I am doing some housekeeping after a fresh install.  As my shares have matures over the last 5 years using Unraid, I wonder if it's time to update my split levels. Or just leave things as AUTOMATICALLY SPLIT ANY DIRECTORY AS REQUIRED.  I do notice however that some of my shares, even individual movies have files over multiple drives. I'm looking for suggestions for these 2 use cases.

 

Goals:

#1 -  only have to spin up a single drive for a single movie.  As it is, for instance, the MKV file could be on Drive1, the NFO on Drive2, the Folder.JPG on Drive3.  It would be convenient to only spin a single drive. 

#2 - group files for individual TV episodes and even entire TV seasons onto a single drive.  That way, binge watching wouldn't have to spin up an additional drive between episodes. I don't mind seasons going onto different drive, especially since some shows can get really quite large and it seems silly to drive to put a couple hundred GBs of a single show in one place

 

Currently, everything set to AUTOMATICALLY SPLIT ANY DIRECTORY AS REQUIRED and using High-water. (I've seem some arguments for leaving automatic, but switching to fill up instead)

 

I was considering giving each TV, Movies, Movies2160, Other their own top tier folders, like so with the following splits: (I think this should split TV shows by Season and Movies individually).  Please check my thinking.

 

TV (SHARE)  ---------->(AUTOMATICALLY SPLIT ONLY THE TOP TWO DIRECTORY LEVELS AS REQUIRED (High-water) -> Should split as Season1 on Drive A, Season2 on Drive B, etc )

........Show1

................Season1.1

........................EpisodeFiles1.1.1

........................EpisodeFiles1.1.2

........................EpisodeFiles1.1.3

................Season1.2

........................EpisodeFiles1.2.1

........................EpisodeFiles1.2.2

........................EpisodeFiles1.2.3

................Season1.3

........................EpisodeFiles1.3.1

........................EpisodeFiles1.3.2

........................EpisodeFiles1.3.3

........Show2

................Season2.1

........................EpisodeFiles2.1.1

........................EpisodeFiles2.1.2

........................EpisodeFiles2.1.3

................Season2.2

........................EpisodeFiles2.2.1

........................EpisodeFiles2.2.2

........................EpisodeFiles2.2.3

................Season2.3

........................EpisodeFiles2.3.1

........................EpisodeFiles2.3.2

........................EpisodeFiles2.3.3

Movies (SHARE)  ---------->(AUTOMATICALLY SPLIT ONLY THE TOP DIRECTORY LEVELS AS REQUIRED (High-water) -> Should split as Movie1 on Drive A, Movie2 on Drive B, etc )

........Movies1

................MovieFile1.1

................MovieFile1.2

................MovieFile1.3

........Movies2

................MovieFile2.1

................MovieFile2.2

................MovieFile2.3

........Movies3

................MovieFile3.1

................MovieFile3.2

................MovieFile3.3

Movies2160 (SHARE)  ---------->(AUTOMATICALLY SPLIT ONLY THE TOP DIRECTORY LEVELS AS REQUIRED (High-water) -> Should split as Movie21601 on Drive A, Movie21602 on Drive B, etc )

........Movies21601

................Movie2160File1.1

................Movie2160File1.2

................Movie2160File1.3

........Movies21602

................Movie2160File2.1

................Movie2160File2.2

................Movie2160File2.3

........Movies21603

................Movie2160File3.1

................Movie2160File3.2

................Movie2160File3.3

 

Does this all make sense?

I think this is mostly personal preference and is dependent on your file structure, I mean you don't want to spin up 5 disks to binge watch 5 episodes right. Other than that, well, the best laid plans of mice and men as they say!

 

Here is an example of my TV share, it is set to split the top two directories;

Top most share (TV - splits as needed) ---> Second Level (Series Names - splits as needed) ---> Third Level (seasons - folders stay completely intact)

 

Here is an example of my Movies share, it 's also set to split the top two directories;

Top most share (Movies - splits as needed) ---> Second Level (Genre - splits as needed) ---> Third Level (Actual movie - folders stay completely intact)

 

Hope this helps...