Hello,

I've been using unraid now a few months and do love it but i have a few questions in releation to plex, unassigned drives & backups.

Let start with some info.
Specs,
fx8370, 16gb ram, 14tb array, 1tb cache, 1 unassigned 250gb ssd, m2000gpu

 

Array,
1, Parity, 2-4TB, 3-2 TB

Dockers,
plex (unassigned drive),pihole,ombi,syncthing,sonarr,radarr,tautlli (Cache for appdata).

Plex transcode goes to /tmp for ram.

Shares,
Appdata (Prefer Cache)
Media (No cache)
Backups (No Cache)

 

Now down to questions.

1, What are the benfits to having the appdata for plex on an unassigned drive? ( I can only think of performance. Nothing else using the IO).
2, How would you recommend backing up the unassigned drive?

Due to me already using CABackup/Restore to backup the hole appdata in the cache would you say to just rsync the changes from the unassigned drive to the cache and allow the backup tool to do the daily backups to the array.

 

Somthing like this once a day to sync the changes between the unassigned drive and the cache.

rsync -av --progress --delete --recursive /mnt/disks/plex_appdata/ /mnt/cache/appdata/PlexMediaServer

Thank you.

Edited April 15, 20206 yr by R4Z0R49
Added Code Tags

1. you're right about the plex performance increase on the unassigned device. Though ymmv depending on how much your cache is used and if it impedes your current plex metadata on a regular basis or not. i.e., if cache doesn't get used much, you may not notice a big performance increase moving it to UD. But if cache is often taxed, you may see a noticeable difference making that move. The other advantage may be capacity. Depending on the size of your plex library, all that metadata adds up - especially if you have video thumbnails turned on. this may be a problem if you don't have a large cache pool.

 

2. i'm not overly familiar with rsync, but in your scenario, why not just cut out the middle man (cache) and sync directly to the array? While i don't back up my unassigned disks, i've had great success with syncthing (docker and a nice gui) backing up (file sync) files and folders in real time between remote unraid servers. you can set to scan and sync once a day. Might be worth looking into.

Thank you for the reply and info.

If i created my own backup system i would be assentially doing what the CABackup/Restore is doing already plus id have to right my own code to mimic what CABackup/Restore is doing.

All my Dockers use the cache for appdata.

So my current thoughts on the backup.

1, Use the unassigned drive to store Plex Appdata.
2, Use the cache/PlexAppData as a like cached folder (only sync changes).
3, Rsync the diffrences (only) between the plexAppData and cached version. (Creates no IO usage accross the array), One line of code.
4, Allow CABackup/Restore to do the full backup of all appdata from the cache (Creating the zip file, Sorting them by data, and keeping the past 6 zips of backup, storing them for restore later).

 

I do already use syncthing for sync between an external box and my system. It just dont do anything backup wise atm.

Again thanks for your reply.

sorry for the delay, i didn't have my notifications on...

 

Just to make sure i'm following correctly, you're going to keep the working plexappdata (PAD) on your unassigned device drive. Then rsync changes only to a duplicate-non-working copy in mnt/cache/appdata so it gets backed up through CAbackup/Restore, is that right?

 

If so, that means double the storage... just thinking out loud, but for example my PAD is around 300gb. not sure what yours is, but it wouldn't seem ideal to keep that in an unassigned device, and the cache pool. don't see why it wouldn't work, but it does seem overly redundant unless you just have gobs of storage to fill or a really small PAD. again, i think that's where something like syncthing would come in handy, to file sync straight from the unassigned device directly to your backup destination (this would also reduce downtime of containers being offline during backup). it's just a simple matter of mapping the paths in the syncthing container... but there's definitely more than one way to skin a cat.

 

If/ When you do move the PAD to unassigned device, remember to change the access mode to rw/slave for the container path.