[javier911]

I'm up and running on 4.7 stable with no problems. I used one of the recommended USB drives. (Sandisk cruizer I think) I'd be happy to share any of my experiences with you during my build. I knew nothing about unRaid about a week ago now I have it up and running nicely.

On a side note, I won pretty big playing three card poker at the casino last night so I'm upgrading my case

Trying to decide between:

http://lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/upload/...flyer.html

and

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/pro...dex=61&g=f


Leaning the 77 way right now for some of the refinements in case design and simplicity of looks. I think the 77 would look great loaded with 4 istarusa 5 in 3's.

I do have another question, is it easy/painless to start on the free version and then upgrade to pro?

I only had one other USB to try, Corsair 16GB but it wouldn't even boot. I've used it to boot other OS' many times but for unraid it just didn't wanna work. I don't know, I may just go ahead with the beta, but I think I'll at least check a local store tomorrow and see what they have. I have more flash drives but friends always take forever to return them, or just plain lose em.

I am not building new from scratch, just too expensive for me right now, but I have a Gigabyte 785G box, and HPA is disabled so it should work. Just pure luck, the same day I decided to build this within minutes of searching I found a local selling a used CM590 so I grabbed it, $30 seemed like a decent deal. I ordered 2 more 4-in-3 cages because I just know they'll get harder and harder to find if I wait, came to over $50 with tax and shipping so overall not sure it was the smartest choice but oh well.

[wsume99]

I do have another question, is it easy/painless to start on the free version and then upgrade to pro?

It is very easy. All you have to do is put the license key that you'll get from Limetech when you purchase the pro version on the USB drive and that's it.

[prongATO]

It is very easy. All you have to do is put the license key that you'll get from Limetech when you purchase the pro version on the USB drive and that's it.

Second that. You can get your unRaid up and running on the free version. Then purchase a license key. You copy the license file to a directory on your USB drive and reboot. It's that easy. Depending on which license you buy it will unlock more features.

I've said it before on this thread, unRaid is a phenomenal piece of software and worth every penny.

[javier911]

I'm waiting for a few items to arrive, in the meantime I figured I should keep this thread alive . Anyone care to share their opinions on what addons are especially useful? Any specific advice for using it with XBMC? I don't currently plan to run a centralized database as I have only 2 potential locations and hardly ever watch movies at one.

I'm going to start on the free version, see how it works, then if all goes well I'll purchase a license and re-organize/add my other drives. I've decided to not use a cache drive, as I won't be writing to the array frequently and I like the idea of always being protected, since I will probably also use this array to backup other types of files of high importance.

[kizer]

I use the following addons
preclear - Preclear your disks so they are ready to be installed and used
unMENU - Great addon adder. LOL
cache_dirs - Caches a listing of your folders and files in ram so when you update your library you don't have to spin up your drives and its fast as heck
Subsonic - I use this because I like to stream my music to my phone, iPad, itouch, PC
apcupsd - Great little script to be paired up with a APC UPS. When you loose power it monitors your server and shuts it down cleanly

[prongATO]

I use the following addons
preclear - Preclear your disks so they are ready to be installed and used
unMENU - Great addon adder. LOL
cache_dirs - Caches a listing of your folders and files in ram so when you update your library you don't have to spin up your drives and its fast as heck
Subsonic - I use this because I like to stream my music to my phone, iPad, itouch, PC
apcupsd - Great little script to be paired up with a APC UPS. When you loose power it monitors your server and shuts it down cleanly

unMenu for sure! It's almost a must-have.

[prongATO]

I'm going to post this here since nobody on the unraid forums is responding:

I'm looking at getting the RocketRAID 2720. 136.00 shipped from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-RocketRA...294&sr=1-1

Would this be a good choice? I've noticed there are some pretty in-depth threads on controller cards alone.

I have both PCIE x8 and PCIE x16 slots available. My motherboard currently supports 7 SATA connections. I plan on adding two controller cards to support up to 20 drives.

If anyone has an alternate suggestion in price/performance, please feel free to chime in.

[Kilack]

An alternative and one that loads of people use is the
Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

well tested and recommened by the unraid community.

Your machine looks nice but far too pretty for a server. servers belong in rooms where they won't be seen or heard.

[prongATO]

An alternative and one that loads of people use is the
Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

well tested and recommened by the unraid community.

Your machine looks nice but far too pretty for a server. servers belong in rooms where they won't be seen or heard.

I think i'm going to go with the SAS2LP-MV8. It's about 40.00 cheaper and will do what I need.

The picture posted on page 3 is of my main machine, not the server. With these parts my server will be pretty too though

Every machine I build is a work of art following the philosophy of "form follows function". I choose aluminum cases because of aesthetics, weight and heat dissipation characteristics. I'm meticulous about my wiring for looks and to improve airflow inside the case. I have crimp ends and a nice soldering iron so I routinely custom make power cables to length.

When I decide to sleeve power supply or signal cables I only use MDPC-X sleeving. MDPC-X philosophy, no compromise.

[Kilack]

I think i'm going to go with the SAS2LP-MV8. It's about 40.00 cheaper and will do what I need.

The picture posted on page 3 is of my main machine, not the server. With these parts my server will be pretty too though

Every machine I build is a work of art following the philosophy of "form follows function". I choose aluminum cases because of aesthetics, weight and heat dissipation characteristics. I'm meticulous about my wiring for looks and to improve airflow inside the case. I have crimp ends and a nice soldering iron so I routinely custom make power cables to length.

When I decide to sleeve power supply or signal cables I only use MDPC-X sleeving. MDPC-X philosophy, no compromise.

Very different to how I think that is for sure. I have two servers they live in the basement, I never see them - which is how it should be as it means they are working well and it is nice and cold down there and it means i don't have to hear them either .

I choose a case and parts that will do the job - nothing more. An unraid server is not going to generate much heat, it's not cpu intensive at all, people are using atoms for it. An alumininum case is overkill for me and isn't going to make any difference to a steel case in this situtation, it's just simply not required for such a low work, low heat server. If you were really after no compromise then you woulndn't be running unraid, you'd have a hardware raid setup, using raid 6 or raid 10 - faster and safer.

My philosophy, use what is required to do the job well, nothing more, save the $$ for travel!

I have two of those supermicro cards, they work well and support >2tb disks too, but I don't think unraid supports >2tb disks yet?

[seand]

>2tb on the most recent beta but there are still some compatibility issues apparently. Its best to read the UnRaid forum if you going to go that route - kind of like running dailies of XBMC on an ATV2.

Except most of us want a server we don't have to think about once its set up so I'm sticking wit 4.7 and 2tb drives for now.

[javier911]

I use the following addons

cache_dirs - Caches a listing of your folders and files in ram so when you update your library you don't have to spin up your drives and its fast as heck

I browsed addons a few times but never noticed that one. Sounds very useful I'll definitely have to look into it once my box is running. Thanks.

[prongATO]

Very different to how I think that is for sure. I have two servers they live in the basement, I never see them - which is how it should be as it means they are working well and it is nice and cold down there and it means i don't have to hear them either .

I choose a case and parts that will do the job - nothing more. An unraid server is not going to generate much heat, it's not cpu intensive at all, people are using atoms for it. An alumininum case is overkill for me and isn't going to make any difference to a steel case in this situtation, it's just simply not required for such a low work, low heat server. If you were really after no compromise then you woulndn't be running unraid, you'd have a hardware raid setup, using raid 6 or raid 10 - faster and safer.

My philosophy, use what is required to do the job well, nothing more, save the $$ for travel!

I have two of those supermicro cards, they work well and support >2tb disks too, but I don't think unraid supports >2tb disks yet?

If I were utilizing the server for unraid only, I'd agree. I'm running Apache, mySql, sick beard, couch potato and SABnzbd+ also. In the small case it's in now, it IS generating a lot of heat. (steel case) I've been polling on-board temperature sensors and taking measurements myself.

Mine lives in my office, about four feet away from me now as a matter of fact. If I had a room with a separate AC unit to store my servers then I'd just get all rack mount equipment.

There are definitely a lot of ways to do things. I think it's great that we have such a forum to come together and share ideas.

Thanks so much for the advice on the controller cards. I'd been trying to find a good solution to expand my drive capacity.

unRAID supports > 2TB on the beta, I think it's 5.0beta8d. I'm using 4.7 stable because I don't want to deal with problems at this point. I do, however, already have a 3TB drive and plan on getting more as the price point comes down.

[Kilack]

If I were utilizing the server for unraid only, I'd agree. I'm running Apache, mySql, sick beard, couch potato and SABnzbd+ also. In the small case it's in now, it IS generating a lot of heat. (steel case) I've been polling on-board temperature sensors and taking measurements myself.

Mine lives in my office, about four feet away from me now as a matter of fact. If I had a room with a separate AC unit to store my servers then I'd just get all rack mount equipment.

There are definitely a lot of ways to do things. I think it's great that we have such a forum to come together and share ideas.

Thanks so much for the advice on the controller cards. I'd been trying to find a good solution to expand my drive capacity.

unRAID supports > 2TB on the beta, I think it's 5.0beta8d. I'm using 4.7 stable because I don't want to deal with problems at this point. I do, however, already have a 3TB drive and plan on getting more as the price point comes down.

I am pretty new to unraid, good to know it will support >2tb drives. I don't have any but I am sure at some point in the future I will . unraid seems a pretty good compromise from a full on hardware raid setup. I hope one day it will become open source or at least have more developers so that it can be developed a bit quicker and not be reliant on just one person. It seems to be the best in its class at the moment however, but xbmc is a perfect example of what can be done with a team working together.

[javier911]

So ended up needing to RMA 2 drives which took forever, but now I'm finally ready. I'm not sure I understand the split-level correctly.

I was thinking I would set up shares such as:
/bluray (complete bluray rips, as in entire dirs)
/movies (MKVs, TS, mpg, etc.)
.... etc.
and the contents such as:
/bluray/MOVIE_NAME1/...
/bluray/MOVIE_NAME2/...
/movies/MOVIE_NAME1/movie_name1.mkv
/movies/movie_name2.mkv

So to be clear, single movies will be directly under each root share, and those can be either directories or single files.

So I set the split-level on those shares to 1, and then each bluray, each directory with movie/subtitles, and each single file movie will never span across disks, correct?

It seems like setting everything to split-level 1 will work well for movies of any type, although there will be some efficiency lost with large files not always able to perfectly fill a disk. Is this an accurate assessment?

I was thinking for other misc shares I will simply set the split level high and let the system spread them out. Then these smaller files will fill gaps and get back some of that lost efficiency, correct?