quick question regarding shares

The preclear was a pain on 3tb drive 35+hours...

all went well no errors, format done array started with no issues

I have set my shares but I ran into an issue and I need some help

im using split level 3 with the below tree

I have uploaded a few files for testing via teracopy (29GB)

my problem is when I go to my network share all the file shows in the proper folder

but when I check each disk everything is going on disk1

all my other disk are empty, no folder created , not even media...

this is my share.cfg if anyone want to help me out

# Generated settings:

shareComment="media server"

shareInclude=""

shareExclude=""

shareUseCache="no"

shareAllocator="highwater"

shareSplitLevel="3"

shareFloor="20000000"

shareExport="e"

shareSecurity="public"

shareReadList=""

shareWriteList=""

shareExportNFS="-"

shareExportNFSFsid="0"

shareSecurityNFS="public"

shareHostListNFS=""

shareExportAFP="-"

shareSecurityAFP="public"

shareReadListAFP=""

shareWriteListAFP=""

shareVolsizelimitAFP=""

Also, does high water need to reach a certain point(say 50gb) before going to another disk?

maybe that's the reason I have everything on disk 1?

I transferred 29GB to date as my test and to diff directory(media type)

incl/excl disk is blank

I want to fix this issue before I start migrating the files.

some one said "High-water will not use the new disk until disk1 is over 50%. Use most-free is that is the desired behavior."

Can anyone confirm my setting are ok and the previous statement is right? I really want to make sure im ok before the big transfer.

anything better than terracopy to transfer my file from Win7 pc?

thanks

It's the high water. Read the unofficial manual in the wiki.

In order to select the proper 'split level' you need to ask yourself, "what sets of things do I want to make sure are on the same disk?"

Let's take your Movies organization.  Normally for video content like this you want all the files associated with a particular movie to all be on the same disk so that there's no delay in the middle of playback due a disk having to spin up.  You only want one delay when the movie is first selected, due to a single disk spinning up.

So with this directory structure:

MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/<MOVIE TITLE>/<MOVIE FILES>

Split level 3 is correct.

Split level 3 would mean MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES can be on multiple disks, but MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/<MOVIE TITLE> and all files underneath <MOVIE TITLE> must be on the same disk.  That is to say, suppose you are creating this object:

  "MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/ALIENS"    (a directory)

With split level 3, the system is free to choose any disk to create "MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/ALIENS" on, but once that disk is chosen, and the ALIENS directory created, any files inside ALIENS created in the future must be on the same disk that the ALIENS directory exists on.  (That is, the ALIENS directory can not be split - that's why it's called split level.)

Next, what is the set of disks the system can choose to create an object on?  That's where 'Included disks' and 'Excluded disks' come in.  'Included disks' names the exact set of disks that the system can choose from.  If let blank, the system can choose any disk.  'Excluded disks' names the subset of 'Included disks' which the system can not choose.  If you use these fields, normally you would have either one or the other left blank.

Now that we know the possible set of disks on which an object can be created, 'Allocation method' is used to choose the specific disk according to how much free space is left among the disks of the set.  "High-water" does something like this.  For simplicity let's assume all the disks are the same size.  High-water will fill the first disk until it's half full, then fill the second disk until it's half full, and so on until they are all half full.  It then will fill the first disk until it's 3/4 full, then the next until 3/4 full, and so on until all 3/4 full.  It then will fill the first disk until it's 7/8 full, then the next until 7/8 full, and so on.  I think you see the pattern.  The idea here is that once you start writing, a disk is going to spin up, and we want to write to that disk for "a good amount" before we decided to spin up another disk.

What is the "first disk" and the "last disk"?  It's just the lowest and highest numbered disks of the set we established above.

What if all the disks of the set are not the same size or have differing amounts of free space?  The actual high-water algorithm takes the raw size of the largest disk in the set, divides it by 2, and then looks to see which disk, if any, has the most free space larger than this value, and selects that disk.  If none of the disks have free space this large, it divides the value by 2 again and re-checks.  Eventually it will select a disk (or return "no more space").

What's the 'Min free space' field for?  In the above selection of disks, any disk with free space below this number is excluded for consideration to be selected.  Why do we do this?  Remember with split level 3, once ALIENS is created on a disk, all files under ALIENS must be created on that same disk.  That is to say, the 'Included disks', 'Excluded disks', 'Allocation method' settings are thrown out the window.  So to ensure that a disk as enough space for future objects that can't be split, we want to leave some amount of minimum space.

Ok, I've defined my split level, set of disks, allocation method, and have written some files.  Why is my directory structure only on one disk?  When the system selects a disk on which to create an object, it will check if the parent directory structure already exists, and if not, will create it.  So it's perfectly normal when first filling a share that you will only see a directory structure on disks that have been selected and written.

This is another case of how the term split applies.  For example, let's say we have 3 disks, disk1, disk2, disk3, available in our set above and we have created the ALIENS folder and written some files to it.  So we have this situation:

disk1/MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/ALIENS/...

disk2  <nothing>

disk3  <nothing>

Now we want to create "MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/BEETLEJUICE" and the system has selected disk2 as the next disk to be written.  Since disk2 does not already contain the parent directory ("SD MOVIES") we must split it, that is, create the entire parent directory structure on disk2.  So first the system will create:

disk2/MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES

and then it will create:

disk2/MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/BEETLEJUICE

which will leave us with:

disk1/MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/ALIENS/...

disk2/MEDIA/MOVIES/SD MOVIES/BEETLEJUICE/...

disk3  <nothing>

Can someone with more time and motivation than I copy the good parts of this thread to the wiki? This explanation from Tom (with examples) deserves an easy to find home.

This must be the best detail answer I seen to date!

Thanks Guys pretty good summary of what Ive read all over the place

I think the wiki is missing the part about the directory creation(disk 2+)

Thanks for this great explanation and if I can read between the lines

you confirm my setting are good and since I'm using 4x3tb

I wont be seeing directory on disk 2 before I reach 1.5tb

Please correct me if im wrong

Thanks again guys!!  you dah best

Using high-water, yes.