One2go

I am running the HP N40L micro server with four 3TB drives under version 5b14 and it rock solid not a single complaint and I also run 4.7 in my Movie UnRaid server on a different hardware platform. I found myself standing in front of the same door you are finding yourself and I decided it is too much of a hassle to do the 4TB to 2.2TB conversion and then later to increase it again to 3TB. I am happy that I decided to use the HP N40L micro server for the beta release and I really do not have a complaint. In addition the GUI for the version 5 beats version 4.7 hands down.

Under normal circumstances I would agree however their financial figures don't look good. Just a quick check on their stocks reveals this: Western Digital: Sales* = 9.82 Bil Income* = 769.00 Mil Sales Growth* -3.30% Income Growth* -47.50% Net Profit Margin 7.83% Seagate: Sales* = 11.08 Bil Income* = 502.00 Mil Sales Growth* -3.70% Income Growth* -68.20% Net Profit Margin 4.53% When their investors get worried about their sales & income growth the prices will come down. Good old greed just has to work itself back into their head quarters.

This whole HDD business is getting ridiculous I paid several months ago $109 for 3TB Hitachi drives fortunately I bought 4. I am waiting this out until the prices come down.

I bought a WD TV Live (SMP) unit for $80 from Staples and at one time you could get it for $70 when Amazon was selling it for $89. Slickdeals.net has all the details. Basically you call up Staples & they will price match Amazon then you buy for $1.86 a coupon that will take off $25 and depending on the taxes in your state it should be about $80 with free shipping. I know my coupon would have expired 12/27/2011. The WD TV Live unit is excellent and works decently with network shares even though the latest firm ware release has broken the NFS shares.

Bin running Beta 14 on my HP Micro server N40L with 3TB Hitachi drives now for 18 days with not a single error in the log. Minor issues that could be ignored, but so far so good. The only complained that I have is the writing speed to the array, it is a bit faster on the stable 4.7 version but then it could be that the Hitachi 3TB drives are slower then my Samsung 2TB drives. In any occasion whoever it was that wanted to know if it is save to update to beta version on the HP Micro server, for me it was a brilliant move to switch to beta 14 and get the 3TB drives working. O2G

/On Soapbox If anyone bothers to read the nonsense that guy put together you definitely don't want to try this unless you are a masochist. Try this for size: After extracting the BluRay folder to this location, you may have to tweak a few other settings. First, if you're on Windows, disable User Account Control by hitting the Start Menu and typing "User Account Control" into the search box. Click on "Change User Account Control Settings" and drag the slider down to "Never Notify". Good one a few other settings and tweaks, didn't say which ones & oh yes disable User Account control another bright idea. But then he comes up with this real brilliant idea that has no place in the UnRaid community: It's probably the best we're going to have for awhile, and it's certainly better than waiting a half hour or more to rip the disc to your computer (and then have to delete it later on if you don't want it). I've noticed it get a little choppy for a minute if you pause it or mess with XBMC at all, but it's a small price to pay to consolidate another one of your devices into your HTPC. He is now talking about optical media as in BD discs and choppy playback what a moron. The whole idea behind UnRaid is to have the content ripped to a server not optical media, I wouldn't need a server then. He thinks that is a small price to pay how much is his time worth must be less then $29.99 per hour. /Off Soapbox

Any ATI 5000 or 6000 card will bit stream HD audio over HDMI connector. I have a passive cooled ATI 6570 that does all that with ease.

The WD live can be had for $80 if you check on slickdeals.net you get the details. Call up Staples Customer Service (Phone # on Slickdeals.net) ask for price match to best buys or amazon $99, then get a coupon $1.86 for $25 off $75 (info on slickdeals.net) with tax for my state & free shipping that comes to $80.

And they play back BD folder structures with menus, don't think so.

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=51186 http://www.perfect365.com/partners/giveawayoftheday.html [email protected]$

I am writing directly to the array and I get between 15MB/s and sometimes 32MB/s and that is with 3TB Hitachi Coolspin 5400rpm drives. I have yet to decide whether to use a cache drive or not, I have room for 6 drives in the server and I am considering that once 240Gig SSDs have come down in price below the $1 per Gig I might stick a SSD below the optical drive cage. Besides the 4 SATA ports from the MB, I have 2 ports from a PCI-e card, to use a cache drive must I hack the BIOS to get full speed from the port for the optical drive or does the latest N40L firmware overcome this obstacle, just in case you may know. Checking your build it looks like I can always use the e-SATA port for the cache drive, just didn't want to run a cable outside and then back in as I have 2 cards now in the 2 PCI-e slots. I ordered this Intel NIC for $28 and will see how it works. Thanks for any help and advise you may have, O2G

Thanks for pointing this out because I would have never looked for it with that type of description. I just assumed that something as basic as copying a file would not introduce this type of problem when there is enough space for the file, just not additional "overhead" in the order of 100Gig plus. That is an insane "feature". I must say that the latest beta has not exhibited any of these problems yet but then my most populated drive is at 76%. We will see what happens when that one hits 90% plus.

It works for me also but I have all my other connected gear set up with MTU=9000 but the HP on board controller will only handle MTU=1500. I just want to make sure that the box is tweaked for maximum transfer speed. Writing to discs & internal processing within the server is what it is. I noticed that with an Intel PCI-e NIC my performance in the v4.7 server has definitely improved because of the way the Intel PCI-e NIC handles network traffic compared to the mother board Atheros L1E Gigabit LAN controller. I guess $28 will tell me if it was worth it. It would have to go into the PCI-e x16 slot unless there is such an animal as a 2 SATA port PCI-e card that also has a NIC on it and then UnRaid would have to support it. Somehow I think that this is wishful thinking.

While I have been very skeptical about the Win 7 64bit machines my latest experience has sort of been revealing. I have a second server that runs v5b14 and is a HP N40L micro server and I have none of the issues that I have with the v4.7 server and the three Win 7 machines are in a workgroup but also have those three in the homegroup. I did move 4.5 TB from the v4.7 server to the v5.b14 server which put 4 of the 8 discs on the v4.7 server at less then 50% but the 4 other discs are at 90%, 88%, 82% and 70% capacity. The free space on those 2TB drives is 1.34 TB. I do not treasure the idea having to leave 250 Gig per 2TB drive free so that this annoying unavailability of the shares does not pop up, neither is it a pleasure to fire up a telnet session and do a dir /s to get the listing into memory before writing a 2k NFO file and a 8k XML file to the disc followed by several GBs of content. It was a revelation to read the thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=17310.0 and see that others are having the same issue. It sort of negates my idea that perhaps the SMB securities and the permissions that are a cause of it. Did not see this one coming especially since we started posting about this problem months ago and the thread about 99% disc capacity causes performance issues was not posted until days ago. Anyhow I am glad that we found a solution to this problem and who would have thought that MS's handling of discs filled to capacity as well as fragmentation is far better then Reiser FS handles it.

I have a Trendnet TEG-S80G and I don't believe it does. I was more thinking along the line of UnRaid's road map and that the usage of 2 NICs maybe on the horizon sometime. But if the switch does not have channel bonding I think I save myself $100 and go for a single port NIC. Any recommendations for a NIC?

I am considering getting a NIC for my HP N40L server just to make sure I get the best network performance. Since I only have a PCI-e x16 slot left is the additional money for a 2 port NIC worth the investment? If so any recommendations for a low profile one that works with UnRaid, if not any recommendations for a low profile NIC with a single port? Thanks O2G

WTF, the problem I am experiencing may be because of filled discs, didn't see that coming. Your description is mirroring my experience, opening another explorer window, doing an immediate copy after the failure works so far every time. I have 8 2TB drives in the v4.7 server and all but 2 were filled to 90+ capacity. Now on my HP N40L server v5.b14 the 3 3TB drives have plenty of space and I have yet to experience the problem that I have with the v4.7 server.

This the build of the troubled server: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5102.0 I added an Intel NIC and disabled the on board Network connection. This is the intel NIC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=33-106-033 Thanks for your help O2G

Thanks for the info, is that because SMB2 is now available in v5Beta?

Thanks with the confirmation of the write speed as well as the parity check. I still need some help with the following that I raised earlier: Setup & configuration differences between v4.7 & V5B14. Exporting of SMB Security Settings with v5b14 I am exporting security = Public is this needed for v4.7? In addition I just noticed that the permission for the disk shares on v4.7 server is 700 while on the v5b14 HP server it is 770. Please assist me with the following questions? 1. Could it be that not having permissions for the group on v4.7 server could be causing the weird problems? 2. If including group permissions is needed, How do I safely change the permissions on the v4.7 server from 700 to 770? The server has 8 disks (2TB Samsung drives) with about 10TB of content. 3. If the exporting SMB Security Settings matter, where do I check this & possibly change it in v4.7? I don't know if a brute force of chmod command from 700 to 770 on the disc shares is required for correcting the v4.7 annoyances. So far I am pleased with the v5b14 the way it works on the HP micro server. Thanks O2G

The problem with accessing from Win7 machines have been discussed ad nausea in the following threads and just serve as background info. It takes FOREVER to manipulate data on the unRAID server Problems accessing unRAID from windows 7 x64 machine(s) For the past few days I have monitored my v4.7 server as well as a newly built HP N40L micro server running v5.b14 on my network and would like someones help and opinion using this updated information in solving the weird problem that I have experienced. The UnRaid server running version 4.7 and the strange behavior of waiting and timing out before it starts copying is still there even after trying different suggestions from the different links posted above and other threads here in the forum. However I believe with my most recent experience and with some help from the community here, this idiosyncrasy may actually get solved. I decided to build a new server around the HP N40L micro server and run the latest Beta software v5b14. After putting the server together with 4 Gig of memory and connecting four 3TB Hitachi drives to the bays in the HP server I was busy for the past few days trying to get the array setup and configure the server. Here is where I am standing now with HP server: Successful precleared all the 3 TB drives with no errors Successful parity check having 9TB of free space Server log indicates only minor issues Drives spin down automatically and spin up manually using the Web GUI Writing speed to the array of the HP server with v5b14 from my UnRaid server version 4.7 is between 16 to 32 MB/s Finished copying 4.42 TB of content to the HP micro server Copying of 1TB using TeraCopy takes many hours. I read where some complained about the Parity Sync speed & writing to the array speed for the b13 & b14 versions while the older Beta versions did excellent. So I know this will eventually be sorted. Now here is the good news all the weird problems accessing v4.7 from Win 7 64bit machines I do not experience with the HP Micro Server running the latest beta. Solid accessing User as well as disk shares, no problems with copy delays and other delays, just not lightning fast. This makes me tend to believe that it is not network hardware but could be v4.7 server hardware but more likely setup & configuration differences. For example the user root on v4.7 server has a password, on the v5b14 server user root has no password, does that matter? Also I do not recollect that there was for v4.7 an exporting of SMB Security Settings with v5b14 I am exporting security = Public. In addition I just noticed that the permission for the disk shares on v4.7 server is 700 while on the v5b14 HP server it is 770. Please assist me with the following questions? 1. Could it be that not having permissions for the group on v4.7 server could be causing the weird problems? 2. If including group permissions is needed, How do I safely change the permissions on the v4.7 server from 700 to 770? The server has 8 disks (2TB Samsung drives) with about 10TB of content. 3. If the exporting SMB Security Settings matter, where do I check this & possibly change it in v4.7? I have a gut feeling that I am getting closer to a solution with some help from the community. So far I am pleased with the experience of v5.b14 on the HP N40L micro server, just not the performance of writing to the array. Doing a parity check for 4.47TB on that server was overly annoying starting of at 110MB/s and finishing with 47MB/s. Parity Check finished in less then 10 hours with no errors. As a very last ditch effort I may upgrade the v4.7 server with a Beta version but really would not like to do so as I have plenty of space and no 3TB drives in that server. Attached are system logs for the two servers. Thanks O2G V4.7-syslog-2011-12-09.txt V5.b14-syslog-2011-12-09.txt

I am buying where I left off. 3TB Hitachi Cool Spin 5400 RPM for $109 from NewEgg. Bought 4 at the time and can only fit 2 more into the HP micro server, but since I have 7TB free of my 9TB total storage I am in no hurry. Just to complete the build that is all basically and if I run out of space I'll delete a few TV shows wich should do the trick. Those 4 to 5 season suckers are over 100 Gig each.

It is time to shed some new light on this weird problem from my most recent experience. Nothing has changed on my UnRaid server running version 4.7 and the strange behavior of waiting and timing out before it starts copying is still there even after trying different suggestions from the different links in this thread and other threads here in the forum. However I believe with my most recent experience and with some help from the community here, this idiosyncrasy may actually get solved. Because I was running out of space on my v4.7 server and had four (Pre Thailand Flood pricing) 3TB Hitachi drives, begging to be used, I decided to build a new server around the HP N40L micro server (the $245 deal) and run the latest Beta software v5b14. After putting the server together with 4 Gig of memory and connecting the four 3TB Hitachi drives to the bays in the HP server I was busy for the past few days trying to get the array setup and configure the server. Here is where I am standing now: Successful precleared all the drives with no errors, successful parity check having 9TB of free space, server log indicates only 2 minor issues, drives spin down automatically and spin up manually using the Web GUI. Writing speed to the array of the HP server with v5b14 from my UnRaid server version 4.7 is between 20 to 32 MB/s. Copying of 1TB using TeraCopy takes quite a bit of time. I read where some complained about the Parity Sync speed & writing to the array speed for the b13 & b14 versions while the older Beta versions did excellent. So I know this will eventually be sorted. Now here is the good news all the weird problems accessing v4.7 from Win 7 64bit machines I do not experience with the HP Micro Server running the latest beta. Solid accessing User as well as disk shares, no problems with copy delays and other delays, just not lightning fast. This makes me tend to believe that it is not network hardware but could be v4.7 server hardware but more likely setup & configuration differences. For example the user root on v4.7 server has a password, on the v5b14 server root has no password. (Easier credentials used by Windows?) Also I do not recollect that there was for v4.7 an exporting of SMB Security Settings with security = Public which is the setting on the HP server running v5b14. In addition I just noticed that the permission for the disk shares on v4.7 server is 700 while on the v5b14 HP server it is 770. Could it be that not having permissions for the group on v4.7 server could be causing the weird problems? How do I safely change the permissions on the v4.7 server and include group permissions if this is needed? The server has 8 disks (2TB Samsung drives) with about 12TB of content. I have a gut feeling that I am getting closer to a solution with some help from the community. Thanks O2G

on my windows PC in the windows/system32/drivers/etc directory there is a text file called hosts in it I have put an entry for the IP adress that is associated with the name for the server and this seems to take care of finding the server by name. Don't know if that is the preferred method.

47hours and 27 minutes later my four 3TB Hitachi drives have finished successfully the preclear stage. I have installed version 5b14 and so far had no problems with the HP N40L micro server. It helped to read the forum and I benefited by following the advise just do what UnRaid tells you and forget the Linux commands. The instructions are excellent and clear. The only abnormality that I encounter was after the preclear finished. I rebooted the server, assigned the precleared discs to slots, Hit Start to set in motion bringing the array online, then formatted the drives. All that proceeded as expected. What I did not expect was that it automatically went into a Parity-Sync. With an estimated speed of 36 MB/sec it will take another 19 hours before the Parity-Sync has finished. I thought since all the drives were precleared and empty that either it would not go into a Parity Sync or it would finish it quickly. Anyhow sometime tomorrow evening I should be able to finally put data on the box. What kind of Parity-Sync speed can I expect with version 5b14?