[aaronb]

I just started using Flexraid a couple days ago. Seems like a very similar product to Drivebender, anyone have pros/cons between those two?

[Rauf27]

Ok, I can't help myself. This place is great. Lol.

I like Unraid because it is a RAID solution that works well with consumer hardware. I have used an Ubuntu server for a while, and Unraid SMB performance is unmatched beyond my best tweaks. I probably could beat it eventually, but why once your biggest files don't skip? I would prefer it over snapraid because realtime parity is much better IMHO. Hell, I won't even use a cache drive- It is nice not to worry about what is protected.

If you build the box right (like use one RAM stick and an efficient single rail PSU) it can go easy on energy as well. The fact it powers down drives allows them to last longer as well as save energy. Plus its ability to have real drive diversity is amazing. I have a box with 12 different models of 1.5TB and 2TB drives in a single array. If a whole model is bad (and I have found a few), I get by just fine. Any other stable realtime parity solution I know of can't do that.

I do not have anything against Unraid, it is great product for those who don't wanna be involved to OS tuning process.

Some pros of Ubuntu Server for me:

1.Light, Secure, Free and has huge App Repository
2.You can use any HDD with any FS. (when Unraid requires you to format drives before adding them to the Pool). You don't have to wait ~24 hours to add new drive (ntfs,fat32,ext3,4..) to the pool.
3.Storage pooling can be done in many different ways - mhddfs, unionfs, aufs, FlexRAID and etc.
4.SMB performance as good as your Network, Hardware and etc. I can write-read from the pool on both SMB and AFP at 90-100mb/s. I don't believe that Unraid can give you better performance. If you are looking for better performance then RAID will help.
5. RealTime parity slows performance, specifically when you don't use cache drive. However you can always tune up SnapRAID to run sync every hour. But on media server it doesn't make sense, because your files shouldn't change every second. And UNRAID, FlexRAID or SnapRAID is not BACKUP tools. If you really care about your files then do proper backup.
6. Spin down unused HDDs, energy save also works perfect on Ubuntu-Debian boxes.

Again I just wanna say that Unraid is not only solution on the market.

[bigdog66]

Ok, I can't help myself. This place is great. Lol.

I like Unraid because it is a RAID solution that works well with consumer hardware. I have used an Ubuntu server for a while, and Unraid SMB performance is unmatched beyond my best tweaks. I probably could beat it eventually, but why once your biggest files don't skip? I would prefer it over snapraid because realtime parity is much better IMHO. Hell, I won't even use a cache drive- It is nice not to worry about what is protected.

If you build the box right (like use one RAM stick and an efficient single rail PSU) it can go easy on energy as well. The fact it powers down drives allows them to last longer as well as save energy. Plus its ability to have real drive diversity is amazing. I have a box with 12 different models of 1.5TB and 2TB drives in a single array. If a whole model is bad (and I have found a few), I get by just fine. Any other stable realtime parity solution I know of can't do that.

I do not have anything against Unraid, it is great product for those who don't wanna be involved to OS tuning process.

Some pros of Ubuntu Server for me:

1.Light, Secure, Free and has huge App Repository
2.You can use any HDD with any FS. (when Unraid requires you to format drives before adding them to the Pool). You don't have to wait ~24 hours to add new drive (ntfs,fat32,ext3,4..) to the pool.
3.Storage pooling can be done in many different ways - mhddfs, unionfs, aufs, FlexRAID and etc.
4.SMB performance as good as your Network, Hardware and etc. I can write-read from the pool on both SMB and AFP at 90-100mb/s. I don't believe that Unraid can give you better performance. If you are looking for better performance then RAID will help.
5. RealTime parity slows performance, specifically when you don't use cache drive. However you can always tune up SnapRAID to run sync every hour. But on media server it doesn't make sense, because your files shouldn't change every second. And UNRAID, FlexRAID or SnapRAID is not BACKUP tools. If you really care about your files then do proper backup.
6. Spin down unused HDDs, energy save also works perfect on Ubuntu-Debian boxes.

Again I just wanna say that Unraid is not only solution on the market.

just a couple things that my novice knowledge will chime in on nothing too serious lol

#2....something that a few people pointed out without thinking or caring about and it has done nothing but spread from one person to another lol
won't argue that drive prep does take time but just want to point out that the time isn't just spent on "formatting" the drive....those of us unraid users run each drive through a program called "preclear"....sure it does format the drive but the bulk of the time is spent checking..writing and reading each sector which puts a new drive through it's paces and usually catches a bad or flaky drive
its a valuable tool for any hard drive and i use it for all new or questionable hard drives i buy

#6.....just a question....does Ubuntu-Debian boxes handle spin down on each drive separately?

I dont think anyone would ever say there is only one solution....but depending on what you are trying to accomplish then some will def be better than others
knowledge is power

[poofyhairguy]

Again I just wanna say that Unraid is not only solution on the market.

Agreed.

[eskro]

right, but for feeding media to my HTPC's around the house,
its at the top of my list!

[xbmcg]

plain w7pro with rocketRaid SATA3 controller and up to 16 drives... (if windows is a must have).
otherwise freeNAS

[Rauf27]

#2...something that a few people pointed out without thinking or caring about and it has done nothing but spread from one person to another lol
won't argue that drive prep does take time but just want to point out that the time isn't just spent on "formatting" the drive....those of us unraid users run each drive through a program called "preclear"....sure it does format the drive but the bulk of the time is spent checking..writing and reading each sector which puts a new drive through it's paces and usually catches a bad or flaky drive
its a valuable tool for any hard drive and i use it for all new or questionable hard drives i buy
#6.....just a question....does Ubuntu-Debian boxes handle spin down on each drive separately?

2. I hope you know about SMART function of HDDs ?

6. Sure they do. -hdparm- (utility to set and view HDD params.) is not developed by Unraid team. Any linux based distro can handle HDD control. Pooled Drives stay in sleep mode until you request r/w operation from them.

[bigdog66]

#2...something that a few people pointed out without thinking or caring about and it has done nothing but spread from one person to another lol
won't argue that drive prep does take time but just want to point out that the time isn't just spent on "formatting" the drive....those of us unraid users run each drive through a program called "preclear"....sure it does format the drive but the bulk of the time is spent checking..writing and reading each sector which puts a new drive through it's paces and usually catches a bad or flaky drive
its a valuable tool for any hard drive and i use it for all new or questionable hard drives i buy
#6.....just a question....does Ubuntu-Debian boxes handle spin down on each drive separately?

2. I hope you know about SMART function of HDDs ?

6. Sure they do. -hdparm- (utility to set and view HDD params.) is not developed by Unraid team. Any linux based distro can handle HDD control. Pooled Drives stay in sleep mode until you request r/w operation from them.

2 yup..but still i would never see why testing a new drive would not be something you would want to do before dumping your data on it....otherwise what is the point of having any kind of redundancy at all

6 Thanks.....never looked at or touched Linux until i ran into xbmc and unraid

[Rauf27]

#2...something that a few people pointed out without thinking or caring about and it has done nothing but spread from one person to another lol
won't argue that drive prep does take time but just want to point out that the time isn't just spent on "formatting" the drive....those of us unraid users run each drive through a program called "preclear"....sure it does format the drive but the bulk of the time is spent checking..writing and reading each sector which puts a new drive through it's paces and usually catches a bad or flaky drive
its a valuable tool for any hard drive and i use it for all new or questionable hard drives i buy
#6.....just a question....does Ubuntu-Debian boxes handle spin down on each drive separately?

2. I hope you know about SMART function of HDDs ?

6. Sure they do. -hdparm- (utility to set and view HDD params.) is not developed by Unraid team. Any linux based distro can handle HDD control. Pooled Drives stay in sleep mode until you request r/w operation from them.

2 yup..but still i would never see why testing a new drive would not be something you would want to do before dumping your data on it....otherwise what is the point of having any kind of redundancy at all

6 Thanks.....never looked at or touched Linux until i ran into xbmc and unraid

2. I don't mind testing new hardware before using it in production. But you never know how HDD will act after week of use, that is why SMART build in to HDDs. You don't have redundacy with Unraid or similar solutions. That is why any unRAID solution is not used for enterprise.

6. U are welcome

Sorry guys for messing up the thread.

[wsume99]

2. I don't mind testing new hardware before using it in production. But you never know how HDD will act after week of use, that is why SMART build in to HDDs. You don't have redundacy with Unraid or similar solutions. That is why any unRAID solution is not used for enterprise.

There is nothing magical about the preclear operation. All it does is exercise the drive by writing zeros and then ones to all the sectors and then checking to see if the SMART report has changed. You are correct in saying that you will never know how a HDD will act after a week of operation and that is the whole reason for the preclear script. Why not exercise the drive before actually installing it in your array so you won't have a failure after a week of using it and then have to deal with the effects of that failure? Basically the preclear operation is a simple form of burn-in testing that is used to weed out latent defects from manufacturing.

[Rauf27]

2. I don't mind testing new hardware before using it in production. But you never know how HDD will act after week of use, that is why SMART build in to HDDs. You don't have redundacy with Unraid or similar solutions. That is why any unRAID solution is not used for enterprise.

There is nothing magical about the preclear operation. All it does is exercise the drive by writing zeros and then ones to all the sectors and then checking to see if the SMART report has changed. You are correct in saying that you will never know how a HDD will act after a week of operation and that is the whole reason for the preclear script. Why not exercise the drive before actually installing it in your array so you won't have a failure after a week of using it and then have to deal with the effects of that failure? Basically the preclear operation is a simple form of burn-in testing that is used to weed out latent defects from manufacturing.

You didn't get my point. Today you can run preclear script and get a clean blocks but after 1 week your hdd will fail ... I don't wanna argue about this. Any hardware can fail any second and it doesn't matter how hard you are monitoring it. ( it is from my personal experience with enterprise level hardware ). Again if you really care about you hardware and files then you have to have redundancy....

[wsume99]

2. I don't mind testing new hardware before using it in production. But you never know how HDD will act after week of use, that is why SMART build in to HDDs. You don't have redundacy with Unraid or similar solutions. That is why any unRAID solution is not used for enterprise.

There is nothing magical about the preclear operation. All it does is exercise the drive by writing zeros and then ones to all the sectors and then checking to see if the SMART report has changed. You are correct in saying that you will never know how a HDD will act after a week of operation and that is the whole reason for the preclear script. Why not exercise the drive before actually installing it in your array so you won't have a failure after a week of using it and then have to deal with the effects of that failure? Basically the preclear operation is a simple form of burn-in testing that is used to weed out latent defects from manufacturing.

You didn't get my point. Today you can run preclear script and get a clean blocks but after 1 week your hdd will fail ... I don't wanna argue about this. Any hardware can fail any second and it doesn't matter how hard you are monitoring it. ( it is from my personal experience with enterprise level hardware ). Again if you really care about you hardware and files then you have to have redundancy....

You didn't get my point either. There is no agrument here I'm simply stating facts. I agree that any hardware can fail at any second but you have to think about it in terms of probability of failure. I am simply saying that if you burn-in your HDDs before installing them in your server then you are reducing the probability of having a HDD in your server fail due to infant mortality which in turn reduces your overall probability of experiencing a failure. I'm not saying that you won't experience a failure after a week but I am saying that you will be less likely to have it happen as compared to just installing a new drive right into the array. This burn-in technique is very well known and it is used on a widespread basis in a number of industries.

[Rauf27]

[quote='wsume99' pid='1110626' dateline='1337868205']
There is nothing magical about the preclear operation. All it does is exercise the drive by writing zeros and then ones to all the sectors and then checking to see if the SMART report has changed. You are correct in saying that you will never know how a HDD will act after a week of operation and that is the whole reason for the preclear script. Why not exercise the drive before actually installing it in your array so you won't have a failure after a week of using it and then have to deal with the effects of that failure? Basically the preclear operation is a simple form of burn-in testing that is used to weed out latent defects from manufacturing.

This burn-in technique is very well known and it is used on a widespread basis in a number of industries.

Could you please point me to any enterprise level NAS which uses "burn-in technique" before adding HDD to the array ?

[wsume99]

[quote='wsume99' pid='1110626' dateline='1337868205']
There is nothing magical about the preclear operation. All it does is exercise the drive by writing zeros and then ones to all the sectors and then checking to see if the SMART report has changed. You are correct in saying that you will never know how a HDD will act after a week of operation and that is the whole reason for the preclear script. Why not exercise the drive before actually installing it in your array so you won't have a failure after a week of using it and then have to deal with the effects of that failure? Basically the preclear operation is a simple form of burn-in testing that is used to weed out latent defects from manufacturing.

This burn-in technique is very well known and it is used on a widespread basis in a number of industries.

Could you please point me to any enterprise level NAS which uses "burn-in technique" before adding HDD to the array ?

My comment was simply pointing out that burn-in testing is used in a lot of industries (such as aerospace, automotive, & medical devices) meaning that this is not just my opioion but that it is a fact that companies use this technique to weed out bad parts before they are placed into service. If the enterprise NAS industry chooses not to use this method then they are free to do so and I'm sure that there are plenty of reasons why they think it is not worthwhile. Honestly I don't care what enterprise NAS devices do because we're not talking about an enterprise application here. For my home media server application I would never add a new HDD to my array without first performing some burn-in test. Why, because I simply don't trust any HDD OEM to deliver me a quality desktop class HDD 100% of the time and by running it through a few preclear passes I can ensure that the drive is functioning properly and check the SMART reports to ensure the drive is at least stable before putting it into service. If the drive fails during preclear (which I did have one drive go bad) then I just avoided having to recover my array from a failed drive condition.

[bigdog66]

how did we get to enterprise level...my pockets aren't that deep lol

thanks for the info though