Question on moving files between user shares (to a specific disk)

[kno]

I am planning to move some data around on my Unraid server. Today all my user shares span all my disks, but in the future I would like to limit some of the data to a limited number of HDDs, so that I know exactly on what drive they are stored (such as photos and documents on one single disk). Also, I am considering shrinking my server to fewer, larger drives. For that I want to move some files away from the smallest drives before I remove them from the system (I know removing disk will require a new parity rebuild).

 

I would like to copy the data internally, so that I do not have to move the data to my Windows computer and back again over the network. However, the warning not to mix disk and user shares has me a little bit concerned, so I wish to ask for help on the best way forward before I start. I have searched the forums, but did not find exactly what I am looking for. I plan to use Midnight Commander, because I am already somewhat familiar with it.

 

When I have moved files previously with MC (from one user share to another) the data has stayed on the same HDD, but this time I want to make sure the data is moved to another drive. How do I accomplish this?

 

I am thinking to do the following:

1.       Create a new user share with only one disk included.

2.       Move all files into this newly created share with MC.

 

Will this force the files not already stored on the included disk to be moved to the HDD in question? Will parity still be valid?

[remotevisitor]

Suggest you have a look at the unBalence plugin as it does exactly what you want.

[kno]

Ok, thanks. I will look into ut.

 

Do you know if MC will work as suggested above?

[itimpi]

2 hours ago, kno said:

Ok, thanks. I will look into ut.

 

Do you know if MC will work as suggested above?

If you do disk-to-disk moves (ignoring user shares) then you can avoid having the temporary share you mention.

[kno]

3 hours ago, itimpi said:

If you do disk-to-disk moves (ignoring user shares) then you can avoid having the temporary share you mention.

 

So, even if I use user shares I can still move data with disk-to-disk shares. Won’t this affect parity and make problems for the user shares?

Let’s say I want to move data from one disk to another disk. Both are included in the user share, however the disk I want to move the data to does not contain any data from the user share at the moment (so the right directories do not exist). Can I still move the files if I make sure that the file-paths/directories are the same?

[trurl]

11 minutes ago, kno said:

 

So, even if I use user shares I can still move data with disk-to-disk shares. Won’t this affect parity and make problems for the user shares?

Let’s say I want to move data from one disk to another disk. Both are included in the user share, however the disk I want to move the data to does not contain any data from the user share at the moment (so the right directories do not exist). Can I still move the files if I make sure that the file-paths/directories are the same?

 

unRAID parity is realtime, any write updates parity, and anything that isn't a simple read is a write, so parity is always going to be preserved whatever you do. So no problems for parity.

 

And no problems for user shares either. User shares are simply the aggregate of all top level folders on cache and array disks. If you have a share named "movies", a top level folder named "movies" is on cache and/or array disks, and everything in those folders is part of the user share, whether or not they were created while accessing the disks directly or while accessing the user share.