dv-geek

Many many thanks @ConnerVT and @Hoopster for speeding up my education on Unraid!

*** New Unraid user - so maybe my questions & observations might not be technically correct. ***Bought a license - though I have not installed it yet as I am not sure if I will continue with this hardware (MB+CPU) combo. Still running the trial version for testing... Built an array with a bunch of old disks lying around. The thing that attracted me - you can throw any disk in as long as it's not bigger than your parity disk(s). Had a Supermicro X10SLM-F with 16GB ECC installed, gathering dust - scrounged in my junk and found an i3-4160 that would work in this MB. Had a spare Adaptec 71605. So maxed the gig out with 22 drives (6 SATA on MB + 16 SATA on the 71605), as follows - 2 x 8TB as parity, 8 x 8TB + 2 x 5TB + 4 x 4TB + 2 x 2TB + 2 x 1.5TB + 1 x 1TB - for a 21 device array with a 1TB SSD as a cache drive. What I like about this MB is that it has a USB3 port on the MB (not in the back as most MB's) that I can plug in the Unraid Boot USB. Also two 1GB ports for bonding. For chassis I used something I had never used before - a MININGEEK 24+4 HDD open frame from Amazon - put in 8 PF-12's Noctua fans and it's more silent than my other servers. Love this chassis and have decided all my future server builds will be using this. Might even migrate some of my existing storage servers to this. Observations 1) Most of my disks had xfs filesystem without a partition - so had to move the files to a spare disk - create a partition and move the files back - a temporary pain and lost about 2% space per drive. 2) Parity build took about 40 hours. 3) Played around with multiple scenarios - removed disks, replaced disks, etc. etc. 4) Lastly stopped the array - removed and destroyed (reformatted) both parity disks and brought up the array. Surprise - array came up as valid. Attached the parity disks and hit check parity button. Bunch of errors as expected - with a rebuild estimate in excess of a week! 5) Scrapped the old config - created a new config and brought up the array - parity started rebuilding with an expected time of 24 to 36 hours as expected (kept varying, but stabilized to 36 hours after about 12 hours). Surprises 1) Array coming up as valid without parity disks - no warnings on missing parity disks (when I brought the array up after destroying the parity disks) 2) Estimated parity rebuid time of over one week, once new parity disks installed. Questions 1) Accessing and copying files directly onto disks via cli (putty) bypasses parity? 2) Copying and moving files to user shares via cli keeps parity intact? - I think so, because files go to cache drive and then move to array.

Update - installed and the disks showed up. Was able to mount and access files. Peave - Unraid does not recognize disks with XFS file systems which are not partitioned. Ultimately had to move all files off each disk - create a partition and xfs file systems and copy back - loss of about 2% storage.

Long story short - looking for advice. Old linux server died - data is on xfs filesystems - about 80TB (10 x 8TB disks) Want to build UnRaid server - will I lose data if I directly add these disks to an array? Will I have to reformat? In which case - I have to use 1 parity disk as a temporary data transfer disk and build array disk by disk. Have 2 new disks setup as parity (will remove one, if I have to use it as a temp data transfer disk) Thanks in advance to your suggestions.

Thank you @trurl I do have an Adaptec ASR 71605 16Port HBA RAID PCIe Controller Card - but no hardware RAID - just using it as a controller for JBOD Will this be an issue? Thanks again.

Searched the forums for an answer but could not find any what happens if 1) My server motherboard fails and I have to replace it? 2) Maybe it is a different generation? 3) Or even a different processor? Like from an Intel Motherboard to an AMD Motherboard? Will the disk array and parity drives work in any of these scenarios? Or would I have lost the entire system? Thanks!