stablebit drivepool with emby

[Grumpy1 44]

Hi

I want to use drivepool with emby but have a  question  for those who use it .

i have been searching the forums the past few days and am a bit confused

  i dont need any duplication

The way i do it now is i have different disks for different media (not sure if that is the best way to do it)

             -4k movies and 4k tv shows - 8 tb disk

              -HD movies - 4 tb disk  - almost full

               -tv shows - 4tb disk  - almost full

               - 4tb and 6 tb empty disk

1. do you use balancing ?

just wondering the way you all use drivepool with emby

 

thanks

 

[CBers 6771]

@Spaceboy might be able to assist.
 

[jaycedk 382]

This might help you.

 

[ebr 14913]

1 hour ago, Grumpy1 said:

i have different disks for different media

If you are going to use pooling then this would no longer be the case as your files will be spread out across the discs.  This is good because you no longer have to worry about which disc and you can easily add, remove or change discs without having to do anything in Emby.

You could create different folders for those items if you wish.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

3 hours ago, Grumpy1 said:

Hi

I want to use drivepool with emby but have a  question  for those who use it .

i have been searching the forums the past few days and am a bit confused

  i dont need any duplication

The way i do it now is i have different disks for different media (not sure if that is the best way to do it)

             -4k movies and 4k tv shows - 8 tb disk

              -HD movies - 4 tb disk  - almost full

               -tv shows - 4tb disk  - almost full

               - 4tb and 6 tb empty disk

1. do you use balancing ?

just wondering the way you all use drivepool with emby

 

thanks

 

First I believe your file organization is unnecessary as you can use collections to separate the files as you currently do with separate drives.

I use DrivePool and I have 13 drives pooled into one. My movies (over 4000 of them) are all in one directory called Movies with sub-folders for each letter and under those there are directories like under "Star Wars" with all the "Star wars" movies under that.
Emby is very very good at finding and cataloging movies no matter how deep ther are urried under the root folder which for me is "Movies."

However be aware that you can play fairly fast and loose with directories for movies TV shows pretty much require strict adhearence to the naming and structure or the will get all messed up.

Also I recommend that you store all "support" files alongside the media. That makes it easier to find and change many things.

Also I use "file duplication" for directories containing media that would be hard to reproduce but be aware that "file duplicaion" is NOT a backup solution as it only produces redundancy but I have used my true backups only twice in the years I have been using DrivePool.
Most of the time, when a drive fails all I hand to do was remove that drive and replace it with a new one and then let DrivePool reduplicate any files that were on the failed drive. I have only had a drive failure delete file when more than one drive failed (very very very rare) or I made some stupid mistake.
I do not use duplication for media that i can easily reproduce, well relatively easily anyway, like a movie I have the DVD for, but there is media, like recorded content, that I would find it hard to reproduce so that gets included in the duplication process.

DrivePool turns a bunch of drives into one drive and the resulting drive should be where Emby sees all the media BUT never use the pool for things like the Emby database. It may have been fixed recently but Emby and Plex and several other programs that rely on holding databases open really do not work well if that database is in the pool.

LOT of people find access to files on a DrivePool drive to be slow and/or they try to keep some files on a fast drive. I do not, even with my big library, find that anything like an SSD necessary at all. My system is no better than average and I never have "slow" issues.

I use DrivePool and I use balancing and file/folder duplication(Based on remaining space) but I keep it simple and do not try to micro-manage DrivePool.

Oh, I forgot, All my DrivePool drives are external USB drives and I hit a limit of total USB devices connected some time ago. I will handle the two ways:
1. I will simply, every time a drive fails, replace it with a larger one and grow the pool that way.
2. If needed I will create another pool on another computer and access it over the network.

One more thing a "server" should have no other duties except serving and whatever support tasks needed to support the server. A server computer should not have any regular tasks other than serving.

DrivePool's website has a very good support section but they can be a little strict. Be sure, if you have a question, that you include all the relevant info and ask the question that you want answered. The people there are very responsive, a lot like here, but they are also very sensitive and unforgiving of questions like, "I want to use DrivePool, what should I do." Always be clear and concise and they will give you good, solid and accurate answers.

[Grumpy1 44]

thanks guys for your answers

@Gilgamesh_48

thanks for the detailed explanation

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

57 minutes ago, Grumpy1 said:

thanks guys for your answers

@Gilgamesh_48

thanks for the detailed explanation

You are more than welcome, I struggled with figuring out how to best use DrivePool in my set up and the "solution" I found may or may not be suitable for everyone.

Just as a further explanation of the length of some of my posts, I have failing health and sometimes cannot say all that I want to say about something but, from time to time, I feel pretty good and then I tend to wax eloquent and sometimes go overboard in my posts. 

In this case, although I may be unclear in some things I say, I am having one of the best days I have had in a very long time so I probably say more than needs to be said.

Sorry if my post was too long or too rambling for some.

I make no promises or threats about my future posts.

[Grumpy1 44]

sorry to hear about your health but glad you are having a good day

not too long at all , more info the better

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

27 minutes ago, Grumpy1 said:

sorry to hear about your health but glad you are having a good day

not too long at all , more info the better

This is further explanation of my heath and pain. I used the spoiler tag (I hope it works on this site) so people will not have to read any more unwanted drivel about my problems)

Note: The spoiler tag does not work so, if you do not want to read this message you will just have to not read the following. I hope it does not stretch the forum guidlines too far but, if it does, the mods can just delete this entire post.

At 75 I should not complain about my health. I don't get out so people on the internet have to endure the brunt of my complaining. I hope I don't offend too many people.

Every time I mention my health I feel the need to justify it. I served many many years ago in SE Asia and I was wounded there. I then played and coached in semi-pro soccer and then after I could no longer play I coached youth soccer. All the abuse I subjected my body to and exposure to dangerous chemicals like agent orange has caused me to be in almost continuous pain and to have various symptoms including the removal of one kidney and that is why I feel pain all the time now.
At least I have found a pain reliever that works for me much of the time, Delta-8 THC, I am not advocating its use but I do encourage people with chronic pain that appears to require opioids to handle it to examine alternatives as I can now stay fairly pain free while not having to worry much about overdosing or causing further damage to my body.
Delta-8 has probably saved my life at least in the short term.
BTW: Should anyone want to try Delta-8 do NOT buy it from convenience stores or gas stations or what we used to call "Head shops" the product usually sold there is often not well tested or safe because of junk additives but there are many web sites that provide details of their products and processes and testing. Those are the ones to trust.
I thought about providing a link to the sites that I use but I think that would be advertising and probably violate some site rules and maybe even the law in some states. But, if you PM me, I will provide the addresses I use most in anyone wants.

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Gilgamesh_48
Spoiler tag did not work.

[rbjtech 4270]

10 hours ago, ebr said:

If you are going to use pooling then this would no longer be the case as your files will be spread out across the discs.  This is good because you no longer have to worry about which disc and you can easily add, remove or change discs without having to do anything in Emby.

You could create different folders for those items if you wish.

Speading files across disks is not necessarily good either.

In short, Drivepool is extremly flexible and I have not found a scenerio where something I need cannot be done.

It can do the basic, 1 pool, throw it all in and let DP deal with it - or it can also do very specific multi-pool / ssd cache (across the same disks) where you want specific 'folders' or even certain file types to only go to certain disks.   Maybe you want all 'new' files to go on the larger disks and balance off files from smaller disks with a view to replacing them with larger capacity for example.

Don't let the pooling tool dictate how you want to plan your storage - plan your storage strategy, plan your backup strategy - and then find if the pooling tool can do it ..

 

[Grumpy1 44]

14 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Speading files across disks is not necessarily good either.

 

yeah

 

people are split on this , just trying to figure out what is best

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

It should be noted that while the files do get scattered across the disks in a pool they are NOT split, like many disk arrays do, the files across drives. All files stored by DrivePool are totally intact and even 100% readable without using DrivePool at all.

That is as long as the physical drives are not damaged the files can be found and accessed in the hidden directory that DrivePool creates to make its pool.

[Grumpy1 44]

just started playing around with this a bit . i  added 2 hard drives to the pool and choose to balance , it is only  at 50% so far but is it normal to keep the movie file on one hard drive and all the other stuff( poster, bif file and such)  on a different one, seems weird to do it like this

 

ie-

disk 1 - black adam/black adam.mkv

disk2 - black adam/clearlogo.png, fanart.png , landscap.png and poster.png

 

also for tv shows will it split the seasons of a show up?

Edited July 15, 2023 by Grumpy1

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

In my experience DrivePool does a real good job getting the balancing right based on whatever the user sets up for the balancing rules and it will do that by moving files around to balance correctly. However I have also noticed that it has trouble if the pool is small. That is DrivePool is better the larger the pool is particularly in number of drives. I recently had a drive fail and after I replaced it, with a 10tb drive, it took almost a week to stabilize. To be honest, using DrivePool most people are best off if they do not try to micro manage it. The only time I have seen DrivePool actually get all FUBAR was when a user tried to really over control what DirvePool was doing.

Except for issues of a failed drive I really have not had any need to tinker with the internal settings of DrivePool for many many years, at least 7 and probably closer to 10.

But I have also found that, when I first set up DrivePool, that my innate urge to tinker was almost overwhelming.Just to give you a little comfort, in my tinkering I never lost anything any I was always able to recover without too much effort.

It seems whatever you tell DrivePool to do it can undo without problem.

Edit: I have never dealt with a pool of only 2 drives so it may be that pools of 2 or 3 drives might behave differently.

Edit 2: yes seasons will be split in many/most cases. But that has never mattered in my pool because I access the pool only through the drive letter that the pool gets assigned.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Gilgamesh_48

[Landoman 10]

That was interesting reading. I have a case scenario where I want to switch my main file server off during the night and use a mini server instead to watch a movie or tv. However the issues is how can I store the latest episode of each show in my continue watching list on the server? Someone mentioned drivepool but I am not sure how that would work if I turn the main file server off....? Apparently drivepool will somehow make the files show up but I don't think thats how it works.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Landoman

[Grumpy1 44]

ok thanks

 

i forgot you access the pool from the drivepool letter

[rbjtech 4270]

11 hours ago, Grumpy1 said:

just started playing around with this a bit . i  added 2 hard drives to the pool and choose to balance , it is only  at 50% so far but is it normal to keep the movie file on one hard drive and all the other stuff( poster, bif file and such)  on a different one, seems weird to do it like this

 

ie-

disk 1 - black adam/black adam.mkv

disk2 - black adam/clearlogo.png, fanart.png , landscap.png and poster.png

 

also for tv shows will it split the seasons of a show up?

I would agree with you - and this is partly why I user DrivePool's more 'advanced' features to have some 'control' on where things get stored.

I like to 'fill' disks and then 'spill over' onto the next disk and fill that up.    That way I can 'backup' an entire lets say 8Tb disk to a 'backup' 8Tb disk - 1:1

In the event of a failure, I have a mirror image of the drive - no need for any parity restore, just a 1:1 file copy.   If I wanted to I could make the 'backup' disk part of pool and carry on (not wise, but it's an option).  If files are scattered across many platters, then you need reliance on backup software to 'restore' missing files - as DrivePool itself does not keep track on what is on each disk unfortunately (from a 'restore/delta' perspective - it obviously knows where each file is from an operational perspective ....   )

All these options are in the 'Balancing' configuration and official 'Plugins'.

You are wise to have a play and see how it behaves - but think about a 'what if' restore scenerio - how would you restore a disk if it failed for whatever reason ?

[Grumpy1 44]

2 hours ago, rbjtech said:

All these options are in the 'Balancing' configuration and official 'Plugins'.

You are wise to have a play and see how it behaves - but think about a 'what if' restore scenerio - how would you restore a disk if it failed for whatever reason ?

this is a part that makes me wonder

currently my idea was to use a program called  whereisit( its a cataloging software thAt i have been using for years) to keep track of whats on the disk and then manually restore ( not ideal i  know)