unRAID Server (Video Explanation)
#16
thethirdnut Wrote:Also, not subject to being wiped from existence by Oracle.

Neither is ZFS.


Mach13 Wrote:no RAID setup is a backup solution! RAID does not guarantee file integrity. True or False?

Traditional RAID: True.
ZFS: False.
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#17
I especially liked this one:
Feature: How Parity works

Thanks for the videos eskro. Very informative.
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#18
no problem spencers...

it made me understand unRAID very clearly Smile
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#19
Big Grin 
maxinc Wrote:And Windows costs money as well ... unless one uses a pirated copy (which I'm sure it's not your case).

we students get it for free Big Grin (MSDNAA)
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#20
ashlar Wrote:Guys, relax... I hope it's clear that I respect unRAID. But to do what you are doing you need to learn Linux. Were there no alternatives... Maybe. An alternative, for my needs, exists. Hence I use it.

And please, do not make it sound as if using all the stuff you listed it's easy and "out of the box". It's not and it is supported just by the users on the forum, not officially by the company that sells you the product (yeah, FlexRAID is free, unRAID not).

In any case, in my opinion, Lime-tech should work on a full distribution. As long as implementing other server functions it's a job for Linux-heads... The product will always be lacking. Eskro did tons of tutorials, none concerning how to use it as a full OS. Because that's not what it is.

It is a good product, though, no doubt about it.

Edit: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7524.0

There you go. I need Squeezebox server. I search the forums, this is what I come up with. I use an OS that does what I want. Simple Smile
For a Linux power user it's a great solution.


actually most add on type items are easily installed from a program called unmenu that is easy to install when you install unraid to your flash drive......
funny thing is we are discussing being a linux head on the forums of a program that a lot of people say you need to be a linux head to use...lol
just like this forum and running the live version of xbmc and unraid and their forums most things you would want to run plenty of info can be found in the forums so you don't need to be a linux guru to run it.....I have said before that I had not even looked at linux before and I am running live on a revo 1600 and running an unraid server
xbmc came first and it has been fantastic
then i looked at Nas software.....boiled down to unraid and flexraid
flexraid seems to be good software albeit not having a live parity function yet
the thing that swayed me was the lack of activity on their forums....i even posted kind of a shout out post to check activity.....didn't go to well...lol
not that it alone would say how well the software would be but i had confidence in unraid also but hey its software and things go wrong....i just wanted to know that when there was a problem that there would be more than 1 person who could help
so with a very active forum.....a lot of add ons written by other users and all the other advantages thats why I chose unraid

given enough time in a Nas software discussion then the "bit rot" crusaders would come out.....whats up darkscout....lol

also given only 1 drive would be eaten up for parity....can freely add any size drive and freely add them 1 at a time since im not independently wealthy sealed the deal for me
sure you can use some other software to add more protection but if you have some data that is truly that important to you then you wont leave it to ANY software and will have multiple backups of it anyway....so the money spent on unraid for an upper license is a lot cheaper than the other hard drives will cost for more protection
and i don't care how many parity drives you can run but the day that saves your Nas from fire flood or major lightning strike then that's the software i will go with...lol
WE ALL WE GOT
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#21
+1 bigdog66
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#22
eskro Wrote:+1 bigdog66

Amen!

Been running unRAID for about 5+ years now without issue, if this is immature I'd love to see mature! Not having live parity calcs is crazy IMO. Between torrents, backups, and me adding movies or music my poor machine wouldn't have a full parity ever using FlexRAID. I too have a few small things using unMENU on my unRAID but it's pretty minimal. My data is too precious to me. Maybe when 5.x is out of beta and the add-on interface is official I'll run more. Cool
Openelec Gotham, MCE remote(s), Intel i3 NUC, DVDs fed from unRAID cataloged by DVD Profiler. HD-DVD encoded with Handbrake to x.264. Yamaha receiver(s)
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#23
BLKMGK Wrote:If this is immature I'd love to see mature!

Maybe you missed my post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS

Screw "parity calcs", I want checksummed bits.
Code:
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IF you have a mysql problem, find one of the 4 dozen threads already open.
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#24
I'm aware of ZFS, it's interesting to me, it has downsides I'm not yet willing to accept - I mentioned it in another posting earlier today actually. Right now with ZFS being BSD and Solaris primarily it's not exactly knocking my socks off for support. Deduplication is a big plus for me, parity calcs not something I'm sweating right now. Bitrot isn't something I'm losing sleep over these days. Pools is a concept I'm not sure I want either vs what I have now but I could maybe get used to it as I did the unRAID method for sharing. If I ran this it would be under FUSE and right now, just not feeling like it's fully baked and reading the Wiki entry you linked doesn't make that better - sorry. I have servers staying up 4-5 months only being brought down for new software or to swap drives. I have a feeling a FreeNAS or FUSE implemented ZFS would be less reliable for me IMO. I'm kinda' happy not having to delve into the guts of my NAS. Perhaps one day I'll try it out as I can see some features I would certainly like and others I'm less sure of <shrug>
Openelec Gotham, MCE remote(s), Intel i3 NUC, DVDs fed from unRAID cataloged by DVD Profiler. HD-DVD encoded with Handbrake to x.264. Yamaha receiver(s)
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#25
I"ve been reading the information on setting up an unRAID server. This spring as soon as hard drive prices fall, I am going to put mine together Smile

Question: For me, my data/music/videos are just to valuable for me to take a chance, even with unRAID without also having a backup of my unRAID data. What is best way to accomplish this? I plan on putting together a 12 disk unRAID server setup. Currently I have 4 3TB external USB hard drives. Could I run a backup of my unRAID setup to these 4 external USB hard drives for my backup solution? So, worst case, if somehow my unRAID completely failed, I would have everything backed up to my USB external drives. I know this won't help if I have a fire or theft, but this will be good enough for me. For my extremely precious data, such as home videos and photos of my kids throughout the years, I have those backing up via mozy and also have a copy offsite..Obviously running Mozy with 6-18TB of data is not going to workSmile. What backup products would you recommend for what I am trying to accomplish? Just run the backup on my Win7 machine with the USB drives attached and backup my unRAID array via my wired network? Or can I plug my usb drives into my unRAID box and backup directly that way?
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#26
What is up with the thread hijack? Seems pretty petty to me.

ashlar Wrote:I suggest FlexRAID is kept in mind by potential users of unRAID. It's multiOS and doesn't force you to set up a dedicated machine (which makes troublesome having other stuff going in the background, such as torrents/newsgroups/squeezebox server/DLNA server/etc.).
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#27
tantal Wrote:What is up with the thread hijack? Seems pretty petty to me.

indeed. and with ZFS too.

Eskro is just linking some videos to help people better understand unRAID. This guy is devoted to helping out people with HTPCs. Maybe the advice isn't always the absolute best, but it's definitely a good option.

Stop hijacking the thread and comment on the unRAID videos instead. If you want a ZFS, FreeNAS, FreeBSD, etc. thread, start a new one or comment on one of the many asking for the comparison/difference of them.
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#28
So - stupid question.

Maybe I'm a bit of a noob to these NAS systems - I've tried software RAID before with my iMac (I guess it's called AppleRAID) and had bad luck. Lost a 4 TB striped array and had to start my media collection over from scratch. Luckily none of the data was personal or irreplaceable.

Anyway - before I get further off topic - I watched some of the videos here on unRAID and I'm just not sure exactly how it works. Right now my amateur setup includes 6 2TB drives, where 3 reside as external USB drives on my iMac (dumb I know) and 3 reside in my HTPC. The HTPC is connected to my main network through power line networking (where I'm seeing transfer speeds of about 3-4 MB (read Bytes) a second. I'm mirroring these drives through manual rsyncing on my iMac. Before browsing these forums this evening, my plan was to build a NAS box - attach it directly to the main router (hopefully improving transfer speeds to my 4 XBMC client boxes) using some kind of Linux based server, since I could install the MySQL backend on an SSD or something that's also running the OS on that machine. I thought about going with Windows Server 2008 R2 since I get that for free from my MSDN account anyway and since I'm familiar with setting up and maintaining SMB shares in that environment already. But then I realized I've had bad luck with getting rsync to run in that environment before, so I don't really know what to do. (If it's not clear how poorly honed and randomly developed my hack-fu skills are from my rambling question, I'd like to emphasize that point now.)

This unRAID system intrigues me, but how reliable is it? I'm just now filling up my 6TB of space, and I'd like to not have to pay the exorbitant hard drive prices for a while, but I don't want to risk data loss, either. I'm thinking that an rsync driven mirror running off crontab (which Apple replaced with launch.d - still haven't gotten my head around how to set that up) is safer than this, but I really want someone to talk me into it. Or does it sound like I'm in over my head?
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#29
The striped array you lost was a RAID0 and a disk failed? That's not hugely surprising, that's what's meant to happen.

To answer your question, I would said they unraid is 'perfectly reliable' for your use. It's simple to setup, use and expand, all you need is a spare machine to dedicate to it.
I run ZFS on freebsd personally - It's 'better in every way' except that it's memory hungry and harder to expand without planning, unraid you can simply buy disks one at a time, plug them in and your data is safe - perfect for storing a growing media collection.
You need to sacrifice one disk to parity to keep your data safe, things like unraid make that very easy to do.
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#30
I been so happy with my rig....
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unRAID Server (Video Explanation)1