JimPhreak

Weird for some reason the embedded video isn't showing anymore but it was earlier. I broke the link so you can post it into your browser yourself, just check my previous post.

I'm not sure if this belongs in the KVM section or Docker so since it's more general I'm posting here. I want to determine if I'm doing all I can to get the most performance out of my Plex Media Server (currently running in a Docker). My Plex server is the #1 priority for all things related to my home server and I wanted to get a few things clarified to be sure I'm not wasting any potential. OpenELC: I watched Jon's video on the implementation of OpenELEC on unRAID 6.1 but I'm not very clear on how it works or if it can even be used to enhance Plex since the video basically showed it working specifically with Kodi. So first off, can I use OpenELEC to enhance my Plex experience for both myself at home and my remote users to eliminate buffering issues? Does it only help if your'e using an HTPC as opposed to clients such as Chromecasts, SmartTVs, Android/iOS, etc? Does it work in conjunction with Docker or is it an either or situation? I realize some of these questions may better be suited for the Plex forums but seeing that I'm running Plex on unRAID I wanted to see what some of you are doing and the results you're getting to see how I can draw from your experiences.

Well for starters, half my cache right now is taken up by Dockers (mainly Plex). That doesn't leave me a lot of wiggle room with regard to copying large amounts of data to my cache drive. I'd also like to setup a cache only "Games" share for use with Steam.

I've currently got 2 x Intel 730 480GB SSD's in my cache pool. I'm looking to double that capacity by adding a 960GB drive. Are there any kind of best practices with regard to matching brands/specs or is capacity size really all that matters when picking a drive in this situation? The reason I ask is that Intel doesn't make the 730 in anything bigger than 480GB and while I'd love to stick with these high quality drives, I can't justify spending over $500 on two 480GB drives when there other single drive 960GB options (see below) for $200 less. Not to mention I'm running low on SATA ports. SanDisk Ultra II 960GB SATA III 2.5-Inch 7mm Height Solid State Drive (SSD) Crucial M500 960GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm Internal Solid State Drive CT960M500SSD1

I'ts my understanding that regardless of how many cache drives you use in a pool, it will still be presented as a single cache drive. That is where you would install your docker appdata directory (where each of your docker's store their config files) as well as a separate directory for your VM's. I don't use VM's on unRAID so I just have an appdata directory for my docker's as well as a Downloads directory that is what's considered a cache-only share in that all the data resides on the cache pool and never gets moved to the protected array of disks. BTW, I just came across this video from LimeTech that outlines how to convert a VMware based VM to a KVM based VM for use in unRAID. www. youtube.com/watch?v=ZV4kqeD0RLk

That should work if you just need 2 additional SATA ports. As for the VM's and Dockers, you'll want to run those off a cache drive, preferably an SSD. You can even create an SSD pool so that your cache drive is protected. I run my dockers off a dual drive pool of Intel 730 480GB SSD's. But you can also just use any single HDD as cache if you want.

A lot of people (myself included) have had good success with the IBM ServeRAID M1015 controller card. You can get one for about $90 on eBay.

That first system should work fine depending on how much transcoding you'll be doing. I'm not sure if the SCSI drives will work in unRAID to be honest with you. Hopefully someone else can chime in on that.

unRAID 6 has KVM built into it so if you wanted to run unRAID baremetal you can then create VM's from within unRAID itself. Your other option is to do what I and many others do which is run unRAID as a VM itself inside ESXi and then of course you can just continue to run you current VM's along side it. However as others have alluded to in this thread, you're better off consolidating your Windows VM's into 1 and just allocating more resources to that one VM if it needs it. P.S. What's your budget for this consolidated server?

Also, with regard to linking Plex to another server, I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you saying you have Plex/Emby up in a test unRAID server and want to link those Dockers to shares on your other server? And with regard to moving VM's from ESXi to unRAID, can't be done as far as I'm concerned. unRAID uses the KVM hypervisor which is fundamentally different from ESXi. Correct on the Plex thing - just as a test run I have plex on \\server2 and all my data on my current unraid box \\server1\media\movies can I link plex docker to that. I believe I tried and it didnt' work but maybe I didnt' do that part correctly. Makemkv docker and blu ray drive worked which was a plus. There is no "easy" way to do it as Dockers are really meant to only access local paths (at least the Plex docker is). However some have found a workaround albeit a fairly complex one if you're new to unRAID. https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=38770.0

Agree with trurl here. Also, with regard to linking Plex to another server, I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you saying you have Plex/Emby up in a test unRAID server and want to link those Dockers to shares on your other server? And with regard to moving VM's from ESXi to unRAID, can't be done as far as I'm concerned. unRAID uses the KVM hypervisor which is fundamentally different from ESXi.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned but can't a single unRAID installation only support up to 25 devices (including parity and cache) anyway? That means you'd need a separate server for more than that many drivers anyway. Or am I missing something? On the side of probably never needing more than 24 drives, I have to agree. I'd imagine that the smaller sized drives will die sooner than you will run out of bays and when you buy a replacement drive it more than likely will be at least double the capacity. I just bought myself a 10bay chassis that can support 72TB (80TB raw) of storage currently as I'm using the Seagate 8TB SMR drives. I imagine by the time I need more than 72TB of space there will be a lot larger sized drives out.

Same for me as well. I have a Sandisk Ultra Fit and a Sandisk Cruzer fit both allocated to unRAID. What people may be unaware of is ESX also reports 'Reset high speed USB' messages in /var/log/vmkernel.log until the messages stop in unRAID. Correct, by the way I have those exact 2 USB's (One cruzer fit, one ultra fit) in my server as well .

I agree that you should consolidate your Windows VM but I do think that certain services such as Plex and Emby work much better in a docker than they do inside a Windows box. Ever since I moved my Plex server to docker from a Windows VM last year it's been exponentially easier to maintain it.

YOu can absolutely do what you're looking to do on one system, especially with dockers.. That's very similar to what I am running. I have a single ESXi 5.5 server running about 10-12 VM's but my unRAID VM is my main VM. Inside that VM I'm running about 10 dockers including Plex and it runs flawlessly. You can also run Emby and MakeMKV inside a docker as well. As for dockers being able to utilize a bluray drive, that I can't really speak to as my server has no optical drive installed. What is your budget for this server because that will determine a lot?

Just a quick update on my server... I've just purchased 5 new 8TB Seagate SMR drives. 4 are going in my backup server currently consisting of 8 x 3TB drives and 1 will be a cold spare. I purchased this case to transfer my main server to and I will be adding the 4 x 3TB drives being replaced in my backup server into this main server to give me a total of 36TB of usable storage (44TB RAW). The CPU in my current case was getting a little too hot with limited airflow and I obviously need the extra HDD bays.

I can confirm also that just simply formatting a spare usb flash drive I had laying around and adding that USB device to my unRAID VM stopped the error messages for me. I will also note that I have the unassigned devices plugin installed and the 2nd flash drives shows up under there (though I don't have it mounted).

I'm looking to buy a power supply for my new rack mounted server case and I'm interested in the idea of redundant power supplies. However every review I read on them, people complain about how loud the fans are on them which turns me off because my server is not in a dedicated server room. You can get ATX form factor redundant power supplies. They're not cheap. Redundant power supplies are noisy because they typically can not fit even 80mm fans in them. Smaller fans are noisy. To me, they are not worth it, if you do not have redundant power to separately feed them, and a UPS. You're better off with a quality spare PSU on the shelf. Yea that's what I've decided to do. My Seagate 8TB drives pull a max of 7.5w each and I've got 10 slots for them. My CPU being only 45w means I can probably get away with a pretty low wattage PSU.

To be honest with you it's just my Plex docker. It seems once every few days it's crashes and I need to restart the docker. This just started happening and every time it has I've been so anxious to get it restarted that I forget to check the Plex crash logs which get erased upon reboot. I'll need to remember to check next crash before restarting the docker.

I'm looking to buy a power supply for my new rack mounted server case and I'm interested in the idea of redundant power supplies. However every review I read on them, people complain about how loud the fans are on them which turns me off because my server is not in a dedicated server room.

I just tried removing and re-adding the plugin and now the icon looks different and it doesn't show up under Settings. Do I need to reboot after installing this plugin? If so I'll have to do that late. And yes I've confirmed the directory location is correct and I've reloading my browser. EDIT: Hmmmm, wonder if this is an issue with VMware. The script seem to install properly and work fine on my backup server which is baremetal.

-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 85224 Apr 5 2014 preclear_disk.sh*

I've got the plugin installed and the script is located in \\tower\flash\config\plugins\preclear.disk but the plugin still tells me the script is missing. What am I doing wrong?

Hmmm, interesting suggestion gary. Sounds like that's the way to go since I can get my backup server up much faster. It will take me a few days to do the initial backup (17TB) but at least that will be taking place behind the scenes. With regard to the preclear script, can I run it with the -n option from the preclear plugin?

I've recently added additional space/drives to my main unRAID server and thus I'm in need of more space on my backup server as well. My backup server consists of 8 x 3TB drives (1 parity + 7 data). I have 4 x 8TB drives to replace four of those 3TB drives (parity + 3 data). I've never had to replace a drive either for more space or due to a defective drive so can someone point me to an updated for v6 (I'm on 6.1.3) guide on how to do this or give me specific advice on how best to do this for my current situation? The only thing I know for sure is I need to replace the parity drive first. I assume I replace that, let parity rebuild and then replace the additional 3 drives one by one. I'm just not sure if there is any specific process or setting I need to configure before removing the old drive and putting the new one(s) in.