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upgraded my server from 6.1.9 to 6.2.4 via the web gui, and am happy to report no problem so far. was very happy to finally see the 2nd nic manageable from the gui (instead of having to do some config steps via [/boot/config/go]). thought the graphical console was the default, was surprised it boots in text mode like before. did remove my plugins before (nerd pack & unassigned devices) and removed the added lines from the "go" file, to have a plain vanilla (as much as could be) install before the upgrade. I've put back the nerd pack plugin after the upgrade/reboot. haven't tried the graphical console yet. will do this after the currently running parity check -- still running on one parity drive, so haven't noticed a change in speed there. thanks to the limetech crew for all their work on this. :-) cheers. *** edit: p.s. after a post-upgrade parity check (roughly same speed as before), put in that 2nd parity disk i was keeping aside for the last year, which caused a 2nd check. to state the obvious, it cut the speed by half... or should i say, parity check took twice as long.

Now that i have migrated from my old server (*) to my newly built one (**), i am thinking to reuse as many parts as possible of the old server to build a new one to be a backup of the new main server. there is no better protection as redundancy. to tidy things up, in a fashion, i built a 14u rack to house servers + pvr + ... (***). thing is, the cm590 case won't work as well in this rack, so i'm thinking of changing case. to save money, i'd like to re-use the 5in3 drive cages i already own, but in a rack-mount format. the best solution available to me seems to be the Rosewill RSV-L4500 case. it does look as if swapping in the supermicro drive cages should work, but i'd like to hear from others before spending the money. did anyone else manage to install supermicro CSE-M35T-1B units in that case? that's it for now. thanks in advance. (*) unraid v4.7pro, 3x(supermicro CSE-M35T-1B) + 2x(sans digital towerraid tr4m+bnc), sempron 145 (? 140?) + 2gb of ram, coolermaster cm590 case, etc. (**) unraid v6.1.x pro, norco 4224 case, amd a8-7600, etc. (***) got my inspiration from http://tombuildsstuff.blogspot.ca/2014/02/diy-rack-server-plans.html

reading your reply, i'm going "this is so obvious, why didn't i think of that?". you were right, i did have three directory trees on "disk4" with the share names as their respective root names. just as you described. anyway, after verification, i deleted those trees and, long story short, no more "spillover". problem solved! thanks a lot. :-) /bm

now that's original: unraid is now saying i have some "spillover", some "leakage" with some of my shares. when i reinstalled unraid, i momentarily ended up with my shares using "all drives"; this was rectified, but not before copying some files on the server, only for said files to end up on a drive that is not part of any the shares i supposedly copied to. so, my "drive 4" had some files that were not supposed to be on it. so i copied the files off the server, deleted them so that said "drive 4" would no longer be used, and after a reboot, discovered that unraid still thinks it's part of other shares. see partial screenshot below: my question is how do i tell unraid to "forget" about "drive 4" so that i can copy the files back onto their respective shares, only residing on the drives assigned to said shares? thanks.

looking further in my boot issues, it appears the issue was not as much with the cruzer fit (i think), but with the motherboard's bios. somehow, this apparent improper shutdown did have some nasty effects on bios settings, especially on boot parameters. though the supermicro controllers were (briefly) affected, too. it's not just the motherboard. so, on top of changing the ups settings in the unraid web interface, i will look for a better ups. i have seen some refurbished apc SUA1500RM2U units being sold at an interesting price, will figure out if they are usable in a residential context (the reported 45+db noise rating is cause for concern)... and if i can run this unexpected expense past the girlfriend. as for my shares not showing up in the web interface, i will look into this a bit further and start a different thread about it if i cannot solve this. thanks all for the feedback. cheers. *edit* trying with msie (the only browser i hadn't tried yet), i now see the shares in the web interface. i will have to check if extensions in my other browsers (firefox & chrome) aren't somehow blocking my unraid server, despite it being whitelisted. *edit, part 2* one of my supermicro cards (it was never both, just one) can still be giving some episodical errors on boot, that are cleared by a reboot (for now). that episode from last friday has indeed been having some weird effects on my server.

@jonathanm: the rest of the web interface works just fine. the issue is in both firefox and chrome (which doesn't have script blockers. firefox does, but i whitelisted my unraid server there). haven't tried with msie, though.

@frank: i was actually thinking of changing my ups settings like you did (initiate a shutdown after 30 seconds on battery) as the computer might be wrong in its estimations of time left or battery levels. encouraging to see i had the right idea. to ensure the new settings will work, i presume i can type in zero in both the "battery level" and "runtime left" fields, only to type in "30" in the "time on battery before shutdown" field? i now wonder if i should not lay my hands on a br1500g ups (the biggest unit i could easily get), as it is rated for 865w and is actually *expandable* (via unit BR24BPG). unless i can find one of those rack-mounted ups like we have at work, for a reasonable price (yeah, fat chance there). staying with the br1300g might not be a good idea, as the troubles i am now experiencing after this power outage are unreal. @gridrunner: i actually tried this, and the dashboard did not show more than 32% load on the ups. or do you mean i should have the ups itself show me the load on it? speaking of troubles, now i can no longer see my shares in the "shares" tab of the unraid menu. they do list in the dashboard' shares list, they can be mounted from a client computer, but they do not appear in the tab one uses to define them. what the...? this situation has persisted over server reboots. can't find any posting about this, am i the first one to experience this? (and how do i fix this?) btw, @gridrunner: i was talking about the previously-defined shares, the ones i had before reformatting the cruzer fit / reinstalling unraid & its key on it. i thought their definitions re-appeared because they might have been stored on the drives themselves, but it was only the names (i.e. "hd_films", "sd_videos", etc.) that came back. still unsure how. furthermore, it turns out the drive assignments (share "x" uses drives "a, b & c", share "y" uses drive "d", etc.) didn't come back with the share names. i only realized afterwards all share names were using "all drives" -- d'oh! i thus had to re-assign drives to their respective shares. nasty surprise that was. *edit* the shares configuration files do appear in the "config/shares" directory on the flash drive and, from a cursory look, do not appear to be corrupted. so why the share definitions are not appearing in the web interface is quite a mystery to me.

@frank: unless i totally misunderstand your post, from what i read, the ups currently used with my server should not let it cold boot at all because of the spin-up of all 23 drives requiring so much current for a second (or two). or is there something i missed? is it possible the supermicro controllers somehow don't let the drives spin up at the same time during the server's boot process?

the load on the ups actually appears to be surprisingly low: it ranges from 22% (171w) to 32% (249w), equating to a range of 24.1 minutes to 15.4, if the dashboard is to be believed. average load during a parity check (can't think of a better "acid test" for battery load) appears to be stabilizing at 32%. as proof: and in theory, the system should have enough time to perform an orderly shutdown. maybe i did configure the ups settings a bit too low, not giving enough time for a proper shutdown to occur. i have now set it to 50% battery charge left and/or 10 minutes uptime left as triggers for a shutdown. i am assuming that either value that is reached first will act as a trigger. just in case someone might notice a stupid mistake i might have made: i now have noticed something else in regards to my boot issues: despite the fact that i never had a boot issue prior to the outage last friday, now the bios insists on a eufi boot, which seem to be resulting in the cruzer fit not being recognized. even after me reformatting that usb thumbdrive. when i select a "non eufi" cruzer fit in the bios boot menu, the server will then bring up the unraid startup menu. i am now wondering what happened for the cruzer to no longer being bootable without me having to intervene. either it's something in the thumbdrive, either it's with the bios. quite puzzled by this, frankly.

hello world -- currently running 6.1.7 on my new server (yeah, i should post to "pimp your rig") with the following config: * cpu: amd a8 7600 * mobo: asus a88x-plus * ram: 8gb of ddr3 1600 ram (g.skill ripjaws, 2x4gb) * hba: 2x supermicro aoc-sas2lp-mv8 * second nic: tplink TG-3468 * case: norco 4224, with 120mm fan backplate, all stock fans replaced with noctua ones * usb thumbdrive: sandisk cruzer fit, 16gb (d*mn, that thing is ridiculously small!) * hard drives: all wd greens 3tb, except for two 4tb drives (one currently unused, waiting for v6.2) used for parity *and* a 1tb wd red used for photo archive (a 3tb * psu: 850w 80+ bronze evga supernova semi-modular * ups: apc 1300va (BR1300G) up until this past friday, i was quite happy indeed with this newly-built box: quieter, much more elbow room, *faster* than the previous box i am in the process of lifecycling (will replace current innards with a config similar to the new box when i have amassed enough money to do so), etc. friday, when i came home from work, i noticed there had been a power outage a few hours earlier. i wasn't worried much about my server, as the current version of unraid has what appears to be a fully working apc ups daemon that should really know when there's a power outage and to properly shut down the server if the outage is more than a simple blip on the radar. turned on the server, only to see one of the supermicro card was in a funk (could not detect the spin group/all of the drives) and the server asking for a boot media. whoa. ok, reboot... kind of the same thing again. whoa, whoa! long story short: the supermicro controllers ended up falling back on their feet after completely powering down (unplug server from ups, etc.), but the cruzer fit had issues being bootable again, until this morning. did test the server hardware with bootable linux distros (mint, knoppix), looked ok, was able once to boot the flashdrive to run memtest (no issues), but eventually had to reformat the cruzer fit and re-install unraid on it. the thumbdrive was still accessible from another windows box, so i just had to make a "stupid" backup (windows explorer copy of the cruzer fit to a folder on desktop) and copy back the pro key once i had reinstalled unraid and made the 'fit bootable. even though i seem to have recovered from that power outage (i feel i should not have had to get agitated over this), i now have three questions: (1) anyone else had a similar issue with their flash drive after an apparent power outage? (2) is there a way to see if the server did indeed shut itself down cleanly? (3) after i assigned all the drives anew to their respective positions (s/n = drive 'x') and started the array, the shares appeared by themselves, without any need for me to define them. is a copy of the share information / general configuration stored on the hard drives? thanks in advance.

...so, after scaring myself with power connector "issues" with my new '4224, downloaded and exploded a copy of unraid 6.1.4 on this cruzer fit usb drive and am now trying to "cash in" my pro key i reserved when Tom had a sale back in 2014. posted a message about this in the "general support" forum, sent an e-mail to sales at limetech (iirc), no reply. yesterday, i replied to the initial (2014) e-mail from Tom confirming my purchase of a 2nd key with the guid of the flash drive, but i have a sinking feeling that it might be an old e-mail address no longer used. is there a new, current, recommended e-mail address one has use now to get a valid 'pro' key? cheers.

i am using wd green drives, not reds, as the latter are much more expensive than greens. i could progressively replace the greens with reds later on, though i never had any issues with greens in my existing box. so am i wrong to understand that i should be able to plug in two backplanes per "sata" power cable coming out of my psu? each "sata" cable has 4 sata power connectors on them (save one with 3 connectors only -- see photo below), so the power draw for two backplanes is not too much for just one cable? i hope that my rev. of the 4224 backplane should permit that -- see photos below. can one assume that sata-to-molex adapters, like the one pictured below, are ok? it's annoying that manufacturers can't be bothered to include such adapters in the psu packaging or can't provide more cables with molex connectors on them (turns out the "perif" cables that came with my psu don't have the same wire count as the "sata" ones. it would not have been a good idea to use them to power the backplanes). thanks all for the feedback. i guess i was getting too pessimistic / paranoid for my own good...

@Mykroft: each "v2.0" backplane has only one molex connector. can't check right now, but are you also using a 4224? how did you arrange power in your server? cheers. *edit* i now see you use a 4220. still curious how you arranged power. *edit2* corrected misspelling of your userid. mea culpa!

finally building my new server to replace my old one. inexplicably, a norco 4224 was cheaper to buy than a 4220 by ~120cad, so i went with that. (btw, the backplanes are rev 2.0, are those safe with 3tb green drives? my 2 parity drives will be 4tb -- thinking ahead to unraid 6.2 here) i got a 850w psu (EVGA SuperNOVA 850 B2) to make sure there would be enough power. anyway, "reality" is that i ran out of power cables/connectors (didn't quite have that issue with my 1st server) and am leery of using splitters, or even using more than one power connector per power cable (i.e., powering more than one back plane with only one power cable). i researched every other component to ensure mutual compatibility (esp. with unraid!) and to ensure maximum bandwidth (chose my motherboard because its two pcie x16 slots are both x16) but forgot to pay attention to the number of power cables that would be required. *major facepalm here* two back planes are powered by the two "perif" connectors on the psu ("perif1" & "perif2") and will have to use sata to molex converters to power three more backplanes from the "sata1", "sata2" & "sata3" connectors on the psu. the only power connectors slots left on said psu are for "vga" and "cpu". besides wanting to power the last backplane, if at all possible, i also need to power the 5 noctua fans in the case (3x120mm + 2x80mm). well, i already have 1 of the 80mm connected to the motherboard's single chassis fan lead. does anyone have a suggestion/advice on how i could get out of this sticky situation? thanks in advance, p.s.: (edit) one possible solution might be to change my psu to one with more molex connectors on it, but i'm trying to see if there is an inexpensive solution to my quandary. i find it hard to accept that my 850w psu would be inadequate.

very good to know that this 30usd (iirc) should yield me a 6.1.3 pro key. a very good investment indeed. i did e-mail sales@limetech before itimpi replied and am awaiting a reply. will now look at the upgrade cost (from 4.7 to 6.x) to get another key, as i am thinking of upgrading the internals of my old server (and giving it a good dusting/cleaning) once my new one is built and the data been copied over. might as well have a backup server to hold the super-critical stuff off-site.

(i hope this is the right board to ask this) i knew some time ago that i'd need to lifecycle my existing server and when tom had a promo a few moons back, to purchase another key at a reduced price, i pounced on the opportunity. even though i did buy the key, i didn't do anything with it as i didn't have the required hardware for a new box. i've been saving my money since and recently purchased the necessary hardware, with trucks now showing up at my door every other day. i will soon have all the required parts and will need to, huh, "cash in" that key. considering the changes in unraid price structure, can i assume that i can get a "pro" key for 6.1.3? cheers. p.s.: i can provide the order number for that "unRAID Server Second-Key" if necessary. p.p.s.: when i made that 30usd purchase way back when, i did specify (copy-paste) "For Future Use.I don't have another flash drive yet.I would like to get a 2nd "pro" key (I already have a "pro" key).Thank you."

sorry if this has been answered countless times before, and sorry if it is asked in the wrong forum, but i just can't find this faq anywhere here or elsewhere on the web. of course, when i was not considering this upgrade, i remember seeing the answers somewhere... but can't remember where 'where' is now. of course. so, i'm running v4.7 (after upgrading from 4.5.6 & dealing with the surprise hpa issue v4.7 said i suddenly had) and am now thinking of upgrading to v5.0rc8a. (1) what is the procedure to do so -- is it simple as going from one version to another of 4.x (replace bzimage & bzroot, then reboot) or is it more involved? (1.5) will i have to replace all my "extras" (unmenu, powerdown, iftop, htop, etc.) because of the upgrade? (2) i have the pro key for version 4.x, will i have to repurchase new keys when v5.0 becomes officially released? thanks in advance,

so, to semi-answer my question above: talking to another nerd at the office, it appears he's been using the following card without any issues for a year or two already: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158088CVF&Tpk=PEXESATA2 (StarTech PEXESATA2) it is also sold as a Rosewill RC-219 or a Koutech IO-PESA220 (also sold on newegg). anyone else care to say if they've been using this card, in any aforementioned incarnation, successfully or no? and if there exist a better alternative, i'm all ears. cheers. *edit* p.s.: would the HighPoint Rocket 622 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115073) work with unraid 4.5.6 or 4.7? is it worth it?

well, reading a bit to see if personal experience was out of the norm, it appears that i am not the only one who had issues with inexpensive sil3132 pci-e 1x controllers -- syba "i/o crest" cards to be exact. but after reading quite a few messages (and user reviews on newegg et al), i don't know what card i could use. i am running out of drive bays in my server (using 3 'SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B' assemblies in my tower) and will have to expand outside. thing is, i have only one pci-e 1x slot available. so i'll need something that can fit in such a slot and can do port multiplication. one (or two) sans digital TR4M+BNC enclosures might do the trick (very unsure about its cooling capabilities, though), but i still cannot figure out what esata controller might do the trick. suggestion / recommendation, anyone? thanks in advance. p.s.: i'm still running unraid 4.5.6 (spot the production support guy in the picture, if it ain't broken, don't fix it), but i might upgrade to unraid 4.7 if it adds necessary drivers for sata controllers.

after accumulating a metric tonne of optical discs (cd-roms, then dvd-roms) and keeping too many files on my "main" drives, i built a windows machine with two pairs of 500GB drives, two mirrored pairs (sata soft-mirroring using the silicon image drivers), accessible via iscsi. this to start to centralize (sp?) all those files i'd accumulated over the years. and i thought that 1 GB of storage would be enough. yeah, right. i used mirroring in that initial ersatz of a nas because i was too aware of drive failures (working in production support makes you paranoid). iscsi because i felt smb was not efficient enough, amongst other things. but with gigabit ethernet, who cares if you're using smb? after exploring the idea of linux-based software raid, a colleague at the office saw this unraid thread on redflagdeals... and it all went downhill from there.

ah, so it's not just me? wew. relieved. thanks.

huh, where's 'pimp my rig' (pimp your rig?) and why is it "off limits" to me? i initially thought it was because i was lurking, unlogged, from work, but... now i am logged in and i still get the same errmsg. help?

noctua nf-b9 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608005) this is what i use and, imnsho, totally worth it. btw, i got them from ncix, cheaper than newegg. (http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=28452&vpn=NF-B9-1600&manufacture=Noctua) cheers.

back on the air for a quick update: flipped the supermicro drive cages to get the "red tabs" up and the screw holes fit way better. things are still tighter than they should, but the trick was to mount the top-most drive cage first. the consequence of this, though, is that the wiring is now quite f**king ugly and the sata cable bundles are impeding the airflow of the side fan (used to cool the video card & the supermicro sas/sata controller). but, at least, things are working -- running a parity check at the moment. i'll have to tidy things when i can, probably after i move the server in its spot in the basement. at that point i'll take pictures and post them. all the feedback & pictures have been greatly appreciated. thanks to all. cheers.

bkasten -- ah *ha*! thanks a million for posting these pictures! i will then try to flip my drive cages around (red tabs up instead of down) to see if the screw holes line up better before enlarging the case's -- it's been modded enough (i snipped all the tabs out). and to re-iterate (sp?), things are exceedingly tight on the vertical axis, not the horizontal one. cheers.