isopropyl
Contributor
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2022
- Messages
- 159
So I have 1 TrueNAS system. It is connected to my primary desktop over SMB and iSCSI (for games).
I have held back on connecting it to too many other devices like my laptop, because I really feel it is not organized like it should be. Or I lack the knowledge to properly organize things. So I am looking for suggestions before I proceed further.
Current Setup:
- The blurred one is just a name that I wanted redacted. But it is just more media.
- The games-zvol is what I mount over iSCSI. It holds all my Steam and Battlenet games. The games dataset above it has some extra documents related to games. Setup files, backup saves, etc. Not sure if this is proper? Because even though my zvol is mounted on my computer, the "games" folder above it is accessible via the SMB share because the whole "lambda" dataset is mounted over SMB if that makes sense. It seems questionable, but also I don't see another way of doing it. Otherwise I will end up needing to mount a ton of different datasets.
- windows-backups is a zvol I mount over iSCSI and I just point Windows backups to it.
Now currently, in the "media" dataset, I have ALL my files. This includes documents and all from my main computer. This is basically what I mount as my SMB share (technically I mount at the "lambda" path), and I have all my files in it. I was not sure if this is normal practice or not.
What I thought might be better was to move all my documents, to a new dataset under "lambda" and call it "name's-documents".
Then I would mount "name's-documents" as one network share, and then "media" as another network share. So say on my Windows computer, I will have
Windows File Explorer:
On a side note, I ideally want to start storing all my files on my NAS instead of directly on my computer. Not all, like I don't need setup.exe's and stuff. But stuff like wallpapers, photos, videos, whatever I download. Is there an easy way to set this up on Windows? Should I pin specific folders to quick access on Windows file explorer or something?
Other Devices:
Now when it comes to other devices, at what point do you decide to create a new dataset.
I assume you would create a new dataset if you had multiple users say family members. That makes sense.
But what about if you had say, Promox running on another machine. Say Jellyfin (media server) was running in one of the Proxmox containers. Now what would I do exactly? I would mount that whole "lambda" dataset? Or just mount the "media" dataset (assuming the media dataset cleared out all the documents, and I moved documents to a new dataset and so on)? And then I would create a new dataset for Proxmox to do autobackups to of other jails.
And then what about documents from different devices. For example, if you have a laptop do you have different datasets for documents on your laptop and your desktop? Or do you just have "Documents" and mount the same dataset to both?
Final:
I'm a big overthinker, so data organization has always been difficult for me. Even just on one drive. I realize I cannot organize too much because if I do it makes it more difficult to find stuff, and in the case of a NAS, more difficult to access stuff. Too many datasets means I have a million different network mounts to sift through to find stuff, as well as if I ever need to fresh install or add to a new machine, I have to manually go in and mount all these. However I do care about organization, security, and stability as well. I don't know the implications of what can affect what in the way things are setup security or stability wise, but I also want my stuff proper and organized. Right now it feels like it is just all jumbled into one big folder.
I still have all my documents from Windows that I need to move onto it, and my other machines. I just cannot mentally plot out the best and proper way to do this.
I know this is probably very confusing, so any questions please feel free to ask. My mind is a mess haha. I appreciate any help, and would love to see how you guys lay out your data and datasets.
I have held back on connecting it to too many other devices like my laptop, because I really feel it is not organized like it should be. Or I lack the knowledge to properly organize things. So I am looking for suggestions before I proceed further.
Current Setup:
- The blurred one is just a name that I wanted redacted. But it is just more media.
- The games-zvol is what I mount over iSCSI. It holds all my Steam and Battlenet games. The games dataset above it has some extra documents related to games. Setup files, backup saves, etc. Not sure if this is proper? Because even though my zvol is mounted on my computer, the "games" folder above it is accessible via the SMB share because the whole "lambda" dataset is mounted over SMB if that makes sense. It seems questionable, but also I don't see another way of doing it. Otherwise I will end up needing to mount a ton of different datasets.
- windows-backups is a zvol I mount over iSCSI and I just point Windows backups to it.
Now currently, in the "media" dataset, I have ALL my files. This includes documents and all from my main computer. This is basically what I mount as my SMB share (technically I mount at the "lambda" path), and I have all my files in it. I was not sure if this is normal practice or not.
What I thought might be better was to move all my documents, to a new dataset under "lambda" and call it "name's-documents".
Then I would mount "name's-documents" as one network share, and then "media" as another network share. So say on my Windows computer, I will have
Windows File Explorer:
On a side note, I ideally want to start storing all my files on my NAS instead of directly on my computer. Not all, like I don't need setup.exe's and stuff. But stuff like wallpapers, photos, videos, whatever I download. Is there an easy way to set this up on Windows? Should I pin specific folders to quick access on Windows file explorer or something?
Other Devices:
Now when it comes to other devices, at what point do you decide to create a new dataset.
I assume you would create a new dataset if you had multiple users say family members. That makes sense.
But what about if you had say, Promox running on another machine. Say Jellyfin (media server) was running in one of the Proxmox containers. Now what would I do exactly? I would mount that whole "lambda" dataset? Or just mount the "media" dataset (assuming the media dataset cleared out all the documents, and I moved documents to a new dataset and so on)? And then I would create a new dataset for Proxmox to do autobackups to of other jails.
And then what about documents from different devices. For example, if you have a laptop do you have different datasets for documents on your laptop and your desktop? Or do you just have "Documents" and mount the same dataset to both?
Final:
I'm a big overthinker, so data organization has always been difficult for me. Even just on one drive. I realize I cannot organize too much because if I do it makes it more difficult to find stuff, and in the case of a NAS, more difficult to access stuff. Too many datasets means I have a million different network mounts to sift through to find stuff, as well as if I ever need to fresh install or add to a new machine, I have to manually go in and mount all these. However I do care about organization, security, and stability as well. I don't know the implications of what can affect what in the way things are setup security or stability wise, but I also want my stuff proper and organized. Right now it feels like it is just all jumbled into one big folder.
I still have all my documents from Windows that I need to move onto it, and my other machines. I just cannot mentally plot out the best and proper way to do this.
I know this is probably very confusing, so any questions please feel free to ask. My mind is a mess haha. I appreciate any help, and would love to see how you guys lay out your data and datasets.
