Beginning My Unraid Journey - Questions

[smush]

Hello I'm a newcomer to Unraid I've just activated the trial and assigned my parity and Disk 1 however I have some questions.

 

1. I have a 500GB NVME drive - What should I do with this? Do I assign it as a disk or as cache or neither?
2. My Flash USB in Unraid has a warning 'device is set as a public share change share SMB security' I went to the Flash device page and not sure what options to change here?
3. I usually encrypt my hard drives is this possible in Unraid? How does it work with things like Plex and remote streaming from an encrypted drive? Is the decryption code required every time?

[Hoopster]

2 hours ago, smush said:

I have a 500GB NVME drive - What should I do with this? Do I assign it as a disk or as cache or neither?

The best use would be as a cache drive.  A cache drive both caches writes for certain shares before the files are moved to the array and can house the appdata, isos, domains and system shares for Docker containers and VMs if you plan to use them.  More commonly, it is the latter for which most are now using the cache drive. Some also use it as a file download/transocde location from certain docker containers.

 

2 hours ago, smush said:

My Flash USB in Unraid has a warning 'device is set as a public share change share SMB security' I went to the Flash device page and not sure what options to change here?

 

Click on the flash drive on the main page and in the  SMB Security Settings change the Security to something else.  (Hint, enable Help - click on the ? icon at the top right corner of the page for an explanation on each option)

 

2 hours ago, smush said:

I usually encrypt my hard drives is this possible in Unraid? How does it work with things like Plex and remote streaming from an encrypted drive? Is the decryption code required every time?

When a drive is added to the array, you have the option of creating an encrypted filesystem on that drive.  Not every drive has to be encrypted as each has a separate file system.  The decryption key is stored locally and does not need to be entered every time. 

 

How it might impact remote streaming I don't know personally as I have no encrypted drives; however, I don't think it would be an issue that prevents the server from streaming without a decryption key on the remote client (again, I am not the expert here).

Edited August 30, 2020 by Hoopster

[smush]

9 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Click on the flash drive on the main page and in the  SMB Security Settings change the Security to something else.  (Hint, enable Help - click on the ? icon at the top right corner of the page for an explanation on each option)

 

Thanks I did that but I am unsure what option to use and how it would affect my usage (local and remote plex access, Virtual Machines). If I select No for Export what exactly will I be unable to access?

 

As for the security levels - What is meant for the 'Secure' option when it says 'Secure All users including guests have read access, you select which of your users have write access'? Users of what? unraid? who are the guests? don't they need to log in?

[Energen]

1 hour ago, smush said:

I usually encrypt my hard drives is this possible in Unraid? How does it work with things like Plex and remote streaming from an encrypted drive? Is the decryption code required every time?

As Hoopster said, you can create encrypted drives.  You will need the encryption key every time you restart the array, so whether it's saved on the server already, or not, you will need it to start the array.  Encryption does not affect Plex or anything else.

 

8 minutes ago, smush said:

Thanks I did that but I am unsure what option to use and how it would affect my usage (local and remote plex access, Virtual Machines). If I select No for Export what exactly will I be unable to access?

Export only shows / hides the share from being visible as an SMB share, in Windows for example.  You don't need the flash drive exposed via SMB unless you plan on making changes on the flash drive / want to be able to access it for some reason.

 

12 minutes ago, smush said:

As for the security levels - What is meant for the 'Secure' option when it says 'Secure All users including guests have read access, you select which of your users have write access'? Users of what? unraid? who are the guests? don't they need to log in?

Press the ? question mark icon in the top toolbar, it will show you help.

 

As for the users, yes, the users of Unraid... or more specifically, Unraid SMB shares.  A share can be set so that John, Mary, and Paul can all read from the share, but only Mary can write to the share.  The "guest" would be an SMB share that is created with an anonymous SMB connection, and not a user/pass connection.  In Windows Explorer, when you map a network drive and connect to a network location and don't log in with a user/pass, that is an anonymous SMB connection, aka "guest".

[smush]

Thanks I went with Export - No and Security - Private

[smush]

On 8/31/2020 at 12:00 AM, Hoopster said:

When a drive is added to the array, you have the option of creating an encrypted filesystem on that drive.  Not every drive has to be encrypted as each has a separate file system.  The decryption key is stored locally and does not need to be entered every time. 

 

How it might impact remote streaming I don't know personally as I have no encrypted drives; however, I don't think it would be an issue that prevents the server from streaming without a decryption key on the remote client (again, I am not the expert here).

So my drives are formatted now as XFS but to encrypt them I need to set the default file system to XFS (encrypted) or Btrfs (encrypted) right? I'm trying to work out what file system to use between these 2 not sure the benefits of either all I've found is XFS is more mature but lacks the snapshots of Btrfs.

[trurl]

14 minutes ago, smush said:

So my drives are formatted now as XFS but to encrypt them I need to set the default file system to XFS (encrypted) or Btrfs (encrypted) right?

The default filesystem is just what a new disk is formatted as by default. Changing the default will not change any disk that is already formatted. When you reformat a disk of course all its data is lost.

[smush]

2 hours ago, trurl said:

The default filesystem is just what a new disk is formatted as by default. Changing the default will not change any disk that is already formatted. When you reformat a disk of course all its data is lost.

Thanks I've formatted as XFS encrypted now. One thing I've noticed even before changing to XFS encrypted is that my disk is showing 83.8GB of the disk used of 11.9TB free (12TB disk). I've read the forum here and believe it is to do with the housekeeping the XFS filesystem does? Still, 83GB seems like a lot?

Edited September 1, 2020 by smush

[JorgeB]

2 minutes ago, smush said:

Still, 83GB seems like a lot?

It is, but it's the new normal.

[smush]

1 minute ago, johnnie.black said:

It is, but it's the new normal.

Guess so. Would I get a similar result going with btrfs?

[JorgeB]

14 minutes ago, smush said:

Would I get a similar result going with btrfs?

No, it's the new normal for xfs.

[smush]

21 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

No, it's the new normal for xfs.

I'm currently setting up my split levels of shares and have noticed you have answered a few questions on this subject so was wondering if you could help me with it?

I understand the best route for shares is to have 1 for each type (eg Movies share, TV share, etc) but from what I gather there is some drawbacks to it in that that other programs don't work well with this setup as per https://forums.unraid.net/topic/59589-solved-v635-advice-please-on-shares-settings

Is it possible to have 1 share for media with sub folders for movies and TV, where a movie and its associated other files (subtitles) are kept together, while with TV the seasons of a show are kept together (either all seasons same disk or season 1 can be on 1 disk season 2 on another)?

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by smush

[trurl]

7 minutes ago, smush said:

I understand the best route for shares is to have 1 for each type (eg Movies share, TV share, etc) but from what I gather there is some drawbacks to it in that that other programs don't work well with this setup as per https://forums.unraid.net/topic/59589-solved-v635-advice-please-on-shares-settings

There was some vague mention by one user at that thread of "other programs" having problems. Do you have anything specific in mind? I can't think of anything you might run on Unraid that would have a problem since the combined user shares are always accessible at /mnt/user. Over the network each user share appears separately but there are workarounds for that if really needed:

 

12 minutes ago, smush said:

Is it possible to have 1 share for media with sub folders for movies and TV, where a movie and its associated other files (subtitles) are kept together, while with TV the seasons of a show are kept together (either all seasons same disk or season 1 can be on 1 disk season 2 on another)?

There is no way to have Unraid manage subfolders of a user share the way it does with the settings for each user share, such as split level. If you arrange all your media so the same split level is appropriate for all then you could put them all in the same share. But you might have other settings that wouldn't work as well as having them separate. You might need Minimum Free different for Bluray rips than you would have for TV shows, for example, since those can be very different in size.

 

My advice is different shares for different things. That's what I do.

[smush]

22 minutes ago, trurl said:

There was some vague mention by one user at that thread of "other programs" having problems. Do you have anything specific in mind? I can't think of anything you might run on Unraid that would have a problem since the combined user shares are always accessible at /mnt/user

I don't know if it is possible as this is my first server but is there a way to download a torrent using the server and then have unraid handle the categorization of it? I'm guessing this would be through a docker?

 

22 minutes ago, trurl said:

There is no way to have Unraid manage subfolders of a user share the way it does with the settings for each user share, such as split level. If you arrange all your media so the same split level is appropriate for all then you could put them all in the same share. But you might have other settings that wouldn't work as well as having them separate. You might need Minimum Free different for Bluray rips than you would have for TV shows, for example, since those can be very different in size.

Say for example this single Media share = \Media\Movies\MovieName\Movie.mkv and \Media\TV\TVShow\SeasonNo\Episode1.mkv If I used split level 1 for this a movie folder could go to any of the included disks but the contents of the movie folder would stay together while a TV show could go to any of the included disks but all seasons of a TV show would stay together?

Edited September 2, 2020 by smush

[Energen]

2 hours ago, smush said:

I don't know if it is possible as this is my first server but is there a way to download a torrent using the server and then have unraid handle the categorization of it? I'm guessing this would be through a docker?

Yes, the Radarr docker for movies and Sonarr docker for TV shows can deal with moving/naming the files.

2 hours ago, smush said:

Say for example this single Media share = \Media\Movies\MovieName\Movie.mkv and \Media\TV\TVShow\SeasonNo\Episode1.mkv If I used split level 1 for this a movie folder could go to any of the included disks but the contents of the movie folder would stay together while a TV show could go to any of the included disks but all seasons of a TV show would stay together?

Any file could be written to any of the included disks, not necessarily on the same physical disk. 

[smush]

15 minutes ago, Energen said:

Any file could be written to any of the included disks, not necessarily on the same physical disk. 

Apologies, What I meant was split level 2.

Think I've got my head around it now from this https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/guide-directory-splitting-in-unraid/1137

Split level 2 should achieve what I set out in my last post?

Edited September 2, 2020 by smush

[Energen]

Honestly I really wouldn't worry about where the files get put.  It makes no practical difference, other than the small possibility of spinning more disks for a series or whatever.

[smush]

I'm setting up Plex right now following this video on YouTube but I get to the part about hardware decoding and where I enter cd /dev/dri I get a response saying it doesn't exist. I have a i5 9400 with iGPU.

 I found the thread on this forum but I don't know where to enter such parameters or even if it will work so thought I'd get help with it here in case I make a mistake and break everything

Edited September 5, 2020 by smush

[trurl]

On 9/5/2020 at 6:06 PM, smush said:

I enter cd /dev/dri I get a response saying it doesn't exist.

Since you don't specifically mention it, I have to ask. Did you do this first?

modprobe i915

 

[Hoopster]

On 9/5/2020 at 4:06 PM, smush said:

I'm setting up Plex right now following this video on YouTube but I get to the part about hardware decoding and where I enter cd /dev/dri I get a response saying it doesn't exist. I have a i5 9400 with iGPU.

Follow this guide to get hardware transcoding going with an iGPU.

[smush]

Ok hardware decoding is up and running now. I'm sure I entered modprobe originally, perhaps not.

There's 2 other things regarding Plex I'm trying to figure out.

1. I have a Movies share and a TV share but when setting up Plex there is only 1 host path for data which I set up in my Movies share so I can only access the movies share in Plex to add movies. Do I need to add a second host path for a second /data/ container path in the TV share?
2. How do I configure Plex such that my main account (the admin one with Plex Pass) is shown as a name rather than an email address? Are you meant to use your admin account for watching content?

Edited September 7, 2020 by smush

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, smush said:

I have a Movies share and a TV share but when setting up Plex there is only 1 host path for data which I set up in my Movies share so I can only access the movies share in Plex to add movies. Do I need to add a second host path for a second /data/ container path in the TV share?

Depends on how you have your shares setup.  If you only have a parent media share with subdirectories for different content types (movies, tv shows, photos, etc.) you only need one volume mapping, e.g. /data to /mnt/user/media.  In plex you would then browse to /data/movies, /data/tvshows, /data/photos for the respective media libraries.

 

If you have separate unRAID shares for each media type, then you need to create a volume mapping in the Plex docker container for each media type.  This is how I have mine system configured and here is an example of my volume mappings:

 

 

With a separate mapping for each media type, I just browse to /movies, /pictures, /tv, etc. in Plex when setting up the libraries.

 

1 hour ago, smush said:

How do I configure Plex such that my main account (the admin one with Plex Pass) is shown as a name rather than an email address? Are you meant to use your admin account for watching content?

Under Settings --> Account in Plex, you setup the main account

 

Under Settings --> Users and Sharing you set additional Plex accounts

 

You can use your admin account for watching Plex content (I do), but, you can also create other non-admin accounts as well.  I have several of these setup for family members with whom I share content remotely.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Hoopster

[Joedy]

i used multiple shares for plex