Full HDD on 7.10, Add HDD and move files?

[scsever]

I'm running 7.10.
My IDE disk is now at 99% full and I am planning to add a second IDE disk.
This will be a blank disk and I plan to format it with one partition.  I plan to use the entire disk for public media files. 
From what I have read when LinuxMCE detects this and I make my selections I should choose to use it as part of the LinuxMCE file system.
After this is done do I need to move other media to it from my first disk since that's now 99% full?  I'm concerned that I may run into other issues if I don't free up some storage space on HDA.
What are the primary differences between using the LinuxMCE file system vs making it all public?  Which is the best choice for my situation?
Any comments or tips to offer?

Thanks,

[tschak909]

Hello.

If the disk is intended to be used for LinuxMCE, please use the LinuxMCE file structure. This allows:

(1) UpdateMedia to work much faster, as it can scan for specific media types faster.
(2) It allows you to organize your media more efficiently.
(3) provides support for private media.
(4) Pictures can properly be found and indexed.

there are a few more, but I can't think of them just yet, I need coffee.

You need to nominally have at least 40G free on your system disk so LinuxMCE can properly function. We currently have debugging options turned on everywhere, and the log files become huge. Other than that, once a disk is prepared, LinuxMCE will track its space and automatically select the largest available disk in the house.

Now, What I would recommend actually doing, is putting the disk in a NAS brick, and preparing/formatting it there, and connecting the brick to the network. This provides an easy and efficient way to connect storage space, in the future. But this is also contingent on you setting up the network as we recommend.

-Thom

[colinjones]

Another major advantage of "us[ing] the LMCE folder structure" option is that you can then find all your media using the Filename sort mode even if they are not yet meta tagged. In Public mode, any untagged media is invisible. (although this maybe what Thom meant by point 2)

[tschak909]

yup, good point col.

-Thom

[scsever]

This worked pretty sweet...
Since I already had a hard disk and wasn't ready to invest in a NAS device I went ahead and installed the IDE drive in the hybrid.  When I upgrade my hybrid in the next year or so I'll look into adding a NAS device.
I set the new drive up as a LinuxMCE managed file system and then moved my audio contents from HDA to HDB
I was very pleased with how smooth it all went!

Thanks,

[colinjones]

Thom's advice about putting it in a NAS first and partitioning/formatting there, is because sometimes putting a drive that isn't partitioned/formatted into LMCE means that the storage radars don't find it, and then once formatted and partitioned, they don't consider it to be "new" and so still doesn't prompt you to add the new storage. Whereas if the drive was already prepared, everything goes smoothly...

Can you confirm that you didn't have this problem? That you formatted and partitioned your new drive in situ in the hybrid and it still autodetected the new storage and prompted you?

[scsever]

I partitioned and formatted the drive as soon as LinuxMCE booted up, it was then recognized as a new storage device and I continued with the setup.  I didn't wait to see if it would be recognized prior to partitioning and formatting since I was sure I would have to do that anyway.  Since this was a used drive it had existing partitions that I wiped out, I think it was Linux and swap.