Blu

I've been wanting to setup a home server to place my media on. I've never used any type of raid so I'm new to this and haven't really focused on it in awhile. When I first heard of unraid I was told you could just have one folder that spans across every drive such as a "media" folder. I've also heard you need to make multiple folders. So I'm a little confused on this. If it's a folder spanning across all drives, what happens when a drive fails? I know you have the parity to re build it but would the files on it just be un accessible until the parity rebuilds it? I was wondering as well would it be possible to have a backup parity drive? From my understanding if the parity fails all the other drives are able to rebuild it? Just don't want to loose any media is all.

Does it matter how much "mac" it has? I see some with 1k some with 4k and one series with 8k will that affect anything?

I'm Canadian so I got a little bit of a choice to pick, each one you guys listed is not there but the following are. $40 - TRENDnet TEG-S80G 10/100/1000Mbps 8-Port Gigabit GREENnet Switch 8 x RJ45 8K MAC Address Table 128KBytes Buffer Memory http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251 $50 - If I wanna go over kill with 16 ports lol... http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156273CVF $40 - TRENDnet TEG-S50G 10/100/1000Mbps GREENnet Switch 5 x RJ45 104KBytes Buffer Memory http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156250CVF So basically the very top and bottom are the most popular by reviews. Which one would be good to snatch up?

I don't know what type of switch I need/want yet so far I have all this in the living room to connect to it, HTPC Unraid server couple small NAS servers wii xbox 360 ps3 Living room PC Possible folding rigs x2-4 if I really get into it I'll probably go crazy on these My other 3 ports on the router will be taken and used right at the source by my pc bed room xbox, If I can get a USB to Ethernet port addon thing? I got about 6 external hard drives that would be lovely if put on my network. Does anyone know of anything like that by any chance? Thanks for any help in advance, looking forward to making this a awesome little project.

To be able to do this, google movie sheets, http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?topic=1349.0 I was personally going to do this with my collection until I realized building a HTPC and using XBMC would be so much easier to grab movie back grounds / info / run time / actors and other information.

Alright, to DGA who said about replacing a drive and having a second fail during that time. Is it possible to run two parity drives to protect against this?

Alright thanks guys but can someone reply to this? Edit: I also plan on having a couple smaller NAS machines to back up data on my unraid server, or would it be ok to trust a unraid server with a 40TB collection of HD tv and movies and just have a couple of pre cleared ready disks laying around incase of failure. I would like to know if unraid is really that safe ya know.

I was wondering if a dual/quad would do a unraid server better in terms of pre clearing drives, if the pre clear script takes advantage of multi cores or not. Thanks!

I bought a router for when I do my unraid set up but I only bought a 4 port router, I was wondering if I bought a switch and ran it like the following if it would work. Modem > 4 port router > main pc/xbox/internet switch/living room PC (switch) > HTPC/Unraid server Will the switch just act as giving me extra ports from my router?or should I switch the living room PC and the unraid server connections around so the unraid server goes directly to my router instead of through a switch? Thanks for any help. Edit: I also plan on having a couple smaller NAS machines to back up data on my unraid server, or would it be ok to trust a unraid server with a 40TB collection of HD tv and movies and just have a couple of pre cleared ready disks laying around incase of failure.

So it sorta is worth protecting but always best to keep the real important stuff backed up twice? such as on the unraid system and once off of it? I was planning on doing this, backing up all my movies, music and tv shows on my unraid system and then making a JBOD backup with my HTPC and it's connected 2TB drives which will total up to 14TB plus 8+8TB which should be enough to backup all the data I got on the unraid server. So even if you've taken some tolerance moves like setting up pre cleared drives to drop them in, in the case of a drive failure is not enough?? you should still have a mirrored back up of everythng if I'm getting you correctly? +

I was wondering if it's possible to fold with a unraid server?

I have a problem with ordering parts and not opening or setting them up. I'm serious here, my living room is loaded with about 30 boxes of unopened stuff, I have a huge box which holds my 4 3x5.25" to 5x3.5" converters as well plus my antec 1200 case which alone weights about 50 pounds. I got a set of new speakers for my TV out there, I got two 4 bay disk drive enclosures, I have about 40-50 2TB hard drives, I have enough parts to build my HTPC but I need to send the top of the case out to get a custom cut done on it as well as my cool master case in my room, after I get that done I can build my HTPC and be one more step closer to a clean living room! my over all plans are to make my living room my man cave with the exception of my moms computer which is just one of my old ones, I have a PSU and a ton of blue LED's for a pc that I plan on wiring in behind the back of my entertainment stand to have it have a blue glow at night when I'm watching movies. I've got PS1/2. N64, NES, Super nintendo controllers all with USB adapters to play any ROMS on the system, I even loaded it up with a pretty nice graphics card that will play games such as call of duty on medium/high (forget what model it was, it was a ICE though) So what do you guys think about that? Do I have a problem or what? I hope to have this finished one day, the reason I haven't really is cause I have chronic pain and two chronic diseases and my mom suffers from depression so she only helps when she's feeling up to cleaning the big mess in the living room and I myself have two chronic diseases and a broken back (compression fracture in my lower back) but yeah overall I have about 5-10k in pc parts in my living room begging to be assembled...Do I have a problem? I mean I'll repeat it again, I got all the parts for my unraid set up except for the mobo and ram and after market heatsink and cpu.I plan on ordering the rest when I get enough money but this month was hard cause I forgot to pay my power and gas last month so I owed big time this month. My living room though is also loaded with bags if pop bottles, all we drink is 2L coke and diet pepsi here so the bags add up very fast. If you guys don't believe me and want pictures I can provide them if you want. To think about it to before my shopping habbits this living room was pretty clean. I've had alot of people "Oh your never going to use those speakers why not give me them and hook them up and I can owe you later for them. Fack that there going to be connected to my TV for some sexy sound effects. It's a shame my mom gets sick from surround sound and can only deal with 2.1 sound but oh well, my sub will vibrate the house and make the good times roll! So yea, any comments on how to get the balls to clean up or to make it tidy around the house? keep in mind I can't do alot of labor work as my back will give out on my and ill be stuck on the floor. Thanks for listening to my little rant, begging for help.

As the title says, do you have a back up of your unraid server or do you just trust unraid will keep everything safe and secure? I was thinking about setting up my server without a back up and just have a couple of pre cleared drives ready to go in the case of a drive failure, what do you guys think? I also have enough external drives/enclosures to set up a JBOD mirror of all my unraid data or is that going a little paranoid? I'd like to hear what you guys think and if you believe unraid will protect my/your data to perfection.

Can someone help me find a motherboard with a intel NIC built in besides these crappy realtek ones I'm seeing all over Thanks. The board will also need atleast two x8 slots.

My goal is 20 drives, I already have a AX850 psu that will be good enough to power everything from my calculations as well. Anyone else have advice for this or no?