Links on NAS

[ignorantForager]

Hello all,

 

So I have a Western Digital NAS. I am wondering if there is any way to create hard links (or even soft links if that doesn't work) on it. I've tried by using the command line in windows, but it doesn't work and there doesn't seem to be a way to do it graphically using the in-system menu's. Any information on this would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you need any more information.

[brwainer]

you'd have to have access to the base file system, meaning you probably need to have the ability to open a console on the NAS. And even if you got in to that point, the NAS's OS may not have a utility for creating hard or soft links.

[paddy-stone]

What do you actually want to do? I may not have an answer for you, but you never know.

[ignorantForager]

1 minute ago, brwainer said:

you'd have to have access to the base file system, meaning you probably need to have the ability to open a console on the NAS. And even if you got in to that point, the NAS's OS may not have a utility for creating hard or soft links.

I was worried that this might be the issue. But I figured I'd ask just in case anyone had any ideas.

Just now, paddy-stone said:

What do you actually want to do? I may not have an answer for you, but you never know.

So I have multiple video files. I want to put them all into a single folder and then have different separate folders that "separate" them into different categories such as genre or year or whatever and have links inside those folders that link to the original file so that I don't have multiple copies of the same file. If that makes any sense.

[brwainer]

Just now, cadencejames said:

So I have multiple video files. I want to put them all into a single folder and then have different separate folders that "separate" them into different categories such as genre or year or whatever and have links inside those folders that link to the original file so that I don't have multiple copies of the same file. If that makes any sense.

Is there a reason why you need/want to have this visible in separate folders, when something like Kodi (OSMC) should be able to let you sort your videos however you want just by scanning the name and year, and matching that with IMDB and other online databases?

[ignorantForager]

Just now, brwainer said:

Is there a reason why you need/want to have this visible in separate folders, when something like Kodi (OSMC) should be able to let you sort your videos however you want just by scanning the name and year, and matching that with IMDB and other online databases?

Maybe that's the way I need to go. I have OSMC set up on a Raspberry Pi that connects to the NAS and does all that already. I'll have to figure that out.

[Doramius]

Similar to @brwainer , I've been using Plex for about 5 years.  Give an amazing graphical interface and pulls all the media's metadata for it, too.

[paddy-stone]

12 minutes ago, cadencejames said:

I was worried that this might be the issue. But I figured I'd ask just in case anyone had any ideas.

So I have multiple video files. I want to put them all into a single folder and then have different separate folders that "separate" them into different categories such as genre or year or whatever and have links inside those folders that link to the original file so that I don't have multiple copies of the same file. If that makes any sense.

Ahh I see, yes that is problematic, I don't know how to get around that. I have an extensive video collection that I maintain manually into genres, the ones that fall into 2/3/4 genres get sorted into the highest category. For instance I have mine set up like eg 1.Comic Book movies 2.action. 3.comedy and so on... so if a movie say falls into categories 2 and 5, they go into category 2. It just works if you organise them into your favourites as the top tiers. It's only used by me when I add titles etc, as search is easy to use anyway if you need to find a particularly hard to find movie.

I have used kodi for a very long time now, back to when it was on xbox, and I used to wish for it to be a windows program... I can vouch for it's extremely easy to use interface and performance for watching videos, I used to use it with a raspberryPi model b a few years back and still would if I hadn't moved onto using x265 for videos now.

[brwainer]

33 minutes ago, Doramius said:

Similar to @brwainer , I've been using Plex for about 5 years.  Give an amazing graphical interface and pulls all the media's metadata for it, too.

I'm using Plex too, but Kodi has the advantage for anyone with a NAS that can't run a Plex server, because all the software runs locally (they just have a client, no server)

[Doramius]

5 hours ago, brwainer said:

I'm using Plex too, but Kodi has the advantage for anyone with a NAS that can't run a Plex server, because all the software runs locally (they just have a client, no server)

I understand completely why people use Kodi, and I do think it is good.  Several friends who use it and enjoy it, because of how lite it is in function.    There are a bunch of good options out there for what cadencejames is trying to accomplish.  I have the separate system to run as a Plex server, and it allows me to have family connect and watch my extensive library.