UnRAID question

[Marbles_00]

I'm starting to look at building an UnRAID server. I could ask this over at the UnRAID forums, but I didn't really want to setup for another forum right now (belong to way too many right now). I figured there most likely are enough people here who have built one and could answer my question.

Just wonder what happens in the event that a USB stick blows? Setting up with a new one, with a new UnRAID OS, will it recognize the drives properly, or would you have to rebuild drive information, because the stick has a different serial number. Just wondering if the USB stick serial number gets inter-twind somehow and if swapping sticks has any effects?

I know, most likely a silly question, but still wondering.

[PhilB]

I have been using Unraid for about a year now and it works great once it is going. I have not had a stick "blow up" but I think that the license is tied to the stick. If the stick fails you have to request a new license which is not a big deal. The drives should not be effected but will probably need to run through a new Parity Check.

Since the stick is solid state, it is not what will go first.

The Unraid forum is the best source of information.

[cmhardwick]

if you have the free version of unRAID, which allows 2 data + 1 parity (or 3 data, unprotected) then serial number doesn't matter. It's just used for the Plus and Pro licenses, and Tom is usually good about generating a new license file for you if this happens.
Also, as a backup, when you add a disk, or a user share (if you're using them), just copy the entire contents of the USB drive to a save place on another computer. Then, if it dies, get the new key, go through the unRAID install steps and copy your files back to it. I believe the main ones you need, that are specific to your setup, would be the /config/shares folder, the .cfg files under the config folder (in my case, Disk, Network, Ident, share) your go file, if modified, and the super.dat file
Also, as a safety, do a screen shot (landscape) of your device screen so you can see what serial number is assigned to parity and which slots for the data drives. this is vital to avoid a parity check and possible lost data (assigning a data disk as parity by mistake ... POOF!!).

Now, for me to just do all this that I typed well, the file copies anyway.

[Marbles_00]

Thanks for the responses guys. That's what I was expecting, but just wanted to make sure. Now to source more equipment...

[scottw]

Marbles,

Are you going for one of the pay licenses or the free 2-1 drive copy???

Just curious...I am thinking about this as well. Right now I have everything (XL, movies and music) on one machine with no redundancy at all, just asking for trouble!!!

[Marbles_00]

I'm going to start with the 2+1free version. I don't have a ton of things, maybe around 400Gig worth of movies and kid shows, and maybe around 150 Gigs of music. It would most likely be a temp holding spot for recorded TV show, until they are watched then deleted. Though lack of space will increase expontitially if I ever get back into video editing and storing raw video footage, and storing HD content, when I finally get around to getting more envolved with that.

But yeah, I'm in the same boat as you, if my music server goes down...man I've lost alot right there. My wife kinda freaked when she saw me bring in yet another computer case, and there will be some discussion in the near future as to the motives for having yet another computer...but damnit, I'm the boss of the house and what I say...goes (yeah right).

Not only that, but I'm getting tired of having network shares scattered across multiple computers, and how I have to make sure this computer is running or that computer is running if I want to access something across the network

[scottw]

Oh man that is pretty much my setup to a tee....especially the (whispers)I am the boss(whispers) part

I just Dl'd unraid and am giving it a try. Just one question to verify, if I have a 250gb, a 80gb and a 40gb I will have basically 120gb of space since the 250 would have to be the parity drive, right??

I just set it up at work since it's a little slow here right now to test it out.

[Marbles_00]

I will have basically 120gb of space since the 250 would have to be the parity drive

From my understanding, that is correct. Though you don't have to use a parity drive, and just have three data drives, if I remember correctly.

I've also added a new google page to chonic this project. You can link to it off my main googlepages screen.

[scottw]

But then there is no protection/redundancy then, I believe. I just setup with the 250, 80 and 40 and it says I have 244 gb free but it is still running the parity sync. After that is done I will try replacing the 80 with another 250 just to see what happens. So far I am really digging this!!!!! Wife is going to be SOOOOO mad.

[Marbles_00]

Wife is going to be SOOOOO mad

I know, mine...I love the look she gave me when I grabbed the case from the trunk of the car. Her jaw dropped and the ol' "Your an idiot!" look came on her face. But I can understand her feelings...HTPC, MediaPC, Music-server, Kid's crap computer, my workhorse legacy machine, the video editing machine, now this...boy, I'm really going to have fun to justify another media machine in our room, and most likely the kid's will want machine in their bedrooms. I've personally rather have that than outfit their rooms for TV's, that's for sure. I'd have to run more coax cable and everything. Since I have a CAT5 run in the attic, it will be easy to run that to a switch, then drops to each room.

[cmhardwick]

if you run with parity, it must be as big or bigger than all data disks. Your "storage" volumn would of course only be equal to the total of your data disks.

Great product, been using it for a year or so, added some modifications from the GREAT forum over there. Had one drive refuse to come up after it had been off over vacation. Luckily, I had purchased a couple of new drives meaning to install them, so I pull the bad drive, put in the new on, rebooted and it rebuilt my data onto the new drive, all the while letting me access what was on the missing drive, creating it on the fly from the parity!

[scottw]

How's the project going Marbles??

I have gotten really into Unraid lately!!!

Hope you don't mind me posting in your thread...if so let me know, but I did not see the point in starting a new one.

To try to keep the expenses down I am trying this out on a Dell Optiplex GX280 which will be an ideal system but the case was lacking as far as heat goes. In my current XL machine I have 2x250gb drives so I decided to start the unraid server with 3x250gb to give me the same space I have but with "protection". I put the 3 250's in the Optiplex and fired it up and the install went perfect, man this is easy to setup. After playing with it a little I noticed the drive temps were in the high 40's to low 50's at idle . Now I have to admit I have never paid attention to drive temp's before so this was all new to me, but after some research I found the S.M.A.R.T. standards recommend (I think) 37c-46c or something like that, either way they were way too hot. So durring the parity check the temps really went up from there, so I need to add some fans if I wanted to try to use this case. I started by adding this http://www.xoxide.com/lianli-ex23nb-hddmodule-black.html. I put all 3 drives in it and it helped alot but I was still getting around 47-48 during the parity check. I decided to upgrade the fan in the module to a faster RPM fan and just decided on a cheap model from new egg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835150007&Tpk=35-150-007. After reading some of the posts about this fan which was $2 with $7 shipping I found that if you buy 10 you get free shipping so for $12.90 I got 10 fans which I was sure I could use elsewhere
The fan helped a little but not enough still. So after a bunch of trying different things my final setup has me moving one of the drives from the Lian-Li to the normal 3.5" bays and adding 2 additional fans (not including the built in one on the Lian-Li), one blowing out of the back of the case thru the slots where the PCI cards go (don't need any additional PCI cards installed ) and one blowing directly down on the one drive not in the Lian-Li.
It may not be a pretty approach but it works great. Now my temp idle at around 32c-35c and during a parity check where all drives are being accessed I am at 33c-37c. Those extra fan came in handy after all!!!

I am playing around with some of the scripts on the forums and reading up on the maintenance routines you should run. I am hoping to move all of my data to it soon. I will be moving all of my movie AVI's, pictures, music and whatever else I can think of.

I have not searched for this yet but could I put all of my XL DB's on there and point XL to the Unraid server??
Right now I have 2 Xl machines, one in the living room and one fat client in the bedroom pointing to the one in the livingroom. I would like to change the one in the bedroom to a standard XL install and just point both machines to get their DB's from the Unraid box, this way I would not have to fire up the livingroom machine just to watch a movie in the bedroom.

Well that was enough typing for now

[Marbles_00]

I'm not as far along as that. I got the motherboard, memory and USB flash drive. Installed the MB and memory in the case. I have a Nexus 120mm silent fan that I will be adding to the case as well. Last night I installed the OS onto the USB flash...easy enough. I've been keeping a log of the UnRAID build on my new Google Sites. My next purchases will be either a Intel E2180 or E2200 CPU, but I'm a little reluctant in "asking for permission" as we have some payments going out for new furniture, and we're putting the oldest into swimming, skating, and dance. I already know the response I'm going to get, and it is just not worth it. I'll have to put in some overtime, and keep an eye on the stock at the local computer store. I've also started to look more at the UnRAID forums on details of UPS, and shutdown routines when using a UPS. That is something I'm really going to look into for that computer for sure.

My BD is coming up, so I'm going to plead for everyone to pool together and get three 500+Gb drives (that would be a nice present). Fingers crossed there. Also have to get a PSU.

Thanks for the heads up on the heat. I'm hoping that won't be an issue with my case. It is large, and with only using a MicroATX board, and won't be using a graphics card (built-on the MB), I'm hoping the cavity will be large enough so heat is easily blown out.

As I've mentioned on the google site, I'm going to be placing all movies/video/pictures on the server, as well as a complete backup of my music-server (music included). Also all my various install files, and most likely backups of my HTPC and MediaPVR builds. How I'm going to try and do it is keep one drive for backups so it will be spun down in most cases and not used, and use the other drive for media data. Then I will have the additional parity drive. This way, if all drives are purchased at the same time, at least the real important one should live long and prosperous as it will be seldomly used.

Oh, I don't mind you posting in this thread. Its neat to see how other xlobbiers are using their (Un)RAID setups.

[rhinoman]

I've been using unraid for a few years now, I was an early adopter and now have 2 machines with a few terabytes of storage in each.

For movie and music storage its fine but write speeds are slow so it doesn't make a great server for photos and docs and I don't use it for recorded tv from my mce machine as that would be far too slow and not really necessary to have redundency for time shifting anyway. Quite happy to schedule backups to it though from our other xp machine/server (my old desktop with a 3 drive hardware raid5) which is used for fast access of photos docs, ripping to etc.

[scottw]

Thanks rhinoman....glad to hear feedback from others who have been using it