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wsume99 · 2012-03-24, 16:25

It sounds to me like that no matter what you do you're going to have to buy two new disks. I say this because if you want to be protected from a drive failure then you need to add a parity drive and if all your disks are nearly full then you are going to need to add a HDD to give you more free space. If you use unraid you are going to have to reformat your drives and there is no way around it. Because you need to buy 2 new HDDs you can follow the method that Sureguy outlined and build your array without losing any of your existing data.

spencers · 2012-03-25, 06:59

I'm really loving my Unraid box. I've only spent a weekend thus far with it, but getting SAB/SB/CP off my main xbmc box has been AMAZING. I no longer experience any crashes on my xbmc box. Additionally, I was able to get plex media server off my MacBook and onto the Unraid box. So that frees up my main machine's resources Smile

Deano316 · (This post was last modified: 2012-03-26, 03:00 by Deano316.)

Now with 2 new HDDs added to the 7 desktop HDDs I already have Confused

I'm going to have a bunch of them lying around. Any suggestions on dealing with those? I have a lot of faith in my ability to learn new skills but I must admit this new setup does seem rather daunting. The end result is feeding my enthusiasm though, I've got this far already with nothing more than some great forum help and a bunch of research. God bless the Internet Smile

*edit*

Just done a bit more research and It doesn't seem so bad. The hard part will be transferring all my data, it will take me well over a week, maybe two. Should've done this sooner really, I've made a rod for my own back now Confused

Still don't quite understand how the parity drive would work in my case but I'm sure it will become clear. Once I have my server up and running for a while and understand it better, I will think about building one from scratch. One thing at a time though. Once again thanks for all your help guys, the magic of the forums is that they can become the best classroom you can get. I'm still a bit of a noob in some respects but learning more everyday Smile

Kirky99 · 2012-03-26, 02:53

No thoughts on FlexRAID? It can use you existing full drives, although if you want some protection, one drive ( your biggest) will need to be cleared for a parity drive. You can feed it all of your drives if you so desire, the $50 license isnt drive limited.

Deano316 · (This post was last modified: 2012-03-26, 04:01 by Deano316.)

@Kirky99 - You caught me mid-edit! I know all I need to know about unRAID, now I'm off to check on the alternatives. How does FR compare? I don't mind the reformat option if it benefits me in the long run. Most importantly, which OS will it play nicely with, I'll probably on have Vista on it as that's the cheapest option (free) for me right now.

Kirky99 · 2012-03-26, 04:50

FlexRAID is pretty much a driver on top of the OS. I looked into it for the drive pooling capabilities at the time, added SnapShot RAID later.

It runs on Windows and Linux, whichever you prefer. Supports drives of any size/shape/location, multiple parity drives, and a few other neat little tricks. It's a pretty trick little program, I'm using it on Windows 7. Happily paid for the full monty version when he decided to go commercial. Really helped me out with my file server when I got tired of running Ubuntu a while back.

Deano316 · 2012-06-24, 01:18

Okay guys, back after a short break. Here's where I'm at:

Got a budget of around £200 to get me started.

Currently have around 12tb of storage spread over 7 desktop HDDs, and 1 internal HDD. Which I would like to migrate to my new server over time.

Want to use unRAID for my server. On my server I'd like to run sickbeard, sabnzbd, couchpotato, headphones, subsonic and maybe airvideo.

I've already had some great advice here which im grateful for, but I'm finding myself a little overwhelmed. Need a bit of hand-holding to get me on the right track. I don't have any pc or server building knowledge, but I do know where I'd like to end up. Would ideally like to use the desktop HDDs I have in some capacity, can they be taken out of their case and stored any other way? Also know that I eat up storage quickly so would need a server that could keep expanding, but I'm so over desktop HDDs now, they don't seem to be the way forward for me. I'm down to my last 40gig, but there is a summer break now for tv shows which seems like a good time to change.

I'm learning all the time, but don't want my inexperience to backfire here. I'm not from an I.T. background so I'm learning as I go. Was going to build a server by repurposing an old tower pc. Been looking on eBay for an old one to start me off but don't want to get one that isn't fit for purpose.

In my situation what would you guys opt for? Am I going about this the right way? Maybe I'm over complicating things Confused

I'm based in the uk so please bear that in mind when providing any places to source hardware.

Deano316 · (This post was last modified: 2012-08-06, 16:03 by Deano316.)

Server is still a WIP but it is built and I'm running out of cash now Confused

Just have the HDDs left to buy, so now the question becomes should I have a cache drive or not? Thoughts?

GortWillSaveUs · 2012-08-06, 16:08

(2012-08-06, 16:02)Deano316 Wrote: Server is still a WIP but it is built and I'm running out of cash now Just have the HDDs left to buy, so now the question becomes should I have a cache drive or not? Thoughts?

If you're short on money,...don't worry about it for now.
One consideration though,...a cache does not have to be a large drive.
So if you have a 250G laying around, or can pick one up real cheap,..then use that for a cache drive.

Deano316 · (This post was last modified: 2012-08-06, 20:05 by Deano316.)

(2012-08-06, 16:08)GortWillSaveUs Wrote:
(2012-08-06, 16:02)Deano316 Wrote: Server is still a WIP but it is built and I'm running out of cash now Just have the HDDs left to buy, so now the question becomes should I have a cache drive or not? Thoughts?

If you're short on money,...don't worry about it for now.
One consideration though,...a cache does not have to be a large drive.
So if you have a 250G laying around, or can pick one up real cheap,..then use that for a cache drive.

I thought a cache drive had to be equal to or larger than your largest (2TB) drive? Also, without a cache drive where would I put sab/s.beard?

GortWillSaveUs · (This post was last modified: 2012-08-06, 21:06 by GortWillSaveUs.)

We might be talking about two different things,...
Were you thinking a parity drive,...
The parity drive has to be the largest drive,..while a cache drive is optional.
Here's a thread that discusses whether or not to use a cache drive.

zer0zer0 · (This post was last modified: 2012-08-06, 21:30 by zer0zer0.)

If you want to do a budget RAID setup a used Dell Perc 6/i SAS Raid controller is an option you should consider

Available on Ebay all the time for ~$100
- based on LSI SAS1078 RAID on Chip (ROC) 500MHz
- Onboard 256MB of ECC Registered 667MHz DDR2 3-5-5-5
- RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60
- battery backup
- PCIe x8
- 2 (SFF-8484) SAS internal connectors (support for 8 x SATA drives)

More info here - http://www.overclock.net/raid-controller...-tips.html

You need a SAS to sata breakout cable as well but they are only around 20 bucks
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6812120933

Deano316 · 2012-08-06, 21:50

(2012-08-06, 21:05)GortWillSaveUs Wrote: We might be talking about two different things,...
Were you thinking a parity drive,...
The parity drive has to be the largest drive,..while a cache drive is optional.
Here's a thread that discusses whether or not to use a cache drive.

If that's the case, then I'm only one drive short of finishing my server Big Grin

Have a small temporary HDD in it already. It's only small and I was going to discard it, but hearing that I'll reconsider. Thanks for the help Wink