unRAID vs. Flexraid vs. Others?

(2012-07-10 12:41)assassin Wrote:  Because unraid is free up to a few drives. That's why it is more popular on here.

Only partly true.
I've seen where Software game companies are releasing games where you can play up to the first level.
If you enjoy it,..you buy the full product.
I've downloaded a few games this way,..and have only bought a very few.
The rest were just plain boring,..or just plain bad.

I think you're finding that people give the free 3-disk unRaid version a try,...and then when they find out how
simple it is to use,..they are more than willing to pay for the upgrade. Me included.

If unRaid was bad,..people would have found out a long time ago, wrote about, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

(2012-07-10 21:17)GortWillSaveUs Wrote:  

(2012-07-10 12:41)assassin Wrote:  Because unraid is free up to a few drives. That's why it is more popular on here.

Only partly true.
I've seen where Software game companies are releasing games where you can play up to the first level.
If you enjoy it,..you buy the full product.
I've downloaded a few games this way,..and have only bought a very few.
The rest were just plain boring,..or just plain bad.

I think you're finding that people give the free 3-disk unRaid version a try,...and then when they find out how
simple it is to use,..they are more than willing to pay for the upgrade. Me included.

If unRaid was bad,..people would have found out a long time ago, wrote about, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

When did I ever say unRaid is bad? I did no such thing. I think its a great option although not quite as good as FlexRaid.

BTW you can try FlexRaid for free as well now.

The best is to try each product for yourself. You are always going to get individuals that have a opinion about which is better without having tried each option themselves.

Flexraid and unraid is two very different products aiming to give you the same result. Both are safe to use regardless what people on this forum will claim.

(2012-07-10 21:00)teaguecl Wrote:  

(2012-07-10 12:41)assassin Wrote:  Because unraid is free up to a few drives. That's why it is more popular on here.

If free is what makes it popular, then everyone would use Snapraid. I've chose Unraid because it's a reliable product, well vetted by many users here and AVS. It optimizes the things a media server needs - namely capacity and read speeds. It's also pretty darn simple to setup, unlike anything I've seen using ZFS. Flexraid may be a great product - but I wouldn't try it until I'd seen many positive endorsements of it by people who use it the way I do - namely the crowd here at XBMC forums. I haven't seen that, so therefore I didn't pursue Flexraid. Great product or not, I don't want to use my media server as the guinea pig.
For everyone looking for a comparison, the best one I've seen so far is provided by Snapraid: http://snapraid.sourceforge.net/compare.html

---

(2012-07-10 17:43)Sliphorn Wrote:  I'm leaning toward FlexRAID at the moment for a few reasons, not the least of which is that my disks are already full and NTFS.

With Unraid you don't need to completely wipe all of your disks simultaneously, you only need to clear one disk. For example, I started with one empty disk. I did this by moving everything on it to the extra space on my other 4 drives. Then take the empty disk and add it to the Unraid array (which will clear it). Now copy data from data disk #2 into the array. When done with that, add disk #2 to the array. Do that until everything is in. Make the last drive you add the parity drive, and you're done.
So yes, you have to clear a disk in order to add it to Unraid - but it's not as onerous as some make it out to be. Already full drives aren't that big of a deal. The fact that you use NTFS is a problem I can't help you with

That's really a great comparison chart. I mean, it's no substitution for actually testing them firsthand, but it is very convenient and revealing.

That said, I'll try FlexRAID first, since it'll be free to try and the most convenient for starters...then I'll go from there. Thanks for all of your opinions. I'm learning a lot.

(2012-07-10 22:27)assassin Wrote:  

(2012-07-10 21:17)GortWillSaveUs Wrote:  

(2012-07-10 12:41)assassin Wrote:  Because unraid is free up to a few drives. That's why it is more popular on here.

Only partly true.
I've seen where Software game companies are releasing games where you can play up to the first level.
If you enjoy it,..you buy the full product.
I've downloaded a few games this way,..and have only bought a very few.
The rest were just plain boring,..or just plain bad.

I think you're finding that people give the free 3-disk unRaid version a try,...and then when they find out how
simple it is to use,..they are more than willing to pay for the upgrade. Me included.

If unRaid was bad,..people would have found out a long time ago, wrote about, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

When did I ever say unRaid is bad? I did no such thing. I think its a great option although not quite as good as FlexRaid.

BTW you can try FlexRaid for free as well now.

Relax Assassin. I was speaking in the general sense and not making a personal attack or trying to put words in your mouth.
Let me restate what I said,.......

If any product is bad,..people usually find out pretty quickly, write about, and the product slips from any discussion.
In the case of companies that offer free trials,...it usually means their product is awesome and they know it.
They know that once people try it,..they'll love it,..and will willingly pay for an upgrade.

The bottom-line is, ANY product has its pros and cons,..fortunately for all of us,..both products have a free version.

(2012-07-11 13:54)GortWillSaveUs Wrote:  

(2012-07-10 22:27)assassin Wrote:  

(2012-07-10 21:17)GortWillSaveUs Wrote:  Only partly true.
I've seen where Software game companies are releasing games where you can play up to the first level.
If you enjoy it,..you buy the full product.
I've downloaded a few games this way,..and have only bought a very few.
The rest were just plain boring,..or just plain bad.

I think you're finding that people give the free 3-disk unRaid version a try,...and then when they find out how
simple it is to use,..they are more than willing to pay for the upgrade. Me included.

If unRaid was bad,..people would have found out a long time ago, wrote about, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

When did I ever say unRaid is bad? I did no such thing. I think its a great option although not quite as good as FlexRaid.

BTW you can try FlexRaid for free as well now.

Relax Assassin. I was speaking in the general sense and not making a personal attack or trying to put words in your mouth.
Let me restate what I said,.......

If any product is bad,..people usually find out pretty quickly, write about, and the product slips from any discussion.
In the case of companies that offer free trials,...it usually means their product is awesome and they know it.
They know that once people try it,..they'll love it,..and will willingly pay for an upgrade.

The bottom-line is, ANY product has its pros and cons,..fortunately for all of us,..both products have a free version.

+1. Well said.

Thanks for all the help.

I just migrated from unRAID to Flexraid. I had no complaints with unRAID, but I wanted to consolidate the number of boxes running in our house. Flexraid + 7MC + XBMC is a fantastic solution for us.