is unRaid right for me?


Recommended Posts

Quote

For your issue, plan. If you filled that all up I'd start looking at expandable NAS solutions. I feel like if those drives started failing, bitroting, corrupting you'd be pretty upset. But that's also where it sounds like youre at now, a bunch of full drives with no redundancy that you probably can't easily swap or really detect any problems with until they disappear. Plus I'm assuming there's drives C through K which make organizing stuff difficult across 8 identical individual pools.

Source : https://www.reddit.com/r/kodi/comments/66ngi9/cheapest_hdd_solution_and_kodi_player/

 

That user is pretty much spot on, I need a new solution. I been reading a lot and will continue to do so.
My main problem is I need more storage, and my PC#1 has ran out of SATA ports. Even got rid of my DVD Drive and use a slim external one to free up a sata port. So my next plan is to move to my other PC#2 instead of it being my HTPC, it will be my next place to keep all my HDDs. I will be buying a smaller device to handle my HTPC needs instead. 
So PC#2, I can start adding HDDs and do what I been doing. Bunch of HDDs, bunch of drive letters, and so on. Should I do that though? Windows 10 requires a lot of updates and restarts, it is no longer a good choice for a PC that just needs to provide HDD access. So, I need a suggestion on another OS? I been hearing a lot of buzz words like raid, but it looks like I lose storage, and in some setups, I can lose all of my data if just 1 of the many drives fail. Then I learned about UnRaid, is this what I need? What do you guys suggest? I don’t have server racks yet, maybe one day. I want to add HDD without any fuzz, no matter what capacity. I want a single drive letter from now on. 


Things I heard of: OpenMediaVault (haven't read on it yet), FreeNAS (currently reading), UnRAID (read the intro & liked)? 
side note: Having a backup of all of my blurays isn't critical. It's easier, cheaper but more time consuming to just burn them again. Don't need a backup of them, I would like a list of my movies, as it would help me track down my losses after a HDD loss. 
In fact my current backup solution currently excludes my media folders on purpose. 

PC#1

  •     OS: Windows 10 Pro
  •     CPU: AMD FX6350
  •     RAM: 24GB DDR3
  •     MOBO: GigaByte 990FXA-UD3
  •     GPU: AMD HD6850
  •     HDD: 5
  •     SSD: 1
  •     CASE: Antec Three Hundred-Two

PC#2

  •     OS: Windows 10 Pro (used for Kodi)
  •     CPU: AMD Phenom 9100e
  •     RAM: 6GB DDR2
  •     Mobo: Generic (Gateway RS780)
  •     GPU: AMD HD 6450
  •     HDD: 0
  •     SSD: 1
  •     CASE: Antec Three Hundred 

I have a Vero 4K on the way, it will be my dedicated kodi machine. Also ordering a new flash drive, the cruzer one with small profile will work great.

 

It's way past my bedtime, i'll be back tomorrow night.  I hope I posted this under the right section. 

Link to comment

UnRAID will allow you to use drives of all sizes. There is some overhead though. The parity drive must be equal to or larger than any other drive size and can't be used to store data since it's storing parity info. With unRAID, disk loss isn't usually a problem since a single parity machine will preserve data in the event of a single hdd failure and a dual parity machine will protect against dual hdd failures. This allows time to replace the failed drive(s) without losing data.

 

You can probably find much more info on the LimeTech website.

 

If you decide to go with unRAID, I'd recommend posting your possible hardware choices in the hardware forum before making any purchases. Might save you from costly mistakes.

Link to comment

Hello and welcome.  We're used to people hitting us with pretty complex opening topics, but it sounds like your questions are pretty straightforward?

 

Yes, unRAID is NAS (Network Attached Storage) software (and it does more as well).  Yes, it would be a great solution to help you organize your storage needs.  unRAID has the concept of a User Share - a user share (say Movies or Documents) spans across multiple physical disks.  So via Windows you access \\tower\Documents or map a drive to that, and that gives you access to all the storage on your server.  

 

By default you will set aside one of your hard drives as the Parity drive in unRAID - this will help protect you from data loss.  That doesn't mean your data is backed up, though - you'll still need an overall backup strategy, which unRAID will be part of.

Link to comment
2 hours ago, chris1bass said:

Thank you, I'm looking forward to learn more about unRaid. I really do think it's the right one for me

One thing nobody has mentioned yet, and the reason I chose unRAID years ago: the forum and its members are very helpful.:)

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

As a newbie I need help similar to what Chris1bass was asking. 

My personal computer is running Win10 Pro 64 bit on an Asus X97 Pro mobo, with an i7-4790K CPU, and using a Samsung 512GB SSD for the OS. 

I have a tech friend building me a combination NAS-MediaServer. 
It is intended to contain and distribute across my home LAN , all family photos, videos, and music. 
(probably using PLEX and a Roku client box at each home TV, I so far believe)

 

The server case has 12 bays for 3.5" HDDs.  I am populating it with 12 Seagate IronWolf 8TB HDDs. 
If I use one 8TB for parity, and a second for cache (or should I consider a 1TB SSD for the cache?), do you recommend using unRAID in a one 10 disk set RAID 6 style approach , or in a two 5 disk RAID 6 sets married in a RAID 60 style approach? 

 

The server mobo is a dual Xenon Asus Z10PE-D8 WS , with two Xeon E5-2603 V4 CPUs. The OS (C:) drive is a Samsung 950 Pro nvme SSD. 
Please advise me on your recommendations for RAM. 

 

I have been trained most of my life to believe that a hardware RAID controller is always superior to software RAID. 
Recently I read the AnandTech article reporting on your unRAID 6 product.  
I understand the primo Achilles heel of using a controller card is the catastrophic failure of that hardware card. 
I further believe all hardware controller cards use proprietary massaging of the data written across the storage drives. 
I may be ready to abandon hardware RAID controller cards. 

 

I read the instructions set out in your "Getting Started with unRAID Server OS" and I am unclear about "...alter configuration settings in your BIOS".  
I believe you were referring to the BIOS of the unRAID 6 Server OS .   Or were you referring to a different BIOS?  To me you were not being very clear.  

 

I am inferring from the "Getting Started..." instructions that pre-installation (on the server machine) of a Linux OS (or any other OS) is not required.  I had believed that Linux was a pre-requisite. 
Now I perceive unRAID to be an Server OS, and an underlying Linux or Windows etc is not required on the NAS/MediaServer machine.  Is that correct? 

I have been out of my depth software wise ever since we left DOS behind.  Any help you may provide will be greatly appreciated. 
Captmcnet 
 

Link to comment

UnRAID is an OS based on Linux.     However it boots from the USB drive (which also acts as the license key verifier) and unpacks itself into RAM and subsequently runs from RAM.   After the initial boot the only use of the USB stick is for storing configuration information.  There is therefore no pre-requisite in terms of pre-installed software - you just need to set up the USB stick according to the instructions on the Limetech site.

Link to comment
19 minutes ago, Captmcnet said:

If I use one 8TB for parity, and a second for cache (or should I consider a 1TB SSD for the cache?

An 8TB cache would be a waste IMO. My cache is a 500GB SSD and I seldom use more than 50% of that since most of the files are only located there temporarily.

 

19 minutes ago, Captmcnet said:

do you recommend using unRAID in a one 10 disk set RAID 6 style approach , or in a two 5 disk RAID 6 sets married in a RAID 60 style approach? 

unRAID is not raid. While it is possible to mount disks outside the array there will only be a single array.

 

19 minutes ago, Captmcnet said:

I read the instructions set out in your "Getting Started with unRAID Server OS" and I am unclear about "...alter configuration settings in your BIOS".  
I believe you were referring to the BIOS of the unRAID 6 Server OS .   Or were you referring to a different BIOS?  To me you were not being very clear.  

Any reference to bios is talking about the motherboard bios settings.

Edited by wgstarks
Link to comment

FYI- Many people use raid controllers as part of their build, but in IT mode (think JBOD). They are used to connect multiple disks but perform no raid functions. If one of the controllers were to fail you would lose access to the connected disks until the controller was replaced but no data would be lost from the disks.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Captmcnet said:

there is no need for a C: system drive?

The unRAID OS unpacks from USB flash drive into RAM and runs in RAM as mentioned. The whole notion of a C: system drive is pretty much a Windows thing.

 

1 hour ago, Captmcnet said:

Could I use my nvme SSD as the cache drive ? 

Yes.

 

2 hours ago, Captmcnet said:

unRAID in a one 10 disk set RAID 6 style approach , or in a two 5 disk RAID 6 sets married in a RAID 60 style approach? 

You should take a look at the Overview linked earlier in this thread. unRAID is not RAID.

 

Link to comment

Tks trurl, I will take another run at the Overview article;

it may make better sense now that you guys have cleared up my questions. 

 

Referring to my Server setup, I also had stated, 

"The server mobo is a dual Xenon Asus Z10PE-D8 WS , with two Xeon E5-2603 V4 CPUs. ...
Please advise me on your recommendations for RAM." 

I have read that 1GB RAM is recommended for each 1TB of HDD storage space. 

Should this be ECC RAM ? 

What type RAM and how much RAM do you guys recommend ?

 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Captmcnet said:

Referring to my Server setup, I also had stated, 

"The server mobo is a dual Xenon Asus Z10PE-D8 WS , with two Xeon E5-2603 V4 CPUs. ...
Please advise me on your recommendations for RAM." 

I have read that 1GB RAM is recommended for each 1TB of HDD storage space. 

Should this be ECC RAM ? 

What type RAM and how much RAM do you guys recommend ?

 

Not sure where you read that recommendation - it does not apply to unRAID.   The basic NAS functionality runs in about 2GB of RAM.   If you are going to use dockers then you probably want to have something like 4-8GB.   If you then want `VMs as well you need to add in the RAM requirements of the maximum number of VMs you are going to use simultaneously.   In terms of whether you buy ECC RAM that is really up to you - many users run without it although some say that once you are going for server grade hardware then using ECC RAM makes sense.

Link to comment

1GB per 1TB is nonsense spread by the FreeNAS neckbeards.  It's total balderdash even for FreeNAS.  ECC likewise, it's not required.

 

If you're not running VMs, 4GB is plenty for unRAID.  I have 16GB in my main unRAID and it rarely goes over 15% RAM utilisation.  I'm only using that RAM because it's left over from an old X99 build.

Link to comment
On 5/19/2017 at 11:34 PM, itimpi said:

In terms of whether you buy ECC RAM that is really up to you - many users run without it although some say that once you are going for server grade hardware then using ECC RAM makes sense.

 

Both your motherboard and processor must support ECC if you want to go that route.

Link to comment
On 4/27/2017 at 2:56 AM, chris1bass said:

My main problem is I need more storage, and my PC#1 has ran out of SATA ports.

 

Buy an Antec 900.

 

Buy 2 of these https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121405 (Which you can find on eBay for about 1/2)

 

Add one of these: LSI SAS9201-8i (look on eBay) with 3 of these https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=8186

 

And one of these: Samsung EVO 850 500G

 

Add motherboard/CPU/RAM of choice

 

You now have a 10 drive server, with room to expand to 15. Storage will not be a problem for a while. :)

 

Good luck with your build!

 

 

Link to comment
On 5/22/2017 at 0:00 PM, HellDiverUK said:

1GB per 1TB is nonsense spread by the FreeNAS neckbeards.  It's total balderdash even for FreeNAS.  ECC likewise, it's not required.

 

If you're not running VMs, 4GB is plenty for unRAID.  I have 16GB in my main unRAID and it rarely goes over 15% RAM utilisation.  I'm only using that RAM because it's left over from an old X99 build.

 

Same Here. I have 8GB and its only because I got it cheap. I'm normally sitting at 35% with No VMS and running several Dockers. 

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.