[poofyhairguy]

Also have you guys not considered identifying and segregating critical from expendable data.

That takes more time, and is a pain when things are automated with sick/sab/etc. In that situation live parity is best.

I use rync to keep my thumbnails in sync.

Do we really need to maintain a cache of 10 Terabytes of data ?

I prefer one in the 20+ range.

As mentioned rebuilding arrays can be a real pain / risk - even worse if you lose the RAID card or motherboard

That is why I love Unraid- throw away the raid card or the mobo, and as long as the drives are intact on boot your array comes back.

[maxinc]

Not really, windows desktop only offers software raid 0. The various server versions offer other versions of raid.

For clarification
raid 0, combines two disks into one
raid 1, mirroring with no parity. Been ages since I've done raid one, but don't you need both volumes for it to work. I.E. one drive fails you need to rebuild the array before reuse i think.

So windows desktop just combines two drives into one, and if one goes you can pretty much say good bye to all the data. There are recovery tools/options but they are not easy or guaranteed. I'm not trying to sound like the harbinger of doom, but I've been bitten by this myself.

I'm pretty sure Windows 7 does RAID 1 and so do a vast variety of mainboards.

It boils down to how much data you need protecting. If it's 2-3TB, it is more economically feasible to duplicate data with a RAID 1 array which is easy to implement on pretty much any system.

For larger and growing media collections, a parity protected NAS such a unRAID is the next cost effective option since it allows you mix and match drives of different capacities while keeping it all protected by only one extra disk. It may not sound like a big deal when you only have 1 or 2 data disks, but when you have 8 or 15, it gets really cheap.

[xecutionx]

+1 for UnRaid.

Two days ago I got a SMART error stating that one of my drives will fail within 24 hours. I'm getting the new disk later today.

Very convienient, in a sense, considering that UnRaid will just recreate the data from the drive I have to remove. Also, with my previous setup (8 drives in my Windows tower) I'd have no way of knowing that a drive failure was eminent and I'd have to pray it would survive long enough to backup the data.

Good news is that after the RMA, I'll have another 2tb(1.81tb) of storage to add to the array.

[Subliminal Aura]

That takes more time, and is a pain when things are automated with sick/sab/etc. In that situation live parity is best.

I use rync to keep my thumbnails in sync.

Well I certainly wouldn't like to rsync 'to' a 20TB unRAID block

No, on a serious note - what problems do you get - sqlite db corruption ? I run sick/sab et al but for me they are expendable and are not backed up, maybe I should test it out.

I prefer one in the 20+ range.

That is why I love Unraid- throw away the raid card or the mobo, and as long as the drives are intact on boot your array comes back.

20TB on unRAID ouch ! How fast are your write speeds ?

I see your point about unRAID, it's good, but at the end of the day it's just software RAID you shouldn't really have to pay for it, right ?

[maxinc]

I see your point about unRAID, it's good, but at the end of the day it's just software RAID you shouldn't really have to pay for it, right ?

If it is the ideology the stops you from getting it, I could not agree more. There are tons of things we shouldn't pay for and software raid is probably one of them alongside food that grows in the dirt and petrol.

BUT, if it is the money you are concerned about, an unRAID Plus or Pro is a lot cheaper than any other free software implementation if you are considering the final price tag of your NAS. You always get the disks at the best possible price, runs on cheap hardware (mine is made from recycled scrap), it recycles old drives and keeps wasted space to a minimum.

[poofyhairguy]

No, on a serious note - what problems do you get - sqlite db corruption ? I run sick/sab et al but for me they are expendable and are not backed up, maybe I should test it out.

I like sab/sick to dump straight into a parity protected array as part of the automated renaming/moving process. Unraid does have slower write speeds than a plain drive (anywhere from a half as slow to an eighth as slow), but its always fast enough to keep up with my internet connection!

20TB on unRAID ouch ! How fast are your write speeds ?

It is broken into two Unraid boxes (and the total is actually closer to 28-ishTBs now that I think about it). One is all 7200 RPM drives so I get decent write speeds, but the other (larger) one is a collection of (almost) every 1.5tb and 2TB consumer drive on the market so its write speeds kinda vary (but not too much thanks to its Barracuda XT parity drive). Its never low enough to really annoy me or mess up my automated system.

I see your point about unRAID, it's good, but at the end of the day it's just software RAID you shouldn't really have to pay for it, right ?

The way I see it, Unraid is:

1. A software RAID 4 without striping that can still span drives.
2. A nice web GUI interface on top of that.
3. A better tweaked Samba implementation then I have ever achieved on Ubuntu (after lots and lots of trying).

That combo is worth money to me.

[Subliminal Aura]

If it is the ideology the stops you from getting it, I could not agree more. There are tons of things we shouldn't pay for and software raid is probably one of them alongside food that grows in the dirt and petrol.

That combo is worth money to me.

Yeah and I'm jealous

Thanks for the 2cents guys

[edz2k9]

Hi all

I'm reengineering my back end storage to move from a backend server with mythtv and storage and squeezebox server to having a storage array / server and a server for music / mythtv (or equivalent - I may yet move to a new tv backend)

I'm considering options for the data server and love the concept of unraid, I dont mind paying for it but the locking of the software key (sorry but 4GB isnt going to cut it so I'll need the pro version) to a flash drive is really putting me off.

I have no issue with using a flash drive as a boot device when I can easily back it up and copy the contents over but, as I understand it, its up to lime if they will issue you with a new code if your flash drive dies (the guid of the pen drive is somehow hashed to your key so copying the contents over or backing up the license wont work). If they wont then your system is toast unless you buy another license (either at a discount when you buy the first or at full price later) or you pull each of the non-parity drives, mount it under a linux distro and access the files that way.

In short the whole "attaching your license to a volatile piece of hardware" bit not only worries the hell out of me but seems a little grabbing to be honest. By all means charge for what seems a solid product but its stopping me buying a license at the moment.

Anyone got any experience of what happens in this case?

Also has anyone got experience on flexraid?

Thanks all

Ed

[maxinc]

The computer will read the content of the flash at boot time into a ram drive where all the operations are made. The amount of data written to the flash (which could potentially shorten the life of the flash drive) is minimal. As long as you use a decent quality flash stick, chances of it going bad are slim.

That being said, Limetec are very professional and always ready to help. I've been in a situation where I upgraded to Pro and had the option to upgrade 2 sticks for the same price but only had one at the time. A few weeks later, my father got his Plus licence and I wrote to Limetec asking if I could upgrade his flash to Pro even if the 2nd flash was not purchased at the time of my upgrade. They responded very quickly and sent me the PRO license for the 2nd key at no extra charge, even if it was technically against the rules.

As long as they don't suspect fraud and your flash failure story is genuine, I don't think you would have any problem getting a replacement license from them.

[teaguecl]

The way I see it, Unraid is:

1. A software RAID 4 without striping that can still span drives.
2. A nice web GUI interface on top of that.
3. A better tweaked Samba implementation then I have ever achieved on Ubuntu (after lots and lots of trying).

That combo is worth money to me.

Agree on all points, but still won't buy Unraid - I don't run anything I don't have the source code for. I'd be happy to pay triple their price if it came with source, but without the code it's worthless to me. Of course, I'm a bit more paranoid than most...

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin

[Choque]

Agree on all points, but still won't buy Unraid - I don't run anything I don't have the source code for. I'd be happy to pay triple their price if it came with source, but without the code it's worthless to me. Of course, I'm a bit more paranoid than most...

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin

Use the free version of unRAID then. It's open source but you can only use 3 HDDs with it.

[teaguecl]

Use the free version of unRAID then. It's open source but you can only use 3 HDDs with it.

I think you need to re-read the definition of "open source": free != Free
Lime Tech is a very open source friendly company (kudos to them) and do ship source to pieces of Unraid but parts of their product, including the critical "Management Utility" are proprietary.

[Choque]

Nvm. I got that wrong. I thought I read somewhere that the Basic version is open source. I shall stand corrected

[Subliminal Aura]

Agree on all points, but still won't buy Unraid

+1

Nvm. I got that wrong. I thought I read somewhere that the Basic version is open source. I shall stand corrected

I was looking this morning but couldn't find the source. It seems like the unraid kernel module was GPL at one point but I can't seem to find it

Anyone ?

[poofyhairguy]

Agree on all points, but still won't buy Unraid - I don't run anything I don't have the source code for. I'd be happy to pay triple their price if it came with source, but without the code it's worthless to me. Of course, I'm a bit more paranoid than most...

That is not paranoid, its a personal decision that I respect.

Personally I tried as long as I could to get by on open source solutions, until I realized that using enterprise-grade solutions in the home means extra expense and hassle to achieve performance or to have features I don't need for a media library. I appreciate the experience for the day I have data I really care about, but for media all I want it to be able to buy drives when I need them (whatever is cheapest at the time) and have my information parity protected at a basic level. Unraid is the only parity-based solution designed for the purpose of mediaservers (with maybe the exception of Flexraid).

Honestly I wish Unraid was more open too, if only so I could rip it's features off primitive Slackware and move it to something modern like Debian/Ubuntu. But seeing as how the only other major mix-and match disk solutions out there (Drobo and WHS) are even MORE closed than Unraid....