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Thanks very much for your response and idea re: organizing user shares -- very helpful!

When I write to my array, I like to use Disk Shares (e.g. disk1, disk2, ...) rather than user shares (e.g. Music, Videos, ...). There are two reasons: 1) I make my user shares read only so that nobody accidentally messes up the content and 2) when user shares span more than one drive, I like the directories to be in alphabetical order (for example, music would have a-p on disk6 and q-z on disk7. I just installed a cache drive and found that when I wrote to a disk share, it writes directly rather than using the cache. In searching, I found that this is normal -- the cache drive normally is only used for user shares. Is there any way for me to configure the cache drive to work when writing to disk shares?

Just swapped in that Intel PCI-E network card (after disabling Reaktek Ethernet in the BIOS). 1080p (and even 4K) video now streaming smooth! Thanks so much, Frank!!!! I'm unbelievably impressed that you were able to troubleshoot this, given how obscure the issue was.

Thanks, again, Frank. I'm going to pick up the $26 Intel NIC on Amazon and will install it & disable the onboard NIC in the BIOS. This is the card that I bought: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CY0P7G/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks so much for your comprehensive answer, Frank. Much appreciated. If I replace the motherboard-based NIC with a network card, will I need to somehow disable the RealTek NIC? Also, if anyone has any ideas why the problem goes away when the dashboard is active, I'd be very interested. It's very odd, but it's happening. Thanks, again!

I have a particularly vexing problem. I have a media library on an 8 disk unRaid server. When I playback video (generally H.264 1080p MKV files) on a Kodi client or Plex server over the network (using SMB), I often get playback freezes. I ran the unRaid dashboard through a web browser on another computer on my network to check memory and CPU utilization. The CPU usage briefly shows very high (as much as 100%), then drops down and stays down. As long as I have that dashboard running on a web browser, my playback freezes go away. If I close the web browser, the freezes start again. I've checked the log (attached below), and I don't find any error messages. My system is a Celeron 420 CPU with 2GB RAM. 9x Seagate 4TB Drives (8 + Parity; no cache). XFS file system. unRaid v6.3.5. Hardwired Gigabit Ethernet network connections. No unRaid plugins. Nothing else running on the system. Any thoughts on what to do here? If not, is there some sort of utility that will do the same thing as keeping my UnRaid dashboard up in a web browser? Thanks so much for your help! Best BB bbmedia-diagnostics-20170807-1957.zip

Bittorrent recently went into alpha with a peer to peer sync solution called SyncApp. It's cross platform, including Windows, Linux and OS X. Here's a review: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/alpha-review-bittorrent-syncapp/7278 It would be awesome if we could get this running on Unraid.

Thank you. Here's my take: the db/cache on the flash drive is only written when the library is rescanned, which I might do once per week. That's a very modest number of write cycles. If I put the db and cache on disk1, I need to spin up that disk every time I access the dlna server - even if the media that I want is on a different drive. That seems like it would be unnecessarily slow and power inefficient. I don't mean to be argumentative and am very appreciative of your work -- just my 2 cents.

I just wanted to thank you for this package. I'm running it with about 2,400 movies, TV shows, and music videos. It works flawlessly on my Samsung TV with pretty much any file type that I throw at it. One question: is there any reason not to put the db and cache files on the flash drive? Thanks, again! bb

That server w/ the ABIT IP35 Pro motherboard, Celeron processor, & 2GB memory is still running great. No problems once I got the stuff mentioned above sorted out. It's currently running 4.5 Beta 6. You may want to repurpose or sell that quad core processor & substitute in a Celeron (sells for $40 shipped at Newegg). It will run cooler & use less power. Hope this helps. BB

Thanks for the tip. I've bought A/V cables and a mount for my TV from them -- great to know they do computer stuff, too. bb

You're right about the steep shipping at geeks.com. I bought 2 of those video cards, a couple of Lexar usb drives (for the OS) and some ethernet cables, so the shipping got spread out & turned out not to be too painful overall.

I'm using an 8MB ATI Rage XL PCI card w/ my AB9 Pro: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ATI-RAGEXL-8M&cat=VCD Cost $9 +shipping bb

Thanks a bunch, RobJ and cohiba. I finally got it going w/ the IP35 Pro. In addition to the issue w/ the network, I also saw on the boot screen that my drives were in IDE mode. I went into the bios and changed the drive mode. On my next boot, it started seeing my ethernet adapter. Then, I couldn't get it to get a DHCP address. Then, I switched the cable to the other port (there are 2 ports on the IP35 Pro) --- and I finally was successful! To answer cohiba's question - yes, I'm building another server for a friend who "just had to have one" when I told him about what I was doing. Thanks, again. bb

I'm building 2 Unraid servers. I ordered 2 identical sets of components: - AB9 Pro Motherboard - Celeron 420 - 2x 1GB G-Skill PC2-6400 memory - Antec Earthwatts 430 PS - ATI PCI Video card - 4x 1TB Seagate drives - Coolermaster Centurion 5 case & 4 in 3 drive module Newegg, for some reason, sent me 1 AB9 Pro and 1 Abit IP35 Pro motherboard (instead of 2 AB9's). I took a look at the specs, and it looked like the IP35 Pro is a newer and higher-end board, so I figured that I'd keep it rather than hassle with RMA. I did a search and found one person considering the IP35 Pro, but nobody confirming that it works. http://www.uabit.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=48&page=2&model=381 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127030 I built the first system using the IP35 Pro and Unraid 4.3 B6. First thing I did was to flash the motherboard bios to the latest rev (rev 16; 3/18/08) It boots into Unraid. I'm able to login to root, but I get no network connection. ifconfig e0 indicates that the system is not seeing my ethernet adapter. The green LED next to the ethernet cable turns on, indicating a connection to the switch. I'll build out the other system tomorrow w/ the AB9 Pro board -- hopefully, I'll have better luck. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice for the IP35 Pro system -- my guess is that the ethernet adapter (Realtek RTL8110SC rather than RTL8111B used on the AB9 Pro) is not compatible w/ Unraid, but maybe I'm missing something? Thanks for any help! bb