Would it be best to import your content from the unRAID server via disk shares or some other variant of shares?  I have 22 drive that I manage now via disk shares and all are about 98% full  How are you guys getting your content over to be scrapped?

I have XMBC on my desktop and use a User share so I only have to mount one point in XMBC.  That might be tricky if all of your stuff is in the root directory tho.

User shares is really the way to go, imo, as its an awful lot cleaner

 

 

However, it can be done with disk shares, and will give the same end result.

 

 

 

so, lets just say you have disk shares like;

 

disk1\movies\dvd\

disk2\new\movies\

disk3\blu_ray\

...

diskn\dvd_rips\

 

 

 

you can add a single new source for movies, add add all the disk paths to that single source (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Adding_Media_Sources)

 

 

Now, how the movies are arranged in the folders will have a big impact on the scrapers success.. (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Movies_%28Video_Library%29)

 

Personally, I'd recommend a single folder per movie and associated files (posters, subtitles, meta data etc), named like:

\The Rock (1996)

  The Rock (1996).avi

  folder.jpg

  The Rock (1996).srt

etc

 

 

 

 

I have some disks that are at 98% full,  will this be a problem for the user shares?

I dont believe it will be a problem, no

 

May have some impact in deciding which allocation method to use, and the max file size - but I'll defer to a a more knowledgable user

It will not be a problem for User Shares.  You can use User Shares as a Read-Only access point, it is what I do the majority of the time.  I set my disk shares to export read/write hidden and then access them when I need to.  I use User Shares to access all that media on my XBMC machine as it is much cleaner that way.

I use Disk Shares and User Shares.

 

Disk1

/Movies

-/480

-/720

-/1080

-/ISO

 

Disk3

/Movies

-/720

-/1080

-/ISO

 

My share is obviously Movies which I use as Read Only/Exported and when I copy my files to them I copy using the following \\tower\Disk1\Movies\ only because I'm a control freak and I want files to goto exactly where I want them. So honestly I don't really tinker with the settings in shares or pretend to really understand how they work. I know it sounds sad, but so far its been working perfectly the way I want it to.

 

XBMC and everybody else sees a Movies folder on the network, but I know better. As well they see

Movies

TV

MP3

Backup

Photos

 

However all I see is a bunch of \\tower\Disk1-Disk4 stuff and I like to keep it that way. Gives me Read/Write - No Export, but since I know the Paths it limits anybody from messing things up.

 

The Beauty of it all I've moved files from one disk to another several times and as long as its in the same Movie\720 folder on any drive XBMC always sees it in the same locations because all the mapping is done on unRAID and XBMC thinks its in the same very location even if I move it 4 different times.