I have the PRO version of the software.  I just started up my server.  I have 1 parity and 3 data disks so far.  I created \\tower\disk1\videos scanned the user shares and \\tower\videos appeared like it should.

Now I mapped \\tower\videos as the v:\ drive.  It shows 230g of 500g free. Great!

 

On disk3 i created \\tower\disk3\videos.  It hit the rescan user shares.  If I go to my computer, it now shows the v:\ drive as red with 0 of 20M free??? I tried to copy to the v:\ drive and  it gave an out of disk space error?

 

Is there a way to fix this?

 

Brian

I have the PRO version of the software.  I just started up my server.  I have 1 parity and 3 data disks so far.  I created \\tower\disk1\videos scanned the user shares and \\tower\videos appeared like it should.

Now I mapped \\tower\videos as the v:\ drive.  It shows 230g of 500g free. Great!

 

On disk3 i created \\tower\disk3\videos.  It hit the rescan user shares.  If I go to my computer, it now shows the v:\ drive as red with 0 of 20M free??? I tried to copy to the v:\ drive and  it gave an out of disk space error?

 

Is there a way to fix this?

 

Brian

User share drives are NOT writable in version 4.1 or earlier of unRaid.  The user shares are created in an in-memory file system ( that is what is being reported to windows as 20 meg in size)  It contains links (similar to shortcuts in windows)  to the actual files on disk1, disk2, etc.  If a user share ONLY exists on one physical drive, it contains a link to the folder on that physical drive.  If it exists on multiple (as in your example) links are made to the files on the various data disks from a similarly named folder created by thhe "Scan process" in the file-system created in RAM.

 

If windows explorer reports free space on the shortcut to a folder on a data drive it shows the space on THAT data drive, exactly as you saw before you added a second drive with a videos folder.  If /videos is a folder in RAM, on an in-ram file-system, windows explorer will report the size of the in-ram file-system. (apparently 20 meg is allocated on your machine to hold the links to the actual folders and files, so that size is reported.  This was the case once you had two "videos" folders. Now the "videos" folder is in a ramdisk, and the ramdisk folder contains links to all the contents of the /disk1/videos and /disk2/videos folders.

 

If you use up all the file space in RAM by writing to a user share, it might cause the unRaid server to crash as it will start to terminate processes attempting to make more ram available for your file.

 

Fortunately, in the NEXT version (we hope) of unRaid user shares will be writable.

 

So...

• You are never likely to be able to be able to use windows explorer to get meaningful free space from a user-share.
  
• Instead, look at free space using the web-interface to unRaid, or on \\tower\disk1, \\tower\disk2,\\tower\disk3...shares.
  
• User shares are not writable in version 4.1, so export them as read-only for now.
  
• When writing to your unRaid server, either write to \\tower\disk2\videos or map a different windows drive to it and write to that mapped drive.
  
• Wait for version 4.2 (hopefully to be released soon) for the ability to write to /videos and not run out of RAM.
  

 

Joe L.

Thanks Joe

 

I am still scratching my head on this?

 

I really don't care about windows explorer giving meaningful free space.

I wrote 230 Gb to my server using the user share when there was only //tower/disk1/videos

 

Will I be ever to have a share called videos that is larger than one drive?? I think this would might management much harder.

 

I will have to have

//tower/disk1/videos

//tower/disk2/videos1

//tower/disk3/videos2

 

all mapped to different drives?

 

I think I have it. 

 

I can create

 

//tower/disk1/videos

//tower/disk2/videos

//tower/disk3/videos

 

 

Then create a user share (read only)  //tower/videos  this will list all the videos from the three locations.

 

If I want to write to the videos I have to choose which disk to write to.  like... //tower/disk2/videos 

 

is that right?

Correct.

I think I have it. 

 

I can create

 

//tower/disk1/videos

//tower/disk2/videos

//tower/disk3/videos

 

 

Then create a user share (read only)  //tower/videos  this will list all the videos from the three locations.

 

If I want to write to the videos I have to choose which disk to write to.  like... //tower/disk2/videos 

 

is that right?

You are correct... for now.

 

Soon, when Tom releases version 4.2 of unraid, he says you will be able to write to \\tower\videos and it will choose an appropriate disk for the physical file. Also, you will not need to "scan" the shares at that  point. 

 

A single file will not be able to span more than one physical disk, but it will work more like you originally expected.

Great,

 

I can't wait for 4.2. Hopefully it will come soon, thanks Joe and Bill.

Great,

 

I can't wait for 4.2. Hopefully it will come soon, thanks Joe and Bill.

 

Joe is the brains of the operation.  I am just the mouth. 

 

 

Bill

Great,

 

I can't wait for 4.2. Hopefully it will come soon, thanks Joe and Bill.

 

Joe is the brains of the operation.  I am just the mouth. 

 

 

Bill

Nah, I'm just another customer...with a bit of unix background.

I have nothing to do with lime-technology other than I've had my unRaid server since version 1.0 was released.  I've probably also  crashed more unix servers than most folks... (don't ask)