this are also the same on the machine accounts trying to connect. 1 Share name: Music Allocation method: High-water Included disk(s): disk2 Export: Read only Exceptions:fishface Valid users: All other fields blank Works fine, everybody can read from it, but the user 'fishface' cannot write to it, this should work - yes? The username and password are the same on the client machine that is trying to connect, which is an XP machine. Now onto one that does work, the user 'torrent_user' can read/write to this share, which is odd as it set-up in the same way as the above, different client machine and obviously a different user, but the principal is the same. 2 Share name: Video Allocation method: High-water Included disk(s): disk2 Export: Read only Exceptions:torrent_user Valid users: All other fields blank XP machine1 with local user account 'fishface' connecting to the Photos share can read only, not write XP machine2 with local user account 'torrent_user' connecting to the Video share can read/write What are the default octal permissions for files and folders created by unRAID? I'm wondering if something got last in translation when I copied all the data over, the drive was mounted in unRAID and then the data was copied. Another odd thing, the share below (Photos) is in principal the same as the Music share, however, every time user 'fishface' tries to connect a password prompt is displayed, and even when the correct credentials are entered the user still cannot access the share, the password prompt just keeps being displayed, so the user 'fishface' cannot even see this share at all. 3 Share name: Photos Allocation method: High-water Included disk(s): disk2 Export: Read only Exceptions:fishface Valid users: All other fields blank ...update....rebooting the server has fixed issue 3, other issues still exist though. Copy of smb-share follows: [Music] path = /mnt/user/Music read only = Yes write list = fishface [Photos] path = /mnt/user/Photos read only = Yes write list = fishface [Video] path = /mnt/user/Video read only = Yes write list = torrent_user,fishface valid users = torrent_user,fishface,guest [torrents] path = /mnt/user/torrents read only = Yes browseable = No write list = torrent_user,fishface Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.