TheMaster

Good news, Guys... After bumping this post again today I figured I would go ahead and upgrade from UnRaid 4.0 to 4.2. Since the Vista backup was always hung up on the password, I enabled a password under the "USERS" page of UnRaid. For the default "root" user, I applied a password. Using Vista Ultimate x64 and running the backup utility again, I am now able to specify my UnRaid path with the new user (root) and password settings and it works flawlessly! This is a very good thing, since I have been running (2) 150GB Raptors in RAID 0 and 1TB of Seagate Drives in RAID 0 since January without an updated backup! I was reawakened to this issue when my buddy emailed me earlier this week to tell me his (non-striped) hard drive crashed and he lost all of his data. It is easy (and dangerous) to become complacent about good backups after 10 years without a hard drive issue. I have to say, however, that i am concerned about the MS Backup in Vista. It "dumbs down" the backup process to the point where your only option is a series of checkboxes to backup these types of files "Pictures, Documents, Movies, TV Shows, etc, etc". But doesn't allow you to explicitely backup all files in a particular path. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not overly confident that this is going to backup all of my personal files. What if I have an obscure file type that Microsoft doesn't recognize?

Bump... I am still unable to use the built-in Microsoft Backup tool with Vista and Unraid server. Has anyone discovered a fix for this issue? I really don't want to resort to a USB drive for my backup solution. Thanks in advance to anyone who has cracked this ongoing issue.

I appreciate all of the posts, but I am interested in using only the new Microsoft Backup in Vista for various reasons. Hopefully someone will be able to post a fix for this (or admin will address in the next edition of the unRAID software!).

No, drive mapping does not work to correct the issue in Vista.

Bumping... Has anyone found a solution to this issue of using Vista's backup? Even with unraid 4.0, the OS still prompts for a username and password to access the network resource of the unraid server. TheMaster

I personally like the aesthetics of the Icy Dock. They are solidly constructed. My only issue with it was the fact that on my particular case there are support tabs in the sheetmetal which the drives would normally rest on. These had to be bent out of the way for the 5 in 3 unit to fit into the case. Of course, the AMS unit would have the same issue based on the images.

Admin - Where are the beta versions located? I looked through the main lime-technologies website and couldn't find anything there. This will be the first time I have upgraded to a new version, so I would also appreciate it if someone could point me towards the procedure to avoid risking any data on my existing volumes.

Mark: The motherboard I specified uses a controller whose SATA ports were immediately visable to unRAID. Suggest you check the SATA controller used on the model you purchased and check for compatability with UNRAID. I know the options are listed on the lime-technology site if you search. I believe there are two specific controllers supported, one is the Intel ICH5 (?) and I cannot recall the other. Regarding the 5 in 3 module, Yes - I did have to bend the sheetmetal tabs back that would support individual 5-1/4" devices in a normal configuration.

Thanks, Joe- I'll hang on to this in case the opportunity (and time) presents itself to test some blazing fast hard drives to up the performance even further!

Being an early adopter (like most people in this forum, I would expect), I migrated to Vista in January. For the most part, everything is good, however, I went to use Microsoft's built-in backup software and find that it will not work with my UNRAID NAS. UNRAID is completely accessable and works great within Vista, but the problem is that Microsoft backup wants you to "log in" to network storage even though no login is needed for UNRAID. Has anyone found a solution to this? I used to use Retrospect 7.5 under Windows XP to backup without issue to UNRAID, but with a solid integrated solution I hate to install additional software which should no longer be necessary. MS Backup works fine with USB storage, but I love the security of backing up to UNRAID because of the multiple levels of redundancy that this affords.

coppit - You may want to check out my post "ULTIMATE UNRAID SERVER?". You will see there is a dramatic variation in transfer speeds between different configurations of UNRAID. The server I recently put together will rival any NAS on the market for performance, so I believe you will be able to perform the 2 parallel HD feeds if you setup your server appropriately. There are several benchmarks in that thread for your comparison. Definitely second the moderator's recommendation for dual channel memory.

It has been a while since I posted here, so a quick update on the system that started this thread. The server has been running for 3 months now, and has never required a reboot or other maintenanance of any kind. Definitely a rock-solid stable configuration. I still believe the components specified are driving the strong benchmarks, but believe performance is limited by the less-than-stellar hard drives. I would love to run this with a 10k RPM RAPTOR 150 in the Parity and Tested Drive positions. I actually had an opportunity to do this, with two 150s I had purchased for a new system build, but didn't want to screw up my array for the sake of a single benchmark (I do, after all, use this for storage and not just benchmarks!). Is there an easy way to pull your data array drives, test a completely different configuration and then plug your data drives back in? I don't really know if the thumb drive has data written to it specific to your configuration or if this information is stored exclusively on the drives in your array.

There were several bargains to be had during the Buy.com/google checkout days before Christmas, but those days are now gone. I recall many nice name brand 5-8 port gigabit switches going for about $20-30 at that time. I just recently purchased an upgraded gigabit switch for my home. It was a netgear 24 port unit because I have a huge number of ethernet lines wired throughout my house. This was the JGS524 switch from newegg.com. Paid 219.99 - $40 rebate = $179 delivered. This is a great deal, but probably more than you are looking for right now. Just checking current pricing - Newegg.com now sells it for $197, but the rebate is gone and shipping is $9.44. Best I could find for you today was the Netgear GS605 at Compusa.com for $50-$30 rebate = $20. Just checked - that rebate expired yesterday! Keep an eye open at Bensbargains.net and you will find one in the next week or so. This site has a lot more component level items than the other sites. Hope this helps!

Anyone do any research on fast hard drives so we can test out the maximum performance of the unRAID server? I found two very interesting technology developments today on the FAST hard drive front: First (though the capacity would be of limited value in an unRAID system), this would be an INCREDIBLE boot drive for your workstation operating system: SanDisk SSD UATA 5000 This is a 32GB solid state (i.e. flash memory) hard drive that claims 100x the performance of any hard drive: http://www.sandisk.com/Oem/Default.aspx?CatID=1478 Note that they are comparing it to a 4200 RPM Notebook Hard Drive, but I'm still guessing this would still utterly crush a RAID 0 pair of Raptor 150's. At a retail price of $600, however, it is also going to cost more than a RAID 0 Raptor setup with 1/10 the capacity. Second, the 1TB hard drive I have been waiting for has finally arrived: Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.368c8bfe833dee8056fb11f0aac4f0a0/?javax.portlet.tpst=74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_viewID=content&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_docName=20070105_first_terabyte_hd.html&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_folderPath=%2Fhgst%2Faboutus%2Fpress%2Finternal_news%2F&beanID=804390503&viewID=content&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=token&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=token This would be a nice size for a parity drive on unRAID, but with 8.7ms seek time, it isn't the most amazing device ever made (The seek time of the 150GB Raptor is only 5.0ms, 4.7ms for the older 74GB. Note, however, that this new drive has a 32MB buffer - which is something I haven't seen before.

SergioK: Improving the power factor in a residential application is probably not going to change your power bill. Though large industrial customers are billed by both Watts consumed and power factor, residential sites generally are billed only by Watts (actually Kilo-Watt-Hours) consumed. Having said that, power factor correction doesn't change the amount of real power consumed by your device (a 500W supply will still consume approx 500W at full load). It only changes the amount of current drawn to create that power. So unless your utility company charges you for "Peak Demand" or "Power Factor Surcharge" (This is rarely the case for residential customers) your billing will not change. A more important metric for a power supply is the efficiency. A highly efficient power supply is able to transform your power without generating much heat (the heat is where an inefficient power supply is throwing away watts). To put all of this in perspective, I believe most residential customers pay around 5-6 cents per KWH, so if you have a 500W power supply under full load you are spending 2.5-3 cents an hour to power it. That's a maximum of $21.60 per month (if running continuously). Hope this helps. Here's a relatively accurate and more detailed explanation for anyone who cares to read more about power factor correction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Factor_Correction