Newbie question: copying an external USB drive to array

[palali]

Hi, all. I set up Unraid trial just a few days ago and I must say, I'm thoroughly impressed with the product. There is one thing I can't figure out how to do.

 

I have created a 4TB array with 2x2TB + 2TB parity. I have an external USB drive that is 4TB. I would like to copy the files from this drive to the 4TB array. I can do so by connecting the USB drive to my laptop, mapping to a share on the array and running  a copy comand. The issue is that I'm running only 100Mb ethernet and as such, the copy process will take forever and I can't leave my laptop plugged in for that long. Is there another way to copy the files from an external drive "directly"? By directly, I mean, using the Unraid server somehow so that the copy process doesn't have to go over my home network and I can copy at USB 3 speed. I've installed the Unassigned Devices plugin and can mount the external drive but after that, I don't know what to do. If I share out the external drive, then I'm back to copying over the network using my laptop. Any other options?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Squid]

Install the Krusader docker app and transfer via it.  Or use midnight commander (mc) via the command prompt.

 

 

[Squid]

 

[kilobit]

1 hour ago, palali said:

Hi, all. I set up Unraid trial just a few days ago and I must say, I'm thoroughly impressed with the product. There is one thing I can't figure out how to do.

 

I have created a 4TB array with 2x2TB + 2TB parity. I have an external USB drive that is 4TB. I would like to copy the files from this drive to the 4TB array. I can do so by connecting the USB drive to my laptop, mapping to a share on the array and running  a copy comand. The issue is that I'm running only 100Mb ethernet and as such, the copy process will take forever and I can't leave my laptop plugged in for that long. Is there another way to copy the files from an external drive "directly"? By directly, I mean, using the Unraid server somehow so that the copy process doesn't have to go over my home network and I can copy at USB 3 speed. I've installed the Unassigned Devices plugin and can mount the external drive but after that, I don't know what to do. If I share out the external drive, then I'm back to copying over the network using my laptop. Any other options?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

I have a very similar setup with a western digital usb drive.

You need community applications installed and then unassigned devices installed.

You drive should then be picked up in unraid under the "disks" tab (i believe)  I have mine enable auto mounting and shared.

Now you should be able to browse the disk with samba (//tower/WD_Book is what mine is)

 

The unassigned disk will usually mount to /mnt/disks/ folder so if in the unraid gui you enter the console (top right) and do a

"cd /mnt/disks/"

then, "ls"

That should be your disk.  So for example if I have a folder called movies on my usb drive and a share called movies on my array, I want to copy from my usb drive to my array I would use this:

"cp -av /mnt/disks/WD_Book/Movies /mnt/user/Movies"

copy files and directorys and list items copied from my usb drive to my movies directory on my array.

 

Hope this helps you

[palali]

Thank you for your replies. I don't know enough about docker containers - so, I will try that later. Meanwhile, I mounted the external USB drive using UD plugin and used the following command to start copying the files:

 

cp -av /mnt/disks/myExternalDisk /mnt/user/myNewShare

 

The copy process has been running for a few hours but I noticed something that seems odd to me. As I mentioned in my original post, my array is a 2x2TB + 2TB parity. It looks like the files are getting copied to only one of the two drives and the second drive is idle. This is based on what I'm seeing in the GUI where the number of Writes operations and the amount of disk space is changing for the first drive  only. (and also changing for the parity drive but that's expected). My share is configured to use all disks. 

 

Is this how the array works? Does it write to one drive until full, then moves to the next?

 

Thanks.

Edited February 3, 2020 by palali

[itimpi]

What Allocation method is set for the share(s) in question?    If it is the default of High Water then you might want to read up on how that works as it is not obvious at first glance.

[Frank1940]

see here for how allocation works:

 

    https://wiki.unraid.net/Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Allocation_method

 

It might seem that there is a better way to the newcomer but I think after reflection, you will find that storing files in a logical manner results in much faster operation involving few simultaneous disk operations later.

[kilobit]

5 hours ago, palali said:

Thank you for your replies. I don't know enough about docker containers - so, I will try that later. Meanwhile, I mounted the external USB drive using UD plugin and used the following command to start copying the files:

 

cp -av /mnt/disks/myExternalDisk /mnt/user/myNewShare

 

The copy process has been running for a few hours but I noticed something that seems odd to me. As I mentioned in my original post, my array is a 2x2TB + 2TB parity. It looks like the files are getting copied to only one of the two drives and the second drive is idle. This is based on what I'm seeing in the GUI where the number of Writes operations and the amount of disk space is changing for the first drive  only. (and also changing for the parity drive but that's expected). My share is configured to use all disks. 

 

Is this how the array works? Does it write to one drive until full, then moves to the next?

 

Thanks.

This is a perfectly normal default setting.  Welcome to Unraid