wsume99

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Everything posted by wsume99

  1. You've got the right idea but you left out some info. You have to add the following to your go file: cd /boot/packages && find . -name '*.auto_install' -type f -print | sort | xargs -n1 sh -c /boot/unmenu/uu
  2. I'm sort of new to the whole media player/htpc concept. I used WMC7 for a little bit and found it to be very appliance-like (if you consider a porta-potty an appliance). The interface absolutely stinks and the playback quality is terrible. Unfortunately I still use it as a PVR but that's antother story. I switched to XBMC and was amazed at the improvement in playback quality as well as the overall flexibility. Plus the amount of support available in the forums over there is amazing as well. Now I'm planning my build for a standalone htpc using XBMC.
  3. Where abouts in Ohio do you guys live? If you don't want to post it in public feel free to private message me. I am in the Columbus area. I'm a Daytonian.
  4. I guess I forgot to mention that I already have a Hauppauge 2250 dual tuner that I would like to reuse. I could buy a HD Homerun but it does not have analog support. That is the reason I went with the 2250 to begin with. I have Time Warner Cable so my clear QAM channels are very limited (basically anything that is not OTA is encrypted) so most of my recording right now is via WMC7 using the analog tuners. It looks like the analog driver support for the 2250 is finally starting to materialize in Linux so I'm planning on switching to mythtv in the near future hence the interest in vdpau and the 9300. A SSD has been in the HTPC build plan from day one. Probably go with a 60GB OCZ Vertex 2.
  5. Will I'm stuck in a continuous do loop here second guessing myself. I want a small, quiet/silent, low power HTPC using mythtv & XBMC. It will serve as a combined FE/BE (unless I can get VMWare running on my unRAID server). Since I want a SFF PC then that means an ITX system which also means only one PCIe slot. That slot would be occupied by my tuner. Now I have read on many forums (here, xbmc, myth) that Intel HD graphics are not that good for xbmc and the like (I see some good comments but a lot of bad ones as well). Everyone seems to be gushing over the nvidia 9300 or ION graphics because of vdpau. I'm concerned that if I go with an i3 (which I really would like to based on my desire for low power) the HD graphics might be a problem and if it is I'll be forced to make a decision between a tuner or a discrete graphics card in my single PCIe slot. If I went with a 9300 board then I would not be forced to make that choice because so many users have reported success with the on-board graphics. Now if I can get VMWare running on unRAID then I could move the tuner to my server and then I'd be clear to get an i3. So right now I'm in a holding pattern and investigating what I need to do to get VMWare working and if it is STABLE.
  6. Well I am by no means an expert but there are lots of I/O errors in there and it looks to me like at some point unRAID had to reset the link to the drive because of this. Here are some of the lines from the report ... Oct 29 02:47:09 Titan kernel: ata5.00: failed command: CHECK POWER MODE Oct 29 02:47:09 Titan kernel: ata5.00: cmd e5/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 tag 0 Oct 29 02:47:09 Titan kernel: res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 0x4 (timeout) Oct 29 02:47:09 Titan kernel: ata5.00: status: { DRDY } Oct 29 02:47:09 Titan kernel: ata5: hard resetting link Maybe you have a bad power connection and/or SATA cable. Check the connections and cables. I'd recommend switching them with a known good power connector and SATA cable. Perhaps use ones that are connected to another drive that is working fine now. Then try the precelar again.
  7. I live in Ohio also. My board must be in the same truck as yours - my delivery is 11/01 as well. I can't wait to experience the feeling of having more MBs than cases to put them in. Maybe I'll build a case from plywood.
  8. What the heck if it only costs $20 to ride this bandwagon I guess I'll hop on.
  9. No. Creating a HD folder on a disk is not the same as creating a HD share. However once unRAID places a file in the HD share and saves that file to a disk (say disk 2) a HD share folder will automatically show up on that disk. Once the HD share folder is created on the disk you can then copy directly to that HD share folder on that specific disk. I hope that makes sense. What I have found is that when I create a new share (i.e. Movies) then a Movies folder will show up on Disk 1 but non of the other disks. The Movies folder won't show up on the other disks until a file is written to the Movies automatically by unRAID. At least that's been my experience. I'm not sure what you are asking - there are two possibilities and perhaps we are just mixing terminology. Let me see if I can resolve this with an example. Let's consider the following using movie only rips of Cars and Monsters Inc. [two of my kids favorite movies]DVDs placed in a Movies share comprised of Disk 1 and Disk 2. Scenario #1 - Using Split Level 3 Movies DVDs (spread across Disk 1 & Disk 2) Cars (placed on Disk 1 & Disk 2) VIDEO_TS.BUP (on Disk 1) VIDEO_TS.IFO (on Disk 1) VTS_01_0.BUP (on Disk 1) VTS_01_0.IFO (on Disk 1) VTS_01_1.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_2.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_3.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_4.VOB (on Disk 2) VTS_01_5.VOB (on Disk 2) VTS_01_6.VOB (on Disk 2) Monsters Inc (placed on Disk 1 & Disk 2) VIDEO_TS.BUP (on Disk 1) VIDEO_TS.IFO (on Disk 1) VTS_01_0.BUP (on Disk 1) VTS_01_0.IFO (on Disk 1) VTS_01_1.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_2.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_3.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_4.VOB (on Disk 2) This is not what you want. When you playback both movies there will be a pause when transitioning between VTS_01_3.VOB which is on Disk 1 and VTS_01_4.VOB which is on Disk 2. This happens because unless you set the spindown timer to a high time like > 1.5 hours disk 2 will be spun down. So the media player has to wait for disk 2 to spinup before it can proceed with playing VTS_01_4.VOB. Scenario #1 - Using Split Level 2 Movies DVDs (spread across Disk 1 & Disk 2) Cars (placed on Disk 1) VIDEO_TS.BUP (on Disk 1) VIDEO_TS.IFO (on Disk 1) VTS_01_0.BUP (on Disk 1) VTS_01_0.IFO (on Disk 1) VTS_01_1.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_2.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_3.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_4.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_5.VOB (on Disk 1) VTS_01_6.VOB (on Disk 1) Monsters Inc (placed on Disk 2) VIDEO_TS.BUP (on Disk 2) VIDEO_TS.IFO (on Disk 2) VTS_01_0.BUP (on Disk 2) VTS_01_0.IFO (on Disk 2) VTS_01_1.VOB (on Disk 2) VTS_01_2.VOB (on Disk 2) VTS_01_3.VOB (on Disk 2) VTS_01_4.VOB (on Disk 2) This is what you want. All the individual files that comprise a single movie are placed on a single disk. It's fine to place different movies on different disks.
  10. I think the proper phrase (a la Office Depot) is - "Wow, That's a Low Price"
  11. He could set the spindown timer to say 2 hours or longer and this would eliminate the delay/pause in the middle of the movie. The downside to using that method is that drives will be spun up for much longer than needed. So I'll clarify my previous statement ... The proper way to eliminate the delay/pause during playback is to properly configure the split level within the user shares so that all the files for any single movie are stored only on a single disk.
  12. Does the duplication of files extend to operating system files as well? What happens if the disk that WHS is installed on fails?
  13. The problem is that when you copy directly to a disk you bypass all the settings you setup for a share. My recommendation for you would be to setup three shares: Photos (Split Level 1) Music (Split level 1) Movies (Split level 2) Also to clarify ... in the unraid settings set Spinup groups to 'Yes'. 'Spinup Groups': This feature permits you to group hard drives so that if an I/O request is received on any drive in the group, the unRAID driver will spinup any/all spundown hard drives also in the group. In other words, when accessing a file in a share, all disks in the same share will spinup. This way there will be only a pause before the beginning of a movie, until all disks spin up... Spinup groups will not fix the problem MrGrumpie is describing. Assume he's watching a 2 hr movie and it's split in equal parts across two disks. Spinup groups will initially spin up all the disks in the group when he presses play to start the movie but if the spindown timer is set to less than 1 hour the other disk would be spun down when the second half of the movie is needed. This would cause a delay in playback while the disk is spun up. The only way to avoid this is to make sure that all the required files for a single movie are on the same disk OR never spindown any disk within the movie share.
  14. Just to clarify ... unRAID does not support hot swapping of drives. If you want to add or remove a drive you have to stop the array and power down the server. The only reason to use hot swap bays is for increased capacity (5-in-3 vs 4-in-3) and ease of installation/removal. The downside is that hot swap bays are normally not as efficient when it comes to cooling. It only makes logical sense. If you have 5 drives crammed into 3 5.25" bays the airflow is probably not going to be as good as 4 drives in the same footprint. You need 2.54 mm pitch jumper pins for WD HDDs. I have seen two different pitch sizes (2.00 and 2.54) being sold. They look identical but just have different pitch. The jumpers in the photo look just like the jumpers on my EARS drives but obviously I cannot tell if those are the correct pitch.
  15. Not sure, but I do find it ironic that SomeWhatLost is asking if he is missing something.
  16. Just curiuos, what MB are you using? I'm assuming it's an ITX. I'm currently mulling over my options for a xbmc/mythtv htpc and I've been looking at getting a Nvidia 9300 ITX board.
  17. Another bit of advice...I'd purchase a 2 pack of the Pro license up front. It only costs $30 more but it gives you a working spare flash drive in the event that your flash drive should fail. I believe that Tom will give you another registration key if your flash drive fails however your server would be down during this period. Having a spare flash drive and registration key would minimize your downtime which tends to be very important in business applications. Just remove the old drive, put in your backup flash drive, and reboot. The key here is that you just need to make sure that whenever you make any changes to your server config that you backup your flash drive files onto the spare.
  18. I would get at least 2GB of RAM. I have seen a few comments that indicate some users were unable to perform a file-system check with reiserfsck on a 2TB disk. 1 GB is probably enough but I'd get 2GB to be safe and it'll give you more flexibility to run add-ons. I suspect that in the future you'll probably end up running unMenu and some other add-ons so I'd get 2GB to be safe. Get 4GB to be ultra safe. If you get a LGA 775 motherboard (Supermicro MDB-X7SBE) then get a Celeron 430 processor. It should be just fine. If you want to future-proof your system and avoid having to upgrade the CPU if you decide to do a little more with your server then get a LGA 1156 motherboard (Supermicro MDB-X8SIL-F-O) and use the i3-530. With it should be good to go for a LONG time no matter what you decide to do with the server. The LGA 1156 board is $60 less but the i3 CPU will be about $75 more, so it's not really that big of a difference. It's really a matter of preference. If this was my server I'd get the Supermicro MDB-X8SIL-F-O board and pair it with an i3-530. But you should be fine with either. Not sure if the RAM (DDR2 vs. DDR3) is more expensive but you can check that. The Norco 4220 is probably the cheapest route to getting 20 drive capacity with hot swap enclosures. Many users prefer hot swap enclosures because it's more convenient to swap out drives if you have them. The P80 is a fine case but you'd have to purchase 4 x 5-in-3 hot swap bays to get 20 drives in that case. The total cost for that method would be $300 + 4*$80 = $620. Compare that to the Norco 4220 which is ~$330. The Lian Li case is really overpriced. I'd consider the Antec 1200 as an alternative. It's a good, quiet case for only $160 and can also accept 4 x 5-in-3 hot swap bays. You could get the 1200 and 2 x 5-in-3 hot swap enclosure for about the same as the P80 or the 4220. As you can see if you want a tower now it may end up costing you more in the long run if you want 20 drives. If you're willing to settle for 16 drives not in hot swap enclosures the get the 1200 and use 4 x COOLER MASTER STB-3T4-E3-GP 4-in-3 drive bays.
  19. I would never had known if you didn't say so.
  20. I just replaced my 1TB WD Black parity drive with a 2TB WD EARS drive. My average parity check speeds went from 76 MB/sec to 58 MB/sec (IIRC). It's slower but WD Black drives are a lot more $$$ as well. When the prices drop on the Black drives I'll get one for my parity drive.
  21. Most (not all) of the time it's because they installed their drive into unRAID without the jumper and then tried to add it after the fact. EARS is newer build/technology with 4KB sectors and has 64MB cache although that won't make much of a difference when used in unRAID. To use this drive you have to add the jumper on pins 7 & 8. EADS is older build/technology with standard 512 byte sectors but only a 32MB cache. No need to add the jumper on pins 7 & 8. However some users have reported that even EADS drive are sometimes labeled "advanced format" so those would need the jumper. My opinion - it doesn't really matter which one you get - I'd just get whatever is the cheapest.
  22. Well I'm not an IT guy but I was able to build an unRAID server without any trouble at all - it just takes a little common sense. If you're going to run this 24x7 using stock unRAID then it's really a piece of cake - assuming you pick the right hardware. You should be able to get the server up and running and be at the unRAID GUI in less than 4 hours, no problem (assuming you don't get any defective hardware). Add another 1-2 days to preclear all your drives and you'd be ready to start moving over your data. Check the 20 Drive Beast section on the Hardware Compatability page for a list of components. The price for that server as of 9/1/2010 was ~$940. However you could get down to ~$800 if you order only one of the two add-on cards & breakout cables. With just one card installed you'd be able to install 14 drives which would give you 26TB of space if you used all 2TB drives plus the ability to add another card in the future and bring you up to the max of 40TB (20 drives).
  23. Looks good. You might consider getting a WD20EARS and a WD20EADS both from Newegg. Since they're different models you should be ok getting them at the same time. The WD20EADS is the standard format (512 byte sector) version of the 2TB Green drive and it only has a 32MB cache vs. 64MB on the EARS model. The difference in cache won't make any difference in unRAID. You'd better check the label if you get the EADS drive because I've seen a few comments about some of them being advanced format drives (4KB sectors). If it is labeled as an advanced format drive just add the jumper on pins 7 & 8 like you'll need to on the EARS drive and everything will be fine. With the $20 promo code it'll be $10 cheaper than the EARS drive.
  24. That's why it has those huge handles on the side. Personally I prefer the Mad Russian 64 drive server. After looking at the $4200 price tag for that behemoth I can see why the Mad Russian used plywood.
  25. wsume99

    Server build advice

    Recommend you research SABnzbd and Sickbeard. I'm wanting to do some of the same things as the OP. Right now my unRAID server is way underutilized just serving media. I really want it to also function as a PVR. My tuner card has no analog support in MythTV so I'd have to use a MS OS. I've seen the posts about VMWare before but I suppose I'm a little hesitant. I have zero experience with VMs but I'm willing to put in the effort required to make it work however I'm concerned that what I'll end up with won't be "appliance like". I don't want to spend a lot of time on this if what I end up with is a semi-stable system. So is the effort required just needed to get it up and working initially and once it's runnung then it's smooth sailing from then on? Or will increasing the complexity make my unRAID server a constant PITA and require a lot of continuous tinkering? If it's the former then I'd be willing to give it a shot.