unBALANCE

tl;dr unBALANCE is an Unraid plugin to transfer files/folders between disks in your array.

Support Fund

If you wish to do so, read how to support the developer.

Changelog

Screenshot

Videos

Thanks to gridrunner (Unraid forum member), you can watch unBALANCE in action !

Must Have Unraid Plugins - Part 3 Disk Utility Plugins

The discussion specific to unBALANCE starts here.

Introduction

unBALANCE helps you manage space in your Unraid array, via two operating modes:

• Scatter
  Transfer data out of a disk, into one or more disks

• Gather
  Consolidate data from a user share into a single disk

It's versatile and can serve multiple purposes, based on your needs.

Some of the use cases are:

• Empty a disk, in order to change filesystems (read kizer's example)
• Move all seasons of a tv show into a single disk
• Move a specific folder from a disk to another disk
• Split your movies/tv shows/games folder from a disk to other disks

You'll likely come up with other scenarios as you play around with it.

Core Features

• Makes sure to fill the target disk(s) as much as possible, without running out of space
  If it can't transfer some files/folders, it will inform you in the console and via notifications (if you set them up in the settings), before any actual transfer takes place.

• Operates in the background
  You can close your browser while the transfer operation is ongoing. It will keep transferring files on the server and show you the current progress as soon as you reopen the browser.

• Transfer operations work at the disk level (not at the user share level)
  This avoids file/folder clobbering.

IMPORTANT: unBALANCE needs exclusive access to disks, so disable mover and/or any dockers that write to disks.

SCATTER Instructions

Scatter will transfer data from a source disk into one or more target disks, according to your selection.

It involves the following steps:

1 - Plan
The logic is simple

• Get the contents of the selected files/folders from the source disk
• Order the target disks by free space available
• For each target disk, calculate how much it can be filled up with files/folder from the source disk, leaving some headroom (currently set at 512Mb).

Additionally, it will check files/folders permissions, to warn about potential issues during the transfer stage.

2 - Transfer
You can either MOVE or COPY the files.

• MOVE
  Will first copy the files/folders into the target disk(s), and delete them as soon as the copy is finished.

• COPY
  Will simply transfer the files/folders into the other disk(s).
  NOTE: Beware that COPY doesn't delete files/folders on the source disk, so you will be essentially duplicating the data.

Internally, all move operations are handled by diskmv.

Internally, it issues a slight variation of this rsync command.

Check this post for additional information.

3 - Validate (optional)
VALIDATE will only be enabled for a SCATTER / COPY operation. Just click the Validate button in the History screen and the operation will be replayed, but with checksum comparisons (instead of the simpler size/modification time check).

When using default flags, VALIDATE rsync will be invoked as -rcvPRX.

Quick Start

• Click the FROM column of the disk you want to be the source of the transfer

• Choose one or more files/folders you want to transfer

• Click the TO column of the disks you want the files to be transferred to (the PLAN button will now be enabled)

• Click the PLAN button
  It will display the console showing the progress of the plan stage.
  Once it's done, it will show how much space both source and target disks will have available (PLAN column).
  The screenshot below shows the warnings from the permissions check, as well as the message console

• Click the MOVE or COPY button (dry-run checked/unchecked)
  If dry-run is checked, no files/folder will be transferred. Otherwise the transfer operation will actually take place.
  In either case, you will be redirected to the Transfer screen, where you can monitor the progress of the operation.

GATHER Instructions

GATHER will consolidate data from a user share into a single disk.

It involves the following steps:

1 - Select Folder

The 'SHARES EXPLORER' column lets you navigate your user shares, to choose a folder to consolidate. In the example, tvshows is the user share and Billions and Lost are the folders that will be consolidated.

When a folder is selected, the current selection and the drives where this folder is located are displayed.

Once you've chosen the folder, click NEXT.

2 - Choose Target Drive

This page shows which drives have enough space to hold the full contents of the folder chosen in the previous step.

They are shown in descending order by the least amount of data transfer that will occurr.

An asterisk next to a drive means that the folder is present there.

Pick the drive you prefer, then click NEXT.

3 - Move

This is a confirmation step. It shows how much data will be moved to which drive.

If you're ok, click PROCEED to start the transfer operation.

Installation

There are 2 ways to install this application

• Apps Tab (Community Application)
  Go to the Apps tab
  Click on the Plugins button (the last one)
  Look for unBALANCE
  Click Install

• Plugins Tab (manual)
  Go to the Plugins tab
  Click on Install Plugin
  Paste the following address in the input field: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jbrodriguez/unraid/master/plugins/unbalance.plg
  Click Install

Running the app

After installing the plugin, you can access the web UI, via the following methods:

• Method 1
  Go to Settings > Utilities
  Click on unBALANCE
  Click on Open Web UI
  

• Method 2
  Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins
  Click on unBALANCE
  Click on Open Web UI
  

• Method 3
  Navigate with your browser to http(s)://Tower:6237/ (replace Tower with the address/name of your Unraid server)
  

Other Features

Transfer

Here you can monitor the progress of an operation. It shows overall metrics, as well as each invididual command as they unfold.

History

unBALANCE keeps a history of the operations you have run, showing each command that was executed.

You can replay the most recent operation (excluding dry-runs) or validate the most recent Scatter Copy.

Additionally, you can review operations which contain one or more flagged rsync commands.

If an rsync command has been flagged (applies to Gather and Scatter/Move operations), unBALANCE will not delete the source folders/files.

This allows you to check the issue in detail and take any action deemed necessary.

Once you've done that, you can delete the source folders/files through the UI, if you want.

Settings

These are pretty much straigthforward.

A word of caution with the custom rsync flags: it's for power users only.

unBALANCE is optimized to work with the default flags, you must be VERY knowledgeable in rsync if you want to add any flag.

Log

Credits

This app uses the diskmv script (check the forum thread for additional information).

The icon was graciously created by hernandito (fellow Unraid forums member)

It was built with:

• Go - Back End
• echo - REST and websocket api
• pubsub (slightly modified)
• React - Front End
• reactorx - Flux/Redux-like React framework
• flexboxgrid - CSS3 flex based grid system framework
• Webpack - Build toolchain

License

MIT