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

Has anyone actually connected this second LAN port to identify what functionality (if any) exists within unRAID 3.0? The benchmarking seems to indicate that the LAN connection is still the limiting factor in large data transfers.

Can a man not hijack his own thread? Turns out my peak drive temps on the Seagate are not the coolest around, but well within comfortable operating range - I peak at 38 deg on the parity drive (7200.10 Seagate Barracuda) during a parity check. Administrator posted drive temp specs < 55C are generally within spec. Cooling is more than adequte (but not world class) on this rig.

What kind of temperatures are the rest of you seeing on your Parity drive during a parity check operation? I want to validate my statements about "good cooling". Ideally one of you who are using a Seagate 7200.10 for your parity disk to compaer apples to apples (mine is the 400GB baracuda variety).

Thanks admin - the pictures are now up as everyone can see above. I believe the server is compact, looks professional and still has great ventillation without sacrificing significant space for drives. Note that with the onboard SATA 3 controllers, I can run up to 4 drives. With the onboard PATA connectors, 8 (though I wouldn't do that). My intention is to add a Promise 4 port SATA 3 card and a second ICYDOCK "3 into 2" drive cage which will give me 8 high speed ports and room for 8 drives - more than I will likely require. SergioK: You make some compelling arguments regarding drive speed. I am not an expert in how the unRAID software utilizes the drives, buffers to memory or writes the parity, however, intuitively your statements regarding the need for fast seek times on parity ring true to me. I am willing to reconfigure my array with some faster drives if we can determine what the optimal configuration would be. If I do anything with the Parity drive, however, I want to do it once... I was hoping to wait for a fast 1TB drive to come onto the market and swap it into the Parity spot. If I ever do this, however, I would probably rebuild the array entirely because fragmentation will undoubtably effect performance metrics. A great website for storage device performance is: www.storagereview.com They have top drives by category and detailed drive performance results to do some back to back comparisons of various drives. Perhaps limetech can give us some advice regarding the most critical features for parity and data disks to optimize performance? While you're at it, I am also wondering about fragmentation. This will ultimately be a factor on the data drives, but I don't see a way to defragment them in the software. Any advice?

RADIatiON: I've been trying to provoke the administrator here into getting the upload function corrected. He said he was working on it... if he doesn't get it going in the next couple of days, I will post to one of the other sites as you suggested.

RADIatiON: Thanks for the post. It is great to see what the real difference is between the SATA and EIDE performance. Now you have me wondering... those hard drives I purchased were mediocre, at best. I wonder if there would be a measureable difference with higher performance SATA/300 drives for both the Parity and storage drives? Too bad noone here as a pair of Raptor 150's hooked up to see what these transfer rates could top out at. It would be an absolutely stupid choice for a NAS setup, but it would be interesting to know what the future will hold as 10,000 RPM hard drives become more common.

Hehe.. Yea, I was just trying to give you a "best case" scenario to judge by. Frankly, I was surprised it took over 20 minutes to copy my 11GB file. I would say 10GB an hour isn't too far out of line since there is an older workstation involved. Having said that, I would have almost expected the network to be the limiting factor rather than the PC, but perhaps that isn't the case. I also backup my workstation to the unRAID server and I just looked back at the first night it backed up. In this case it had to transfer 117.1GB to begin the backup set - I don't do any compression, so the speed is limited by the transfer rate of the systems in question. This transfer took 7 hours and 9 minutes. That's only 16.37 GB per hour. The backup keeps track of performance for each backup and the best transfer rate I have achieved is 567 MB/minute. When I did these backups to a local USB 2.0 portable hard drive they performed at rates of over 40GB/hr... this is why I thought the network would be the limiting factor above. The workstation I am using is an Athlon FX-60 with a pair of WD Raptor hard drives in a RAID stripe configuration (OK, now I must be bragging)... so, I wouldn't beat yourself up for having a 10GB/hr transfer rate with the P233.

I have a fairly high end workstation and the unRAID server whose benchmarks I just posted in the HARDWARE section. These are connected through a Netgear Gigabit switch. I just copied an 11.2 GB file to test the total time required to transfer the file and it looks like it is going to take about 22 minutes. That's 19.6 minutes for a 10GB file.

That's correct - the results used at Tom's Hardware Guide use the 64K record size. He stated something about most transfers utilize a 64k record size. Those results look great! I did my benchmarks somewhat casually while there was other network traffic and some devices between my computer and the unRAID server. When I get a chance, I will rerun them with the unraid server connected directly to the workstation using a crossover cable with nothing running on the workstation other than the benchmark. This should be the best way to determine the true capability of the unRAID box in question. Regarding your question about the squeaking sound of the HDD, I cannot say I have experienced that with any of my seagate drives.

That's a nice build. I didn't say so above, but for everyone reading this, most of the pricing I listed is still valid (except for the 2 hard drives and case that were discounted explicitly for Black Friday). I don't really know how big a role the CPU plays - the only reason I went with the Dual Core Pentium D 2.8 was that, should the unRAID server not work out, the server would make a decent addition to my collection of PCs around the house as a gaming machine. Same goes for the memory. I did some benchmarking on the Gigabit Ethernet vs 100BT Ethernet and the performance difference is remarkable. The same unRAID server detailed above only achieved an average speed of 8.8 MBytes/Sec vs the 36.8 MBytes/Sec seen on the GBit LAN. The unRAID performance was still good at 100MBit, because I tested a HNAS1 NAS Storage unit from Hawkwing Technology (these only have 100BT ports on them). I thought it was a good buy at only $32 after rebate (you add your own hard drive up to 250GB so I purchased a Seagate Barracuda 250GB 16MB 7200.10 for $70, bringing the total cost to only $102): http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/productlist.php?CatID=38&FamID=91&ProdID=242 Though it seems like a great deal, these dedicated NAS boxes transfer data at an average of only 2 MBytes/Sec, making the unRAID 4x faster even at 100MBit speeds! NAS can be slow, so being able to run your NAS 4x faster at Gigabit speeds is a pretty big deal. Consider this: It takes around a minute to transfer a 1GB file to my unRAID server when connected on the Gigabit LAN. It's more like 5 minutes at 100BT! These are big performance differences - bigger than the difference people are going to see with component variants, I'm sure. I have seen several good deals lately allowing you to buy a good quality gigabit switch for around $30. This will probably be a worthwhile buy for you if you have a gigabit adapter on your workstation(s). Here's one you can get for just $13.39 after rebate! You need to add a $1.61 filler to get the price above $50 to use the $20 off $50 google checkout option: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10353206&loc=101&adid=17662&adid=17662 Also note that the compact 5 in 3 enclosure I purchased is more suitable for the smaller case I purchased. Since you bought that monster stacker case, you may want to consider the drive trays that LimeTech uses on the servers he sells. These can also be had for a great price at Buy.com right now with their google checkout deal. Just search for the part numbers (it is hard to find the IcyDock stuff at Buy.com without the pat number first). Part number is MB123SK-1B and they cost $35.63 each at Newegg.com (hard to find them for less at any reputable store). They are $30.15 at Buy.com and when you buy 2, you get $20 off bringing them to $60.30 - 20 = $40.30 or only $20.15 each. They do charge shipping, but it isn't too terrible. Just do several duplicates orders for 2 at a time if you need 4, 6 , etc. I wish the admin could get the attachment function working and I would upload some images of my rig - I think seeing it may sway a few people from the monolithic Stacker case. Especially if you think you may convert it to a desktop PC someday down the road.