First go at unraid, trying to figure out cache mapping.


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Playing around with the trial copy.   So far i have a simple 4 drive array going - 3x3tb (2 data one parity) and one 1tb as cache.  Installed Plex, Sab, Sonarr and Radarr in Docker and while it was a bit confusing at first, they are all talking to each other nicely, and doing what they're supposed to etc.  Basically, so far so good type of thing...

Not sure how to handle my next step, though.

I want to add two more drives, 1tb hdd and a 250gb ssd.  The 1tb is meant to be used by sab exclusively as a download drive. Sab's complete/incomplete folders will be located there and all the post processing (unrar/par) will be done on that drive exclusively. The ssd is meant exclusively for docker images, plex metadata/transcode folders etc.  

 

So the plan is to have have the 1tb setup as an unassigned tevice, and have sab use that.  Then have sonarr/radarr grab the file which will then move it to the 1tb cache drive already in the pool, without any part of that data landing on the ssd.  Reverse on the ssd - docker, plex meta/transcode only, without any media files making their way over.

 

I think i need to set the media share to only use the 1tb cache drive and ignore the ssd, but not sure how.
 

 

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It sounds as if you want both of the new drives set up as Unassigned Drives?   Do you have the Unassigned Drives plugin installed to help with this?    Any files on a UD device are never part of any User Share so this should be what you want.    You CAN share out UD devices if you want but they then become a share in their own right independent of the main array

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Why would you want a dedicated hd for sab and its friends? You use the mover feature nightly that copies all the downloaded extracted stuff to the storage array. Everything from complete/incomplete should be gone nightly. Unless you have a teeny ssd for cache.

Edited by hernandito
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2 hours ago, hernandito said:

Why would you want a dedicated hd for sab and its friends? You use the mover feature nightly that copies all the downloaded extracted stuff to the storage array. Everything from complete/incomplete should be gone nightly. Unless you have a teeny ssd for cache.

Sab leaves junk behind.  Yeah, a lot of it could be auto cleaned by playing with some settings, but the fact that it will leave junk behind is inevitable.  Something didn't unrar, unpar  or most likely wasn't named properly etc...  I kind of like having it on it's own drive for that reason.  Easier to maintain long term.

 

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My server downloads a lot, and there's very little left over.  I only use a 256GB SSD for my cache, and I maybe once a month clear out maybe a gigabyte of stuff left over.  Sonarr, Couchpotato and NZBGet all get along well and there's not much stuff left, if any, when they've done their thing.  Check Sonarr is set to clean up after it's imported, for example.  That gets rid of the .nfo, .samples, etc. 

 

Running another drive for sabnzb is overthinking things and finding a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, in my opinion.

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7 hours ago, itimpi said:

It sounds as if you want both of the new drives set up as Unassigned Drives?   Do you have the Unassigned Drives plugin installed to help with this?    Any files on a UD device are never part of any User Share so this should be what you want.    You CAN share out UD devices if you want but they then become a share in their own right independent of the main array

 

Yes, it looks like that's what i have to do, but it's also what i'm trying to avoid because i think i'm over complicating things.  Like i said, new to Unraid, so trying to find my way around.

My tower holds 15 mechanical hdds, the goal is to end up with 12x3tb (2 parity 11 data) as main array , 1 1tb as downloader, and another 1tb as cache or "lander".  If i leave this array without a cache drive the writes will be slow.  So i want a separate mechanical hdd to act as cache to speed things up.  I am specifically trying to avoid using the ssd for this purpose, because i will need to fill about 25 tb or so off the bat, and then this machine will remain active as i organize/delete/move new stuff over from the two old win desktops that i'm trying to retire.  The point is, right off the bat i'll be putting 25tb through the 256gb ssd.  I'm too lazy to do the math, but that's a lot of cycles for the ssd to go through, and is just unnecessary.  A mechanical hdd would make a perfect "landing drive" for the array, which is exactly what it is when set to cache - at least that's how i understand it so far.

The problem for me then is that to keep the ssd "virgin" from all that data moving through the array i have to mount it as an unassigned device.  This will complicate things a lot for configuring dockers, and is overall not advisable from what i have read so far.  



 

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5 minutes ago, zhulick said:

 

Yes, it looks like that's what i have to do, but it's also what i'm trying to avoid because i think i'm over complicating things.  Like i said, new to Unraid, so trying to find my way around.

My tower holds 15 mechanical hdds, the goal is to end up with 12x3tb (2 parity 11 data) as main array , 1 1tb as downloader, and another 1tb as cache or "lander".  If i leave this array without a cache drive the writes will be slow.  So i want a separate mechanical hdd to act as cache to speed things up.  I am specifically trying to avoid using the ssd for this purpose, because i will need to fill about 25 tb or so off the bat, and then this machine will remain active as i organize/delete/move new stuff over from the two old win desktops that i'm trying to retire.  The point is, right off the bat i'll be putting 25tb through the 256gb ssd.  I'm too lazy to do the math, but that's a lot of cycles for the ssd to go through, and is just unnecessary.  A mechanical hdd would make a perfect "landing drive" for the array, which is exactly what it is when set to cache - at least that's how i understand it so far.

The problem for me then is that to keep the ssd "virgin" from all that data moving through the array i have to mount it as an unassigned device.  This will complicate things a lot for configuring dockers, and is overall not advisable from what i have read so far.  



 

For your initial transfer you could move remove your SSD from the cache, That way then its not being slammed with the initial 25TB worth of writes.

 

On the note of the "left over crap from downloading", you could put your downloads / complete / incomplete on a seperate "share" that only ever uses the cache, that way then it doesnt get moved to the array, then have a nightly process that "cleans up" the folders, at the end of the day, you want to clean up the folders regularly anyway, otherwise it will just end up getting full of junk.

 

Im new to unraid also but i have my downloader set up to use a specific share for complete and incomplete downloads and its marked as a cache share only. so it /should/ never move any of that data onto the array.

 

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An initial large data load onto the array does not work well with the cache drive as you have to allow for the slack periods when mover will be able to run and empty the cache drive onto the array data drive (and that is constrained by the array write speeds anyway).

 

During the data load period you may therefore well want to run with shares set to not use cache.   Then there seem to be two good scenarios for an initial data load

  • run without parity during the load period.    This maximises write speed, but your data is not protected until you activate the parity drive and do the initial parity build
  • run with parity but turn on the turbo write feature.   This improves write speed to the array at the expense of keeping all array drives spinning. 

Then only when the initial load is complete and parity built (if necessary) turn on the option to use cache for those shares where it seems appropriate.   Many people decide that writes to the array are fast enough anyway and run regularly with shares not using cache.

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I agree with itimpi, personally when i did my initial load, i mounted the drives i was moving data from in the machine physically as unassigned disks and moved the data locally that way it was faster than transferring over the network, it also removed any issues with file transfers and network issues.

 

i also did this without a parity. 

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