Could have swore it was "fra" but I'm just glad you got it working.
I'll have to check my install to see if I'm running 32 or 64bit version but I thought it was 64 bit version. However, for the use in this set of scripts it won't matter at all speed wise as all the time is taken in the ffmpeg conversion/mux part of the program.
Fra is also a valid abbreviation...but it is more for the country (France) and Fre is for French but people use both for French. So you should have both in there.
I'll have to check my install to see if I'm running 32 or 64bit version but I thought it was 64 bit version. However, for the use in this set of scripts it won't matter at all speed wise as all the time is taken in the ffmpeg conversion/mux part of the program.
What ended up doing is also installing x86 version in another directory and calling it from there.
Check back to message 247.
Thanks for this. You should add it to your mp4 convert post.
Carlo,
I have a question on your use of DrivePool and SnapRaid together. Currently I use DrivePool and use the duplication feature to duplicate my files across the drives in case of failure (I do offsite backup using CrashPlan). What is the advantage of using SnapRaid with DrivePool vs the built-in Drive Pool duplication. Also how did you integrate the two products together. I looked at SnapRaid and it looks like you needed to setup a Windows scheduled task to build the parity drive. Does using SnapRaid minimize the amount of drive space used in creating the recovery information?
BTW thanks for all of the great info on this thread. Very useful information for Plex admins big and small.
Mitch
Mitch, good question and thanks for the compliment!
I use it for a couple of reasons. It can save space over duplication and it can work sort of like a backup.
Let’s say you have 3 drives full of media and want to have a copy. Assuming your 3 drives are full you would need 6 total drives.
If you had 7 drives full of media then you would need 14 drives to have duplicates.
If you had 12 drives in your pool like I presently do and want to have duplicates then you would need 24 total drives.
This is a tried and true method but basically requires twice the disk.
Instead by using SnapRaid you add a drive or two (up to 6) to act as parity drives. I’m presently using two parity drives for my 12 drive pool.
Technically you only need 1 parity drive and you could sustain a drive failure. With 2 parity drives you could sustain 2 drive failures without any loss of data.
So for my own personal use I can get by with 14 total drives instead of 24 drives. Also worth noting is that I can sustain 2 drives failing without loss of data. With DrivePool duplication a 2 drive failure could loose data. If the data that is duplicated happens to be on both drives it’s gone.
Another advantage/disadvantage to SnapRaid is that it’s NOT REAL-TIME. It only creates parity when you tell it to or when you schedule it. I DO NOT schedule parity builds. Instead I prefer to manually control it. Here is why:
With typical DrivePool or other RAID setups that use realtime duplication or parity they really only protect you against hardware issues but don’t help much with user error. So if you accidentally format a drive or more commonly think you have a file highlighted but it’s a folder and you delete it then these solutions typically delete the data and the duplicates/parity in real-time. So the data is GONE unless you have a backup.
With SnapRaid I’ll still have the parity on hand since the last time I ran it. So I just run a recover job and it can rebuild my data from the combination of parity and other drives. I don’t know about you guys but over the years I’ve lost more data to USER ERROR then to HARDWARE issues. Lucky for me I typically have backups or use something like parity to get my data back but the point is that the use of SnapRaid can help with USER ISSUES along with HARDWARE issues.
I have my two parity “drives” setup across my network. I’ve reserved all the drives in my Plex server and HDD enclosure to holding media and not parity so it loads fast. I build the parity to a 6TB WD NAS box and a 2nd File Server. These are just mounted drives on my Plex Server. It’s not as fast building/saving the parity but it frees up the local storage.
Technically DrivePool doesn’t matter to the use of SnapRaid. With SnapRaid you typically just create parity for the JBOD disks themselves. You just have to make sure you don’t use the option to skip hidden folders (which DrivePool uses). The default SnapRaid options are fine.
SnapRaid while command line driven is super easy to setup and use!
Now with all this said, keep in mind SnapRaid doesn’t help/work the same way as traditional RAID or Duplication in DrivePool. By this I mean it will not automatically provide the “missing” files automatically. That is something that burns some people. I’ve seen people not know they have lost a drive and just kept using the storage system as usual until they lost the 2nd drive then the array is gone/done. In these cases the apps work as usual when a drive goes bad because the system pulls from the alternate file/parity. Not so with SnapRaid. Your files WILL be missing and you’ll figure it out pretty quick when stuff stops working or you can’t play certain portions of your library. You then manually use SnapRaid to recover the data. I like this type of setup for media. So it becomes quite obvious something is wrong!
Carlo
Fra is also a valid abbreviation...but it is more for the country (France) and Fre is for French but people use both for French. So you should have both in there.
Cayars,
just wanted to know is it complicated to add Fre ? could i do it myself?...dont know much python...
I mentioned in a previous message I stopped upload to Amazon Cloud Drive and had about 25TB uploaded. I still have this info in the cloud but I’ve stopped uploading it this way.
Instead I’ve been playing with StableBit’s CloudDrive. It’s a similar product to NetDrive which I’ve previously mentioned but could turn out to be much more usable in a Plex environment so of course, as usual, I’m off playing. Always looking for a better solution.
So this new CloudDrive by StableBit is in beta. It supports numerous cloud providers but the one I was interested in was Amazon Cloud Drive. UNLIKE other products that support ACD it works differently. CloudDrive does create a local drive letter but it doesn’t store the complete files in the cloud as files. Instead it uses block/chunks and supports encryption. So the data is only usable to you. You can’t mix and match programs to upload/download the data however because of the chunking but that’s ok.
Due to the way this product works it takes a much lower system approach. This means you can also run programs like TrueCrypt or Bitlocker on the drives. Most other low level utils that work with Windows also work with CloudDrive.
But while that is all nice and good the real reason I’m playing with this is the integration with DrivePool itself. I’m hitting issues and reporting/working with CoveCube on them but it’s looking promising and is usable right now if you use the proper setup.
So at present you can go into DrivePool and add the CloudDrive you created. Then in the options of DrivePool (in balance section) you can setup drives to include only original or duplicate files. So my local drives are set to hold the original data while the cloud drive is set to only store duplicated data.
With this setup you get the use of DrivePools duplicate feature without having to own the “extra” drives needed. For anyone with access to the $59/year unlimited Amazon cloud drive who has decent upload speed this will work well. The combination of this and a SnapRaid parity drive or two (depending on your drive count) will make for a pretty well protected system.
WARNING: This software is in beta and the integration with DrivePool needs a bit more work. Right now the setup is a bit tricky and if you don’t get it correct DrivePool will “re balance” your drives moving your data to the cloud drive. I had this happen a few times to me while working through the setup to get it right.
CoveCube is aware of this and they are saying they will make this type of thing a “default setup”. So by the time the product is releases it should be quite easy to use the cloud drive only for duplicate files.
If anyone is interested in playing with this today instead of waiting I can help. It’s not rocket science or anything, but you have to be careful with the combination of settings you use and not use any type of rebalance unless you have rules setup (which I don’t like).
Carlo
Cayars,
just wanted to know is it complicated to add Fre ? could i do it myself?...dont know much python...
I'm a bit confused as I'm not sure which it uses. Thought someone in this thread recently said it was Fre? My suggestion would be to just lookup the info on the BabbleFish site and use what it suggests for the country codes.
But to answer your question I would think it should be easy to have it use either. The code change if needed should not be hard.
If you want, send me a PM (not public here) with a torrent link or a file provider where I can download something with FRE/FRA audio and/or subtitles in them and I'll use that file to test with and see what it takes. I'll definitely be able to help you better if I can try a file that has these languages in it.
Carlo
will do
Hey guys a heads up.
One of my good friends was involved in a serious accident about a week ago and I haven’t been online a lot because of this. I’m the God Father of his two children. He was between jobs and really tight on money before the accident. He was driving on a highway and basically got sandwiched between a couple tractor trailers. His car got run over by one the trucks before getting flipped a few times landing in the woods.
He is still in a hospital induced coma due to head injuries among other broken bones and punctured lungs. Myself and a few close friends are trying to do what we can for his wife and kids both financial and “around the house” type stuff but this is going to take most of my “free” time at least for the short term.
I also lost 2 drives due to corruption of some software I was testing (won’t say vendor cause I don’t want to scare anyone). I’m restoring data as I type this but have about 1.5 TB to go (not to bad).
Between these two things I haven’t and won’t be around much until sometime next week (at the earliest) except to briefly read/write some messages here and there.
So I just wanted to give you guys a heads up so you don’t think I lost interest or anything if my presence isn’t as much as usual.
Carlo
PS If anyone notices anything important, shoot me a PM so I’ll get it on my cell and can check at my earliest.
I'll speak for a few here... You're a good man Carlo, let us know if we can help in any way.
Take care of important things. Distributed transcoding can wait. Good luck to your friend and his family.
Thoughts and prayers with your families through this difficult time.
Thanks guys,
Some of you guys can help! For those who are religious, just keep my friend John and his family in your prayers.
That’s all I/We could hope.
My 17 year old son and 18 year old daughter are coming down for Father’s day and asked what I wanted for “F-Day”. I told them to bring some old clothes and we are doing some yard/house work. When I explained what I meant, my daughter said she would call me back. Just got off the phone with her and she is bringing down about 8 friends with her. My son is bringing a few of his friends. So we are going to do some yard and house work for my buddy’s family this weekend.
John has a 10 and 12 year old son. Both his mother in law and his mother are both disabled (both wheel chair bound). For the sake of the kids, we are going to have a BBQ on Sunday to keep the kids busy and entertained. His wife will be at the hospital as they are planning to bring him out of the coma Sunday morning to evaluate his progress and check memory, pain threshold, and things of that nature. They may push it to Saturday or delay it to Monday depending on vitals but as of now it’s scheduled for Fathers day. 
I’ve known John since I was 2 or 3 years old. We grew up on the same block, went to the same nursery school and have been friends all our lives. Close to the same with a couple of our other buddies. The bunch of us have chipped in and covered his past and current expenses along with the next 2 months of immediate house-hold expenses. So from a purely financial standpoint things are ok right now for his family.
No clue what hospital expenses are going to look like as it appears his “cobra” insurance coverage expired the day “of” his accident. His auto insurance was current but one of the two truckers was driving without valid commercial issuance so we have no idea how this is going to play out. This guy without proper insurance was self employed and just getting by from what we can find out. No assets to speak of and was a “renter”.
EDIT: He got sandwiched between two 18 wheel trucks (one without current insurance). Front of car crushed, flipped a few times and ended up in the side of the road in the woods.
Not sure about details at this point.
Carlo
Hope everything is well, wanted to know if you had a chance to look into the script?
Carlo,
Haven’t heard from you in a while, and haven’t seen you on the new forums yet.
Hope all is well, and (speaking for myself and others again) if there is anything we can do, let us know.
Looking forward to many more of your threads of wisdom.
Jim
He shows as logging in on his profile, so he’s definitely at least lurked around a bit.
Anyway, hope your friend is doing ok. Based on your long absence I’m going to guess the opposite is true though, so best of luck to everyone involved as you work through this trying time 
Hi guys.
Been super busy with everything going on personal and business wise but overall things are OK. I myself am fine!
Not the biggest fan of the new forums (liked the old layout usability better) so I’ve lost a bit of forum “mojo” too. I’m sure that’s just a temp thing and I’ll get used to and like the new forums over time.
My friend is doing great and this is no longer taking a lot of time or anything.
Now I’ve been catching up on other “summer” activities such as my electric bikes and hot riding them.
Working on our pond and adding a new level inside tied to the outside pond.
Working on some RC stuff.
Out at the shooting range (rifles and pistols).
These last “hobbies” are shared with both my 80 year old dad and 17 year old son. All three of us enjoy these activities and it’s nice for my son to interact so much with his Grandfather who is still pretty active for his age!
So I’m around and doing well but trying to take advantage of family time this summer while I can!
Plex, storage and all the other servers are humming along just fine and haven’t needed any TLC so I’m trying to enjoy the outdoors as much as possible right now.
Carlo
Great to see you back.
(I’m with you on the new forums… just can’t get used to it yet).
hehe, Carlo, you sound like you and I might have grown up together…
I’m an avid hunter, just put a Bafang BBS02 on my recumbent trike and will be using it at elk camp this fall… (Not going to try bow hunting this year, though.)
It is a SMALL world, my friend! Glad to see you back!
Mike I’ve got a couple eBikes and love them. My “daily rider” however is in need of an upgrade. It’s a fold in half model (easily fits in trunk with front tire removed) that is 300 watt
As soon as the new kit is ready (ordered) I’ll be upgrading this bike to “MXUS 3000W Thin Bike Kit”. Same kit as shown here but laced to a 2.25" rim instead of a fat bike rim. http://kinaye-motorsports.myshopify.com. I’ll be powering it with 72 volts (2 36v packs). I should definitely have little problem with traffic once this update is done as it will double/tripple the speed of the bike.
