DaveSt

D'oh .... man that is embarrassing. Thanks a bunch!

OK, I have read a few threads here showing how to mount unRAID shares on another machine running Linux but for the life of me I cannot get it working. I am thinking that there is a setting on my unRAID machine itself that I need to change. My machine is running Linux Mint 13, and I have installed the cifs utilities package. The command I am using is as follows: //192.168.0.189/Backups /mnt/Backups cifs username=<user>,password=<pwd>,noperms,uid=nobody,gid=users 0 0 The response back in the terminal is: bash: //192.168.0.189/Backups: No such file or directory Is there something I need to do on the unRAID side of things to make my shares available to mount in Linux? I can browse to the shares using nautilus but I simply cannot mount them. I need to mount my backups directory so I can point my backup utility there.

After reading some more I think it is smarter to go a different route. I will simply copy my existing stick to the new stick and then upgrade what I need after the fact. I just want to keep the original stick in case something goes wrong and I need to revert back to the old hardware.

I am in the process of upgrading to different hardware for my server (new motherboard, cpu, ram, etc.). I have read the FAQ entry about changing motherboards but I think that description assumes that the same USB stick will be used after the change. I would like to also change my USB stick at the same time. Will I run into problems upgrading to a new USB stick with a completely new unRAID installation? I am hoping I can move my data and parity drives over to the new hardware.

Thanks! That makes perfect sense.

I have searched but didn't really find an answer to this. I am getting reacy to add a cache drive to my system. I have seen mention that some plugins are better off installed to the cache drive than running from the USB boot stick. How do you install plugins to the cache drive and have unraid see them? Do I just make a plugins directory on the cache?

Sorry .. reading failure.

Right now my current unRAID has three drives (two data, one parity). My current plans don't really call for more than five drives. My storage needs for now are pretty well met but I would like to perhaps add a cache drive. I figure that leaves me room for one more decent sized data drive in the future with the E450 board. I will take a look at your suggestion however. I am always willing to spend a little less :-) One thing about the E450 that has me intrigued is that it looks like it could also meet another computing requirement of mine. I figured I could test the platform out there first and see how well it works.

Well, I think I might have finally found my board. I have decided to just upgrade for what I need rather than trying to future proof things in regards to ESX, etc. I know that I won't have time in the next year to figure out how to virtualize everything so no sense stressing over it. One reason I have been hesitant to replace my Atom board is because it actually has a parallel port on it and my printer runs perfectly through unRAID (old HP 5L laser just won't die). Anyhow, I had pretty much decided to go with another Atom board when I stumbled across a AMD solution that looks perfect. The board is an Asus E45M1-M-PRO based on the AMD E450 APU. The board has 5x SATA ports, PCI Express, and parallel port! I'm not sure what the NIC is, but if I need to purchase something that works I don't mind.

Thanks for the feedback Bob. That is good information.

Alright, since I got no bites I guess I will give it a shot and see what happens. Maybe I can make my own thread in the build section for future reference.

I have searched here and I see that a few people have used the Lian Li PC-V354 for their unraid builds. I was hoping to get some feedback as to how that case has worked out. My current case is very limited in regards to 3.5" internal drive bays (I have two plus one converted 5.25" slot) so i am looking to make an upgrade. The Lian Li case fits the bill as far as internal drive bays and motherboard form factor and it looks cool (sure, not the most practical consideration but still ...). If it is a complete pain to work with then I will go with something else.

Thanks again. ATM I am planning on keeping this machine as a single purpose unraid installation, but it is interesting to see the possibilities that can be realized using virtualization. My needs with this machine are really pretty simple actually. I use my unraid just for client backups and a central file storage location. I don't run any media services or anything else too fancy on it. The only thing I still need to get working is CrashPlan, but I was holding out for the final 5.0 release before tackling that 9I have been running 5.0b12 for quite some time now). I don't want to overbuy for my simple purposes, but then again I don't want to limit my future options. that always seems to be a fine line.

Thanks, you have certainly provided me with a ton of good information. This is a bit off topic, but what is the benefit of running unraid as an ESXi build? Is it simply so the system can be multi-purposed with multiple operating systems?

Wow, that Supermicro board does not come cheap. What is the benefit of such a board over a more budget friendly setup?

Well I would like to stay in the mATX form factor. Unfortunately, almost every (if not all) 1155 mATX B75 boards including those made by Intel seem to have Realtec NIC units. I like the MSI B75MA-P45 because it comes with 5 SATA ports which is about perfect for my needs right now. It does have UEFI BIOS which I am not sure about in regards to unRAID however.

After a night's worth of research I am starting to think the Intel G630T looks like a real contender as well. It goes for about half the price of an i3, has pretty decent power consumption (35W) and will probably still run circles around my Atom processor. As much as I would like to roll two upgrades into one, I'm not too keen on having to move my server to a full tower case to accomodate my old i5 equipment. I keep trying to go smaller not bigger!

I swore it was 1155 ... I am so out of the loop when it comes to hardware these days it is almost embarrassing. I might be over thinking this too. There is probably a cheap AMD solution out there that would work as well but my last AMD system was back in the Athlon XP days. I take it sticking with an Intel nic is a better option?

Good call on the video. My i5 is a socket 1155 and the motherboard is a Gigabyte P55A-USB3. I need to read up on exactly what the HPA issue is all about before I go down that road though.

That's OK. I see an i3 + MB is probably going to be at least $200 USD. I am almost tempted to take the i5-750 I am running in my desktop and use it for my unraid machine. Then I get two upgrades out of the process. Too bad those old i5 chips don't have integrated video.

Thanks for the information. I thought about going with a better PCI SATA card (I have an old SI raid card in there now) but I am thinking that rather than throwing more money at my current setup I will probably be better served making a full upgrade. I need a new case as well, so looking at motherboards at this time makes sense too I suppose!

I built my unraid box around what was originally a custom built WHS solution. The system board is an Intel D510MO. When I first moved to unraid I simply had two data drives (no parity). As I decided that unraid was the solution for me I then added a parity drive. Because the D510MO has only two built in SATA ports I just used an old SATA RAID card (slow speed) to give me an extra couple of ports. Now I am planning on purchasing a license so I can add another data drive and perhaps a cache drive. The problem here is a lack of SATA ports. I can buy a 4X SATA card but this motherboard only has one PCI (not express) slot and I am wondering if I should be concerned about performance. I really like the lower power consumption and the parallel port header on this board but I don't have a good feel for how a lack of PCIe is going to affect my performance going forward. Is it worth sticking with this board or should I be thinking about a move to something like a low power i3?