miogpsrocks

SAME issue caused problem with SMR hard drives stalling the writing process with internal drives in my normal RAID system . Does Unraid have the ability to extent the time to live ( TTL) value so it won't be so quick to mark a hard drive as dead? Seem like that would solve a lot of issues. Give the drive a chance to respond . Its sort of like calling customer support and the agent disconnect the call because you took a few milliseconds too long to respond to them. Thanks .

I'm not sure. Maybe? Here is the thing. I am not using it for an enterprise application. Its like once in a while I might need to pullup a excel file or a video file. Its not like I am reading/ writing 24/7. I also use USB external drives in my computer for most everything things. Once the UNRAID server is made, it will be used for 99.9% reading not writing. I can connect all USB external drives to UPS battery backup as well as the unraid server itself. I can fit the drives I need with external USB. I can't fit some monster server type box even know that is more professional way of doing things. Unraid also allowed for a SSD solid state drive buffer right? Do you know if there is a setting that it can verify items are complete before deleting the file? I had a real RAID 5 nas device from a major company crash because I think the hard drive company hide the fact that it was using Shingled magnetic recording (SMR) and it caused problems with the RAID 5 writing. It was also using some new file system that I had not used before which maybe cause the perfect storm. I'm not exactly sure but in any event, I like the fact that with UNRAID you can recover the information from individuals drives if worst comes to worst. Despite the warnings of USB, is it technically possible to add USB external drives in the UNRAID software? Thanks

Can Unraid be used with external USB hard drives ? I know softwares sometimes advance and upgrade so I am hoping the answer may now be yes for the latest version? I asked a few years ago and people were very negative on it. Please let me know if this has changed. I don't have some monster server with 50 hard drive enclosures with advance enterprise level cables and such. I have a normal computer with USB hubs and a lot of external hard *USB) hard drives. DATA is DATA so why could this not work? What does it matter if your connection is SATA or USB ? Thanks .

Can Unraid be used with external USB hard drives ? I know softwares sometimes advance and upgrade so I am hoping the answer may now be yes for the latest version? I asked a few years ago and people were very negative on it. Please let me know if this has changed. I don't have some monster server with 50 hard drive enclosures with advance enterprise level cables and such. I have a normal computer with USB hubs and a lot of external hard *USB) hard drives. DATA is DATA so why could this not work? What does it matter if your connection is SATA or USB ? Thanks .

When you say " unique and unchanging device identification", don't external hard drives have unique serial numbers? I run test of hard drive using software like seatools and crystal disk info and these hard drives have a lot of information that pulls up. The software can't link some kind of unique identifying information on a hard drive as a particular disk in the parity setup? For me, it would be easier to have a shelf filled with external hard drives then trying to piece together some kind of monster system that can fit so many drives then have to tear the external hard drive apart to connect them inside the PC/Server. If you are using this Cache SSD, then it first writes to the cache drive then writes to the array. Understand its not going to be enterprise level performance but for the guy who need archival and available of data, this may be the best bang for the buck but sadly is sound like this software does not support this kind of thing from what I am hearing. Thanks.

So long story short, USB external drives are good enough for desktop storage but not good enough for UNRAID(and probably RAID) setup due to micro disruptions in the connection? That is a shame.

If I purchase a motherboard with 12-USB ports. Can I purchased 12 external hard drives and use unraid with the external hard drives? Is there a reason that USB port with external USB hard drives enclosures will not work? Please let me know Thanks.