hklt Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I've read (over and over) most - if not all - the threads regarding setting up User Share split levels (both for and against), and I'm still confused I think one of those threads actually mentioned something about 'if it's not clear enough that people keep asking about it, something's wrong,' or words to that effect. In any case, let me preface by saying that I do not intend to go the Disk Shares route of managing split levels. On to the gritty! I eventually want to end up with a structure along these lines: MOVIES | |__ A | |_ Aliens | |_ Aliens.mkv | |__ B | |_ Batman | |_ VIDEO_TS | | |_ 1_VOB | | |_ 2_VOB | | | |_ AUDIO_TS | |__ C MUSIC | |__ Aqua | |_ Aquarium | | |_ Barbie.mp3 | | | |_ Aquarius | |_ Cartoon.mp3 | |__ B52 | |_ Cosmic | |_ Cosmic.flac TV | |__ Babylon 5 | |_ Season 1 | | |_ S01E01.mkv | | | |_ Season 2 | |_ S02E01.mkv | |__ Doogie Howser |_ Season 1 |_ S01E01.avi If I'm understanding the posts re: split levels correctly, I'd want to set the user shares splits as follows: User Share Movies = Top-level letters (A-Z) can be split across all disks in the array, but keep contents of individual movies (Aliens.mkv, Batman VIDEO_TS) together on the same disk as their movie; use Split Level 2 User Share Music = Artists (Aqua, B52) can be split across all disks in the array, but keep Albums (Aquarium, Cosmic) together on the same disk as their respective Artists; use Split Level 1 User Share TV = Shows (Babylon 5, Doogie) can be split across all disks in the array, but keep Season contents together on the same disk as their Show; use Split Level 1 Does that seem right? Or am I mis-splitting somewhere? Basically I want to make sure that for Movies, all the contents under a given movie stay together; for Music, all the Albums stay with their Artists; for TV, all the Seasons stay with their shows. Appreciate any help folks! BTW, using unRAID Pro 4.6 (with big props to Rajahal!) Quote Link to comment
hklt Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 That was quick, thanks! Quote Link to comment
Venares Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Just stated to move all my stuff to my new unRAID box. Your explanation was a big help, thanks hklt. Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I believe you want to use level 2 for all the shares.... Level 1 means the top level share can be split to multiple drives, however any subdirectory under it can not. You are asking for the first level subdirectory to split as well which is level 2. If you look at your diagram "A", "Aqua" and "Babylon 5" are all at the same level directory wise, meaning all require the same split level. Peter Quote Link to comment
Venares Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Level 1 means the top level share can be split to multiple drives, however any subdirectory under it can not. This is exactly what he wants to happen with regard to his "TV" share. I have mine setup the same way. This way you dont end up with 1 season on driveA and another season on driveB and so on. Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Shows (Babylon 5, Doogie) can be split across all disks in the array This clearly says the show directory can exist on more than one disk which means split level = 2. Peter Quote Link to comment
dwoods99 Posted January 29, 2011 Share Posted January 29, 2011 User Share Movies = Top-level letters (A-Z) can be split across all disks in the array, but keep contents of individual movies (Aliens.mkv, Batman VIDEO_TS) together on the same disk as their movie; use Split Level 2 User Share Music = Artists (Aqua, B52) can be split across all disks in the array, but keep Albums (Aquarium, Cosmic) together on the same disk as their respective Artists; use Split Level 1 I guess misunderstood this as well, thinking that level 2 (for Movies) meant that A-Z stayed on the same disk they get created on, and not have multiple (ex:) Movies/F/ on different disks. It seems that there's a difference between copying from the command line to a specific disk and copying to share /mnt/user I have split level 2 for share "Movies" with structure disk1/Movies/1930-1979 disk2/Movies/1980-1989 disk3/Movies/1990-1999 disk4/Movies/2000-2004 disk5/Movies/2005-2007 after adding disk6 to the array I created disk6/Movies/2008-2010 When I copy the contents of /mnt/disk/m2000/* to disk4/Movies/2000-2004 it all works fine but when I then copy movies from my PC to L:\Movies, unRAID put the movies in disk6/Movies/1930-1979 disk6/Movies/2000-2004 which was not expected. Although I understand high water level setting works like this, I expected that no second level folder would be created on a different disk then what was already existing. So from my example, I should be using level 1? Quote Link to comment
hklt Posted January 29, 2011 Author Share Posted January 29, 2011 Shows (Babylon 5, Doogie) can be split across all disks in the array This clearly says the show directory can exist on more than one disk which means split level = 2. Peter As in, Babylon 5 could have ended up being written to disk1/TV while Doogie got written to disk4/TV. Then Babylon 5 Season 1-x ONLY gets written to disk1/TV/Babylon 5. Is that still level2? My understanding was "Split Level = keep everything BELOW this tier together." Taking the following as a starting point: Level 1 = Show Level 2 = Season Level 3 = Episode I arrive at: Split Level 1 = TV Shows (as in one complete Show) can split across drives (disk1/TV/Babylon 5; disk4/TV/Doogie), but Seasons stay with their parent shows because they're "below" this Split Level. Split Level 2 = TV Show Seasons can split across drives - which, by definition allows the parent TV show to be split across drives as well (disk1/TV/Babylon 5/Season 1; disk4/TV/Babylon 5/Season 3) - but Episodes within seasons stay with their parent Seasons because they're "below" this Split Level. Or put another way: Split Level 1 = "Show Title" - as in, "it's okay to split stuff on this tier (Babylon 5 on disk 1; Doogie on disk 4) but keep everything BELOW this tier together (Babylon 5/Seasons01-05 stay ONLY on disk 1 under 'Babylon 5' because 'Babylon 5' only exists on disk 1)" Split Level 2 = "Show Season" - as in, "it's okay to split stuff on this tier (Babylon 5/Season01 on disk 1; Babylon 5/Season02 on disk 4) but keep everything BELOW this tier together (Babylon 5/Season01/Episodes 1-20 stay ONLY on disk 1 under 'Babylon 5/Season01' because 'Babylon 5/Season01' only exists on drive 1)" Since I want to keep Seasons within the same drive as its parent Show, I therefore choose Split Level 1 to ensure that everything "below" a given Show stays with that show. So for the "Movies" application: Level 1 = A - Z alpha sort Level 2 = Movie Title Level 3 = movie file or sub-folder Since I want to keep the movie file/sub-folder within the same drive as its parent Movie Title, I therefore choose Split Level 2 to ensure that everything "below" a given Movie Title stays with that movie. I think I haven't had enough to drink yet... So who's right? Tom or lionelhutz? Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted January 29, 2011 Share Posted January 29, 2011 User Share Movies = Top-level letters (A-Z) can be split across all disks in the array... User Share Music = Artists (Aqua, B52) can be split across all disks in the array... User Share TV = Shows (Babylon 5, Doogie) can be split across all disks in the array... I read the 3 lines quoted above. Each has the exact same description of what you want so all 3 must use the same split level. I read the above as saying Aqua can be on multiple disks with different albumns on multiple disks. Same with TV, the show directory for Babylon 5 can be on multiple disks but each season is on a single disk. In reality, you want an artist and all the albums to remain on a single disk. You also want a TV series and all the seasons for that series to remain on a single disk. This requires split level 1. Do you want the directory A for the Movies to remain on a single disk or for it to appear on multiple disks? Your description works but the "official" way to look at is is the sets how many directory levels can split and it starts with 1 = user share name. 1 means the share can split, 2 means the first directory level under the share can split, etc. Peter Quote Link to comment
dwoods99 Posted January 29, 2011 Share Posted January 29, 2011 So in my case I would indeed want level 1 and not 2. This works fine until you want to add another share name or media type. So creating share "Music" with level 1 means that "Music/" can be on *any* disk... Same for "TV" share for example. In effect if you want to make sure that these media types remain on certain disks, the user needs to create a parent folder (or share) at the highest level. Something like... Media/ Media/Movies/ Media/Music/ Media/TV/ with the split level = 1 means you can control having TV/ folders all on one or two disks, in case you need to remove those disks or upgrade to larger ones... Or easily remove them to create a new unRAID server for TV shows only. When a user adds a new disk to the array and wants to use it for only Music, they simply need to create the "Music" folder on that new disk (after unRAID has added it and formatted it). This will ensure that any new music files will only be added to disks which already contain "Media/Music/" folder. Is all this logic/understanding correct? P.S. feel free to edit and add to Wiki if it helps. Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 dwoods99 In your first post what you asked should be level 1. Your second post is level 1 too but you also threw in asking about having the TV subdirectory on more than one disk. There is a special split level case which may be what you want. Split level 0 has a special meaning. You create the top level directory structure you want and unRAID will use it without ever creating a new top level directory by itself. In other words, you create a Media folder on every disk. Then, you create a Movies subfolder on disks you want to hold movies. You create a TV subfolder on disks you want to hold TV. You create a Music subfolder on disks you want to hold music. unRAID will then put the TV, movies and music on the disks where you created the folders only. Read this and tell me if that makes it clearer; http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#Split_Level_0 Peter Quote Link to comment
mrlittlejeans Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Apologies for the noob question. What is the proper form that the split level should be written as? ie "Split Level 3" or "Split Level = 3" or "3" or something else? The reason I ask is because I am using Zappiti with a Dune media player and it stores all of its info in one of my user shares and it has thousands of files in its folder which I think causes my server to hang when I try to update the files. My configuration is: Level 1 Media (User Share) / | \ Level 2 Movies Zappiti TV Shows | Level 3 Zappiti Info I believe my split level should be set to 3 but am unsure what I should type into the Split Level: box on the web management page. I think I should just type in 3? Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Apologies for the noob question. What is the proper form that the split level should be written as? ie "Split Level 3" or "Split Level = 3" or "3" or something else? The reason I ask is because I am using Zappiti with a Dune media player and it stores all of its info in one of my user shares and it has thousands of files in its folder which I think causes my server to hang when I try to update the files. My configuration is: Level 1 Media (User Share) / | \ Level 2 Movies Zappiti TV Shows | Level 3 Zappiti Info I believe my split level should be set to 3 but am unsure what I should type into the Split Level: box on the web management page. I think I should just type in 3? Just the number 3 Quote Link to comment
jeff.lebowski Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 I think it would be neat if various users could create a uniform diagram of their directory structure, an explanation of why the directory structure is setup in that way, and then finally, the split level settings for their system. Think of it as unRAID Compulsive Design for split levels. New users (such as myself) could browse all types of directory structures to find one that closely matches their own, then apply the same settings. Some people have their movies in a single folder named Movies. Some people have a folder for multi-part movies, such as Back To The Future. Some people go even farther and split by genre, then may or may not have multi-part movie folders. Same for music. I like an artist folder, then an album folder under the main Music directory. Some people just have all their albums in the Music directory. Different split levels, right? TV shows are also usually multi-level: TV (main) > Show (sub) > season (sub) > .mkv (files). Maybe it's too ambitious, but it might help new users better understand how split level can work for them, not against them. Quote Link to comment
limetech Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Apologies for the noob question. What is the proper form that the split level should be written as? ie "Split Level 3" or "Split Level = 3" or "3" or something else? The reason I ask is because I am using Zappiti with a Dune media player and it stores all of its info in one of my user shares and it has thousands of files in its folder which I think causes my server to hang when I try to update the files. My configuration is: Level 1 Media (User Share) / | \ Level 2 Movies Zappiti TV Shows | Level 3 Zappiti Info I believe my split level should be set to 3 but am unsure what I should type into the Split Level: box on the web management page. I think I should just type in 3? First, I really like your diagram there and I think I'll use it for the wiki... Joe answered your question in that you just enter the numeral in the field. Second, split-level is identifying the lowest level directory in the hierarchy that can be split among multiple hard drives (where level 2 is considered "lower" than level 1 - your diagram is great for this). Hence if you set split-level to 3, then your "Zappiti Info" directory can be spread among multiple disks; are you sure this is what you want? YAMJ for example has a similar giant directory with all the generated html, etc., called "Jukebox" - typically I want Jukebox to not be split because I only want that drive which contains it to spin up when it's being accessed. Make sense? Quote Link to comment
theone Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Apologies for the noob question. What is the proper form that the split level should be written as? ie "Split Level 3" or "Split Level = 3" or "3" or something else? The reason I ask is because I am using Zappiti with a Dune media player and it stores all of its info in one of my user shares and it has thousands of files in its folder which I think causes my server to hang when I try to update the files. My configuration is: Level 1 Media (User Share) / | \ Level 2 Movies Zappiti TV Shows | Level 3 Zappiti Info I believe my split level should be set to 3 but am unsure what I should type into the Split Level: box on the web management page. I think I should just type in 3? First, I really like your diagram there and I think I'll use it for the wiki... Joe answered your question in that you just enter the numeral in the field. Second, split-level is identifying the lowest level directory in the hierarchy that can be split among multiple hard drives (where level 2 is considered "lower" than level 1 - your diagram is great for this). Hence if you set split-level to 3, then your "Zappiti Info" directory can be spread among multiple disks; are you sure this is what you want? YAMJ for example has a similar giant directory with all the generated html, etc., called "Jukebox" - typically I want Jukebox to not be split because I only want that drive which contains it to spin up when it's being accessed. Make sense? This is very confusing... then for his requirement (not splitting the info) what split level should he set? Quote Link to comment
umax Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 This is very confusing... then for his requirement (not splitting the info) what split level should he set? Hm, this has to be the best representation I have seen till now. I would say, to not split "Zappiti Info", go one level up = level 2 Quote Link to comment
hklt Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 This is very confusing... then for his requirement (not splitting the info) what split level should he set? Hm, this has to be the best representation I have seen till now. I would say, to not split "Zappiti Info", go one level up = level 2 So basically, if one were to just throw up their hands in exasperation ( ), one could just set all their User Shares to Level 1 which would guarantee that EVERY directory created below it keeps its contents together, correct? Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 That's exactly what level 1 means. Level 1 doesn't always work though. Peter Quote Link to comment
Bags Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 OK so why doesn't split level 1 always work? Wouldn't it be less trouble to just set it to zero and use include and exclude disks? Maybe someone could do a brief write up on advantages or disadvantages to shares? Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Level 1 Media (User Share) / | \ Level 2 Movies Zappiti TV Shows | Level 3 Zappiti Info Just look at this nice picture. If mrlittlejeans wants "Movies", "Zappiti" and "TV Shows" to split to all disks then he has to use level 2 or he has to use level 0 and manually create the directories on every disk. Level 1 is no good to "set it and forget it" using this example. Using level 0 and the include and exclude disks is no good. Do note that another level higher than 2 could be used. However, that could also end up with a single movie spread out over multiple drives for example. Peter Quote Link to comment
hklt Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 At this point, I figure that if there are lingering doubts as to even Level 1 not always working, I'll just leave my setting to "1" and not worry about it as long as my stuff shows up and plays Mods, please let me know if you want this thread edited to [sOLVED]. Otherwise I'll keep it un-edited. Thanks for all the input folks! Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 The problem isn't that your stuff won't show up and play. The problem is that you won't be able to use that new free drive you just installed. Quote Link to comment
Bags Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Ok so what is the disadvantage to setting it to 999? This seems to be a common issue, surely someone has come up with the best way to make all of this work. Quote Link to comment
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