Tim P.

I'd also like to add that I initially had trouble booting from USB using a genuine LimeTech USB stick with unRaid on it. It would just continually reboot and syslinux would give a machine error. I reformatted it and updated the BIOS on the motherboard and the problem was resolved. I'm not sure which one was the issue, but the BIOS is my guess. Tim

Having run unRaid for a few years off an old computer I was just going to throw away, it was time to update. I like the Lian Li case because the cooling is via front and top. It also looks like you could put 2 side-by-side on a rack shelf. Pricing wasn't too bad as I got most of the stuff on sale or managed to pair it with a rebate. The exception was the memory because I wanted memory off the mobo's approved list; I didn't want to mess around with memory that may cause issues. Case: Lian Li PC-Q25B - $80 Mobo: Asus H87I-PLUS - $117 CPU: G3220 - $65 AMEX Statement credit on mobo+cpu - ($30) HDD: 2x WD Red 3TB - $280 Rebate on 2x 3TB [Nov] ($60) HDD: 2x WD Red 3TB - $280 Rebate on 2x 3TB Red [Dec] ($60) Addl rebate for buying .99 bandages with HDDs - ($25) BOA Statement credit on above ($42) Cable: Startech USB header adapter - $4 Cable: Startech SATA power x4 - $7 Cable: SATA right angle x5 - $3 Card: Syba SATA 2-port - $20 PSU: ST45SF - $70 Memory: GSKILL 4Gx2 - $85 HHDs: 3x WDEARS 1TB recycled from last server - $0 Total: $764

Worked great, thanks. Tim

Thank you for the reply. I must not have email notification of new posts on. As it turned out, the unraid server was in high demand this weekend, so I didn't have a chance to work on it. I will copy the config file over and work it out that way. Tim

Been through the wiki, but since I am doing 2 upgrades at once, just want to make sure what I am about to do is the correct thing. Right now I have a 3 drives system (2 data+1 parity) running on v4.5.1 Basic version. I received unraid pro on flash directly from lime. I am going to add a 3rd data drive and swap my existing USB flash with the preconfigured flash with Pro I received from lime. What I propose to do is write down the disk names and serial numbers from the existing system, then after booting from the new USB flash, assign the disks to the same location (except now I will had another [new] disk, which I will assign as disk3) Parity will have to be rebuilt to accommodate the new drive. Sound like a plan? Thanks!

No reason, it was with the computer originally. Tim

Newegg has the Western Digital WD20EADS 2TB disk for $149.99 with free shipping. Make sure you select the "Combo Deal" below the drive image and receive a free Rosewill RX-DU101 USB<>SATA drive dock (a supposed $39.99 value). Also eligible for 2% BCB. Tim

I have unRAID running on: Intel D101GGC (AA D35788-305) Firmware GC11010N.86A.0312.2006.0609.1700 1024M DDR400 (single) Pentium D 2.66 MHz Lite-On CDRW Transcend SDHC 4GB in a SanDisk USB<>SDHC adapter (3) WD10EARS off of the onboard SATA. Bios Settings: Advanced>Floppy Configuration Onboard Floppy Drive Controller: Enabled Drive A: None Advanced>USB Configuration USB Controller: Enabled USB EHCI Controler: Enabled Legacy USB SUpport: Auto USB Zip Emulation Type: HDD Boot Silent Boot: Disabled Intel® Rapid Bios Boot: Disabled USB Boot: Enabled First Boot Device: Hard Disk Second Boot Device: Disabled Third Boot Device: Disabled Fourth Boot Device: Disabled Halt On: All, But KB Boot>Hard Disk Boot Priority 1. USB - HDD0 I'm not sure you need all of these configured like I have them, but I can confirm that this setup works. Hard disk boot priority doesn't seem to matter (I had USB listed as the last one and it still booted, but imagine it boots faster with USB as the first). HTH, Tim

I agree on the bottleneck. However, it does substantiate that there is a performance increase. Is it representative of the true increase per drive, no. GaryMaster's post sums up the per-drive increase nicely. Just thought I would share my observations. Tim

I installed the jumper across pins 7 & 8 and am running the preclear_disk script again (have 3 instances of the script open in different vttys), in write mode I am now getting: Drive/dev/sda/dev/sdb/dev/sdc Speed (no jumper)73.1 MB/s62.9 MB/s62.2 MB/s Speed (Pins 7-8 Jumpered)80.7 MB/s68.3 MB/s63.1 MB/s Improvement10.3%8.5%1.4% HTH, Tim

TigerDirect has the Western Digital WD10EADS 1TB for $89.99. Search for "harddrive" through Bing, and select TigerDirect from the "Sponsored Sites" at the top. When you get to the TigerDirect store search for WD10EADS and add it-- you should see 15% BCB. I did this with my WD10EARS last weekend. Spend $100, get free shipping!

Don't forget 2% BCB

bubbaQ says here: So it appears that technology isn't catching up, it's already there. It seems that unraid's assumption that that partition begins at 63 is the only stumbling block. I imagine that sometime in the future unraid will support the partition beginning at 64. Since this is currenty addressed easily via the jumper, it's not a big deal to me. Tim

Thank you once again for your help. Tim EDIT: I'm in the write phase now (no jumpers). For just sda I was as 68.7MB/s. When sdb and sbc also went into write mode I got 73.1 MB/s, 62.9 MB/s, 62.2MB/s.

I echo prostuff's comments. With the webgui it is really not hard at all. I don't really understand all of what is going on with unraid, but the good thing is that you don't have to be a computer genious to use it. Frankly, I found that getting the computer to boot from USB was the hardest part. It wasn't that difficult, but I had to try a few different BIOS settings until I found some that worked. After that, the rest was pretty easy. The wiki and users here are great for answering any questions. I look at the support here, and that makes me want to buy this product. Regardless of what product you choose, I would look to see what kind of support you can get before investing in it. Tim

Thanks Joe for the detailed response. I have unraid booting and all is well. I am running the preclear script from /boot (I checked to make sure it is the latest) as furnished with the unraid image. I have not assigned any of the three drives (the only three drives I have) in unraid. With that in mind; regarding the following: If I am understanding correctly, I could finish the current preclear, install the jumpers, and assign the drives in unraid, as this is a fresh install with no data nor parity yet. Thank you for your help, Tim

Hi Guys, First time poster, but I'm currently pre-clearing my drives to try my hand at Unraid (free version). I bought (3) WD10EARS, which are connected to the SATA ports furnished on my Intel P4 motherboard. There's been a lot of talk about these drives and it's confusing, to say the least, to me. I'm not foreign to *nix, but sectors and cylinders are beyond my knowledge. I wanted to put this post together to try and help out anybody else that grabs a WD??EARS, since the knowledge is buried in other threads. At this time, I have not installed the jumper across pins 7-8. preclear was giving me 98 MB/s read rates when I was clearing only /dev/sda. Now that I am clearing sda, sdb, and sdc at the same time, I am getting read rates of 57 MB/s, 41 MB/s, 41 MB/s. We shall see what the write performance is In other implementations they have been successfully using "fdisk -u" to start the partition on sector 64. However, Joe L. doesn't think this will work, as stated here: So, using fdisk to realign the partition doesn't appear viable at this time. However, we do have instructions on the HDD label "Windows XP, single partition - set jumpers 7-8 prior to installation or use WD align SW" Anandtech has an explanation of the jumpers here: