steve317

I am new to Unraid and set up my hardware and OS. I pre-cleared both my parity and data drive. I then followed the instructions on the Unraid Getting Started page(s) as to how start everything and assign disks, and as I recall the admin UI indicated it was formatting or something like that. When all that was done, i got error messages from various sources, which seem to all be about this particular issue: disk1 (ST10000VN0004-1ZD101_ZA21QC5B) has file system errors (No file system (32)) Some instructions in Unraid (I don't remember where) indicated I should hibernate it, and Format button would appear next to the disk, or something like that. However, I can't find a button to format the drives anywhere. What am I doing wrong? Why isn't there some obvious way to prepare and format a drive? I need to get this Unraid working as soon as poisble. Thanks in advance!

OPTION D (I think the only dif between this and Option C is a slower CPU and Quad Core vs 6 Core, but $80 cheaper): Server Chassis/ Case SC826TQ-R800LPB Motherboard X8DTN+ Backplane BPN-SAS-826TQ SAS / SATA Direct attached Backplane Compatible with 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB hard drives. NIC * Integrated Dual Intel 1000BASE-T Ports IPMI * Add-On SIMLP-3+ 2-Port IPMI 2.0 Remote Access Management Ethernet Adapter Processor 2x Intel Xeon L5630 (Low Power) Quad (4) Core 2.13GHz Socket: LGA1366 Clockspeed: 2.1 GHz Turbo Speed: 2.4 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Typical TDP: 40 W Memory 24GB DDR3 6x 4GB - DDR3 - REG Hard Drives None ( Add on drive with links below ) RAID / HBA 2x LSI 9210-8i HBA JBOD FREENAS UNRAID With both controller will support all 12 drives HD Caddy 12x 3.5" Caddy Power Supply 2x 800Watt Power Supply Rail Rail Kit 2U PCI-Expansions slots Low Profile 2 (x8) PCI-E 2.0 (1 in x16 slot), 1 (x4) PCI-E (in x 8 slot), 1x 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X, 2x 64-bit 133/100MHz PCI-X

OPTION C: Supermicro 2U 12x 3.5" Drive Bays 1 Nodes Server Chassis/ Case SC826TQ-R800LPB Motherboard X8DTN+ Backplane BPN-SAS-826TQ SAS / SATA Direct attached Backplane Compatible with 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB hard drives. NIC * Integrated Dual Intel 1000BASE-T Ports IPMI * Add-On SIMLP-3+ 2-Port IPMI 2.0 Remote Access Management Ethernet Adapter Processor 2x Intel Xeon L5640 (Low Power) Hex (6) Core 2.26GHz Socket: LGA1366 Clockspeed: 2.8 GHz Turbo Speed: 2.8 GHz No of Cores: 6 (2 logical cores per physical) Typical TDP: 60 W Memory 24GB DDR3 6x 4GB - DDR3 - REG Hard Drives None ( Add on drive with links below ) RAID / HBA 2x LSI 9210-8i HBA JBOD FREENAS UNRAID With both controller will support all 12 drives HD Caddy 12x 3.5" Caddy Power Supply 2x 800Watt Power Supply Rail Rail Kit 2U PCI-Expansions slots Low Profile 2 (x8) PCI-E 2.0 (1 in x16 slot), 1 (x4) PCI-E (in x 8 slot), 1x 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X, 2x 64-bit 133/100MHz PCI-X

Was this already sold? I tried to view the Craigslist ad, but it says it's been deleted.

We are looking to use an Unraid to store a lot of Final Cut Pro X files in one central location, and access/view them and do some minor edits from a workstation on the same gigabit LAN switch. We may also store an iTunes collection on there as well as some much older video files in iMovie format. We're a small school with many hours of video footage spread out over many, many external hard drives collected over the years -- and we are now in a position where we need to relocate some of those files off of old hard drives before they fail; and it makes more sense to jump on a server to finally consolidate all of these files rather than buy yet another few 8TB Seagate external drives @ $179. I have a big IT and software background; and some experience with hardware -- but I have tried and tried and just can't get a handle all the nuances and minimums to build an Unraid server ourselves -- or to even be really clear about buying something that meets the requirements... This is especially true because it's not clear how our use case of an Final Cut Pro and iTunes file server varies from Lime Tech's hw recommendations for various other apps. So, I'm hoping someone can just treat my like I'm somewhere around 14 years old and just tell me if any of these will work for our needs, and which one is best (and/or if there's someone in the Unraid community who sells something that would work for us for a low price). Here's what we're looking at: OPTION A: Server Chassis/ Case CSE-216E16-R800UB Motherboard X8DTU-F Backplane BPN-SAS2-216EL1 24-port 2U SAS2 6Gbps single-expander backplane, support up to 24x 2.5-inch SAS2/SATA3 HDD NIC * Integrated Dual Intel 1000BASE-T Ports IPMI * Integrated IPMI 2.0 Management Processor 2x Intel Xeon L5640 (Low Power) Hex (6) Core 2.26GHz Socket: LGA1366 Clockspeed: 2.8 GHz Turbo Speed: 2.8 GHz No of Cores: 6 (2 logical cores per physical) Typical TDP: 60 W Memory 48GB DDR3 12 x 4GB - DDR3 - REG RAID / HBA 1x LSI 9211-4i HBA JBOD FREENAS UNRAID (with sas2 expander will hold all 24 drives) HD Caddy 24x 2.5" Caddy Power Supply 2x 800Watt Power Supply Rail Rail Kit 2U PCI-Expansions slots 4 x Full Height PCI-E x8 slot (RSC-R2UU-A4E8+) OPTION B: Motherboard : X8DTl-3F-TM010 Front Backplane : SAS-846EL1 ( Just Support up to 2TB Per Hard drive ) Rear backplane : SAS-826EL1 ( Just Support up to 2TB Per Hard drive ) 2 x CPU Six-core E5649 2.53Ghz Ram : 6x 8GB (Total: 48GB) 36 Caddy/Tray as in picture Power Supply : 2 (1400 Watt) ______________ I have been interested in getting an Unpaid for years (we even bought the OS flash drives years ago and never did anything with them), but there's always been some amount of doubt or confusion as to whether this will really suit our needs. We need to do something right away, to avoid either problems or double-spending a lot of money we don't have -- and I don't want to buy into another, expensive platform that may not be any better or may even be worse if Unraid will do the job. Please feel free to share your 2 cents as to whether or not I'm on the right track here, with this hardware or even using Unraid at all. Thanks!

Thanks for all this info. Can you clarify -- are you saying I shouldn't use the unRAID to view the archived videos -- I shouldn't play them on my local computer while they're stored on the unRAID, but instead should copy them to a local HDD or SSD even to view them, or do I only need to to do that to edit them? Also, the big next step is knowing what to build. Is there a good up-to-date list of parts to get for the kind of system I want to build? Or is it best to go with Lime Tech's -- will it wind up costing me the same or more just to build it from scratch? Thanks!

Thank you for the encouragement and guidance. Now, assuming unRaid is suitable for a large video storage system used for infrequent editing on Final Cut Pro, what I'm hoping for is some guidance on what system to get or build: I've looked around the web and these forums, and it's not clear to me where a current list is. I've seen some recommended builds from many years ago, but I assume that some of those are out of date. Are there any current lists of good configurations of large capacity unRaid servers, preferably with prices listed?

Hi, I posted here a couple of years ago and then had to backburner our unRaid project. I'm back and looking to finally get an unRaid system set up asap. I have a couple of questions, and I'm hoping you guys can help. Here are my questions, and then the details: 1) Is unRaid even the right solution? Part of what happened is that some people (including I think the Lime Tech folks themselves) were saying it's not optimal for video; but I know everything has evolved rapidly and I also don't know if I'm right about this. 2) What is the best server hardware for us and how do I get it? OUR USE CASE: We're an educational institution on an extremely low budget. We have a huge backlog of videos -- thousands of hours of our educational programs recorded over the past decade+ that for now will be used for internal training purposes but eventually we may edit into some public videos. For now, our big challenge is to fit them all on a storage device, organize them, and access them easily (but not regularly -- so they aren't being constantly broadcast or reviewed 24/7). We will have them all organized (and sometimes edited) on Final Cut Pro; with some old ones still in iMovie that will eventually be imported into Final Cut Pro. The big issue is that they are currently strewn chaotically across 10-20 old 1-4tb external HDDs we've purchased over the years, some of which may be ready to fail, as HDDs do. The videos (and Final Cut Pro library data and/or whatever else is related to storing media in FCP) will be stored on the unRaid. I'm assuming the way we'll do this is then access the unRaid via the LAN from a Mac running FCP. So, hopefully this clarifies what we need to build (below), and lets everyone be able to tell me if unRaid is unsuited to this. (Should we just buy some kind of NAS? Should we just sell a couple of kidneys and buy some sort of SAN system?) I keep looking at other things, and keep coming back to unRaid, but I still don't know if that's a correct judgement on my part. OUR HARDWARE NEEDS: We are on a budget, so, for example, if we can get something for $500 instead of $1,000, or $1,000 instead of $1,500, that's a big deal and we want to do so. On the other hand I've seen some forum posts listing a home-made system where a person itemizes $300-400 for each of three different components plus other items. At that point it would be cheaper to buy the one Lime Tech sells for $1,500. And if the Lime Tech built option (currently listed at $1,500) is best for us, then we will do that. Or if our needs require something more powerful, but it can be had for the same $1,500 but by building it ourselves, then we can do that. We might also interested in some other person or company that sells unRaid hardware; but Googling for that has not returned obvious pathways to move on that plan. We're new to this kind of hardware build, so that's why if there's a fairly priced pre-built option, we're very interested. On the other hand, we'd love for this system to cost $500 to well under $1,000, so we can buy more HDDs now. But maybe our capacity needs mean we need to buy something higher end than $500 will afford. Our capacity needs are that we'd like to be able to get up to that aprox 70TB+ capacity that a few of the systems have: In other words, we want as many drive bays as possible -- not 5, prob at least 8, but prob much better to have at least 10 or more. We don't want to and can't afford to build a new storage server in the near future, so we want this one to last a while; and our video collection grows fast. Our competency is that I regularly open computer cases and do routine upgrades like HDDs/SSDs and RAM, with the occasional repair; I've been doing this and working with computers for 30 years, so while I've never built a PC from scratch, it's not a giant leap of experience or thinking for me. That said, I haven't ever done it, so some of those list of parts needed just to get it operational (not to upgrade it!) are a little intimidating. I'll do it if it makes sense and won't result in a terrible system, or I'll go the turnkey route and buy from some Lime or some other fine proprietor if that's best and affordable. Thanks in advance for any help, expertise, insight, opinions, and/or proselytizing you can offer.

I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion on Western Digital Caviar 2TB EARS vs EADS. I'm ready to order the EADS right now before the sale ends today at NewEgg, but I know the EARS are a newer technology/format, and I like to not buy something on it's way out. With something like unRAID, I could imagine an older technology being an advantage in someway, for reliability, speed, etc.; but I could also see the newer technology being beneficial as new features are rolled out in the software. I can't find a solid answer on this anywhere (maybe that's because searching for either acronomyn produces pages of search results with the words Appears or Reads in them ). Some people say the EARS have problems, even if you jumper them. The prices on EARS vs EADs is similar, so that's not really a factor. Anyone have opinions on EARS vs EADS?

Thanks everyone! This is great -- this is the handholding i was hoping for! So, I'm thinking I might try to build this myself -- I was worried about overlooking critical components, but it appears the wiki page lists all the things I need to get, and it seems like I can pretty much just order all of it from New Egg. A few questions: (1) Is there are reason to get more RAM than the standard 1GB? I know Lime was offering an 8GB RAM upgrade, and RAM is relatively cheap; but just because it's cheap doesn't mean I want to spend the money for no reason. (2) Is there any reason to get a better CPU than the Celeron. I have a reflexive cringe response to the Celeron from old Windows workstations, but ditto on my spending guidelines from question 1. (3) Does the Lian Li P80 box make more sense than the Norco 4220? I do like the idea of being able to rackmount it later if we want to (we have a giant server rack in the back office, but for now will leave this in the staff room at the video editing desk). But I heard the Norco is loud and it's certainly big and heavy. On the other hand, is there any kind of disadvantage to the P80 or some other box that you have to put expansion cages in? I've tried to get a definitive answer from other forum posts but couldn't find anything on this. Anyone's opinions or pontifications on these issues are certainly welcome...

Yes, that's what I'm looking to do -- either have some put a box together for us, or get some handholding about how to build it ourself in a way that's pretty dummy-proof (i.e. I'm an IT guy, but I haven't built my own box, so I need it to be dummy proof for a dummy IT guy, not a dummy layperson).

Okay, thank for that information on the 3TB drives not working in unRAID. I wondered about that issue. When I found the 3TB drives this weekend, I read that Mac OS supported them even as boot drives, but Windows did not. It sounded like it was an issue with Windows, not with the logic board, so I figured under Unix systems like unRAID it would work. I guess I'm back to 2TB drives then, which is fine for now. Hopefully, unRAID will be able to handle 3TB right about when we run out of space on the 2TB drives someday!

Thanks for the responses. I wouldn't mind building it myself if it saves money and doesn't take too much time, and had the kindness of strangers to guide me through it. I am also willing to pay someone else who knows what they're doing if it means saving us significant time and it's still reasonably priced (our budget is tight) -- and if the reality of building a system like this nowadays is a potential mechanical and/or wiring quagmire. We need to just have it up and running soon and if I can do that myself quickly, I will, but while I've upgraded machines before frequently, I've never built a box -- motherboard, CPU and all -- from scratch. LOCATION: We are located in Massachusetts -- the city of Northampton in the western part of the state. CAPACITY: We probably only need about 10TB right now, but will need to option to expand. That's why I was looking at Lime's 1500 models rather than the 1200. We will need to add 100's of hours of HD video to this unit each year, and we'd like to avoid filling it up right away. The fact that Western Digital has 3TB HDDs now, and are less than $100/TB means we were thinking we might get some of those rather than 2TB HDDs to make this thing last as long as possible. BUDGET: While we're trying to keep the costs low, we don't want to be pennywise and pound foolish. For, example, if, say, the P80 box is something much better for cooling and noise than the P50, we'd rather pay the extra for that upfront and have a more functional and sustainable box long-term. Originally I was hoping build it yourself meant we could keep the box under the $1,299 Lime was charging, and hopefully more like $800. However, I realize that may not be possible for what we're looking for (including if it means, say, that an extra hundred allows to keep a box longer because we can expand to a more HDD bays in the future). We are open to any arguments or information about why it will cost a bit more or what the value of that would be.

We want to buy something like the MD-1510/LL to store a lot of video on an unRAID system. However, all of Lime-Tech's servers seem to be out of stock. (Frankly, I'm not even sure why I'm jumping into investing in this system, as they haven't updated the front of their website since they went out of stock on the RB-1200 back in January and they've ignored every sales etc. inquiry I've made to them all year. However, it does seem to be the best storage format, so here I am going for it anyway.) I looked into building something from scratch using a LIAN LI PC-P80 or P50, but on further investigation I think it will be a bit out of my scope to build it from scratch myself, and we really just want to get it up and running as soon as we can. Is someone selling a similar unit to Lime's MD-1510 at a reasonable price? It could be a company like New Egg or an individual who will or has put something together like this. We hope someone will let us know soon, as our current storage system is rapidly becoming unmanageable. Thanks!