Nezil

I agree they are nothing to do with XBMC, and though I did like XBMC in the past, the remote access, iOS and transcoding features of Plex, combined with some of the really nice features that are up-coming make it the go-to media system for me. I'd consider a Popcorn Hour, if I could get one where I live. Whilst it might be interesting to see how many people use XBMC, I think it would be more interesting to see who uses what. After all, unRAID systems are even promoted on the main Lime Tech page as 'specifically designed for digital media storage'. It's a safe bet therefore that the vast majority of us are using some form of media streaming system. I actually think that you might be right that XBMC has a vast majority, it's the longest standing software that I'm aware of, and still in active development. Others solutions I can think of are: Myth TV Windows Media Center (inc. Media Center Extender) EyeTV TViX Popcorn Hour DLNA Roku Western Digital Streaming Player Though I'm sure there are a lot more! I'm sorry if I've upset anyone by these comments, that wasn't my intention. I guess another poll could be created for what I suggested.

It's been a few weeks now that I've been playing with unRAID; yesterday I finally got my IcyDock enclosures, and the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 that I ordered should be here in the next week. I'm now up up to 7 drives, in the following configuration: System Case: Lian Li PC-P50B 5-in-3s: IcyDock MB455SPF x 3 Motherboard: Foxconn H67MP 2 Port SATA 3 Expansion Card: Biostar DCSA3 CPU: Intel i3 2100 RAM: 2 x 2GB Samsung PC3-10600 PSU: Antec Neo Eco 520 Array Configuration Parity: WD20EVDS Disk1: WD20EVDS Disk2: WD20EADS Disk3: WD20EADS Disk4: WD20EARS Disk5: WD10EAVS Disk6: WD10EAVS From the very beginning, I had intended to use this server to store my media files, and also to run a few applications. In particular, I wanted to run Squeezebox Server and Plex. During some early testing, I found that running applications on an array drive, or indeed a cache drive, was causing big problems when starting and stopping the array, changing settings, and shutting down. I've therefore come up with a solution to this that I thought might be valuable to share with the community. Before anyone shouts out, I do realise that there are established solutions to some of these issues, and even the newer topics (such as Plex) do have some some suggestions; but never found anything that I felt really comfortable with. I should also state that I'm running 5.0b7, and have never even tried running 4.x but much of what I'm suggesting should work well there anyway, though I've not tested it. unRAID runs in a RAM disk, which is decompressed from bzroot on boot up. Most of the package managers for unRAID work on the basis of installing packages to the RAM disk, after it's been de-compressed, and then making other changes every time you reboot. This slows down boot time, but more importantly, it can make your 'Go' script quite long and complex. The first thing I did therefore, is to create my own custom bzroot image, using the instructions on this old post from 2007. Starting from the standard bzroot, I've made these changes so far: Added Packages - For SSH openssl-0.9.8r-i486-3.txz openssh-5.8p1-i486-1.txz - For Screen screen-4.0.3-i486-1.txz utemper-1.1.4-i486-1.txz - For vim vim-7.3.154-i486.txz - For Plex alsa-lib-1.0.23-i486-1.txz Customisations - For SSH After installing the SSH packages, and starting the service, /etc/ssh folder copied to the new bzroot Added authorized_keys file to /root/.ssh for key based login 'touched' /var/log/lastlog to prevent sshd errors in the log Commented out Telnet line in inted.conf - For Screen Added .screenrc to /root home directory, for screen customisations - For vim Deleted /usr/bin/vi (before installing the package) - Additionally Copied preclear_disk.sh to /bin directory Edited /etc/samba/smb.conf [global] section to include 'hide files = /Network Trash Folder/Temporary Items/ Edited /config/smb-extra.conf to share the USB Apps HDD Created /mnt/apps folder as a location to mount he USB Apps HDD My case only holds 15 HDDs, all of which I would like to use in the array. I have enough SATA ports for one additional drive, but no-where to mount it, no spare power, and if I am able to think of a way to add an additional drive, I'll use that in the array or cache as well. It occurred to me that a USB HDD would be an ideal solution to both all of these problems. I have several 2.5" USB drives spare, they're bus powered, don't get very hot, and are outside the array, so won't cause problems with unRAID operation at all! When plugged in, the USB drive appears as sdh on my system, and when formatted with reiserfs, can be mounted quickly and easily in the folder I created /mnt/apps and shared out over SMB. So far, I've installed Plex onto this disk, and intend to install Squeezebox server there as well when I've got a bit more time. The only problem that I've noticed so far, is that when changing the configuration of your disks (as I did last night, after installing the IcyDock cages), the id of the USB drive can change (in my case, from sdg to sdh). This caused unRAID to mount one of my array disks in /mnt/apps, and then fail to start the array. Not a big problem, but it meant editing the go script to reflect the change. I've not finished yet, this is a work in progress!

I started writing this post as a reply to a question about iSCSI, but it occurred to me that it might be useful to a more general audience. Moderators, feel free to move this if I've posted in the wrong section. An easy way to make your unRAID shares appear local on a Mac, and automatically mount - Use the Automount system. I'm relatively new to unRAID myself, and have been playing with this approach for several reasons. I'm primarily a Mac user, and don't have a lot of interest in using Windows; and the AFP support in the latest 5.0b versions is a pleasant improvement. For automount to work, there are just a few files to edit, all located in /etc on your Mac. The file /etc/auto_master lists all of the drives mounted in the automount system for your computer. By default it should look like this: +auto_master # Use directory service /net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid /home auto_home -nobrowse,hidefromfinder /Network/Servers -fstab /- -static There are actually two approaches to having shared resources automatically mount in the finder: The first is to use the deprecated, and no longer officially supported (though it does work well for Snow Leopard, so I've read) fstab system that will likely be familiar to Linux users. Shares here will always appear in /Network/Servers on your Mac (regardless of where you defined the mount point in fstab), so won't actually fulfil your intention of having them appear as local disks. I'll not be discussing this here, as I don't have a lot of experience with this. The second option is to use standard automount system to define mount points and their shares. You could define these in the auto_master file, but the typical, and cleaner way to do it, is to point auto_master to a new file where you'll add your definitions. My auto_master file looks like this. +auto_master # Use directory service /net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid /home auto_home -nobrowse,hidefromfinder /Network/Servers -fstab /- -static /- unraid I then have another file, /etc/unraid with my definitions: /unRAID/TV -fstype=afp afp://[user]:[password]@unraid.nezil.com/TV/ /unRAID/Movies -fstype=afp afp://[user]:[password]@unraid.nezil.com/Movies/ In my case, I first created a folder in the root of my disk called unRAID, the automount system then places the TV and Movie folders in there. If for any reason the unRAID server is offline or unavailable, there will be nothing in the folders. When it comes back online, the folders will be populated automatically. Note: I'm running a DNS server in my house, so I'm able to reference the unRAID box using a fully qualified domain name. If you're not running DNS (most likely), you'll need to either use the server's IP address or Bonjour name ending in .local There are some restrictions to this system however... I have not been able to reliably create mount points in the /Volumes location. (It is possible, as long as there are no other shares with the same name that you would mount in the normal way - Something quite likely if you browse to your server using Bonjour) Mount points must be on a path with no spaces, escaping a space with a backslash doesn't seem to work You can only mount the root of an AFP share, not a sub-folder (actually an AFP restriction - discussed more below) Shares mounted in this way do not appear in the Finder Sidebar, but it's possible to add the folder to the 'Places' part of the sidebar It is possible to mount SMB shares in this way as well, the syntax is slightly different though: [mount point] -fstype=smbfs ://[username]:[password]@[server]/[share]/[folder] SMB shares overcome issue number 3 above, as it's possible to mount sub folders of a share in this way. There is a sacrifice in performance using SMB instead of AFP however. Final Point about AFP Shares One final point I should mention, goes back to the restrictions of AFP. This is nothing new, is mentioned in other forums posts, and is mentioned in the wiki (though it's tough to find) but it confused me a bit in the past. When a Mac connects to an AFP share, it create lots of additional little files as it goes. These files are hidden, so you'd probably never know they existed. The downside to this (besides the obvious clutter), is that problems can occur if you are able to browse to the same location in more than one way. The most obvious example of this is if you were able to browse to individual disks in your array, as well as user shares. Doing this will create conflicting hidden files as you browse, because the user shares exist both themselves, and as folders on each disk, and whilst (in my experience) it doesn't really stop things from working completely, it slows browsing down considerably; possibly because these hidden files are being re-written each time you browse. AFP shares from a typical Mac system will never have this problem, because it's impossible to arrive at the same place in two ways. AFP shares can only be mounted as the root of the share, rather than a subfolder, and any symlinks exported in a share do not work. These restrictions can be frustrating (even to a Mac user like myself), but I'm happy to live with them for the performance benefits they bring.

I'm a long time Plex fan, and was recently introduced to unRAID as a possible solution to my storage needs. I tried very hard to resist the temptation, but found myself costing up systems, checking specifications and on a recent business trip to Taiwan for Computex, spent about half a day looking at components for a server that my heart wanted to build, but my head (and wife) were trying to resist. I was able to resist while in Taiwan, having decided to have a play with some old hardware once I got home (currently Seoul, Korea). I managed to knock together a system out of an old ASRock P4 Motherboard, a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, 1 IDE HDD, and two laptop SATA drives. To my surprise, everything worked perfectly, and I was even able to install SSH, Plex and Squeezebox server on the system with just a few hours of playing and browsing forum posts on here. I should point out that due to the need for Plex on unRAID, I'm forced to use 5.0b, which so far seems very stable to me. This was all good so far, but the system I had cobbled together was slow, noisy and very power in-efficient... it was time to give in to temptation.... So this last weekend, I bought and built the following system: Case: Lian Li PC-P50B Motherboard: Foxconn H67MP CPU: Intel i3 2100 RAM: 2 x 2GB Samsung PC3-10600 PSU: Antec Neo Eco 520 In the past, I had been using Western Digital MyBook Studio II external drives, configured as RAID 1 (hardly efficient!) and connected to Firewire 800 in a chain. I have 7 x 2TB models, and 2 x 4TB models, giving me storage capacity of 11TB; quite a bit, but much less than is possible in a 15 drive unRAID system. I also have 2 x 2TB EARS drives that I was using as backup storage. My plan was to go through the process of moving data off these drives, and onto the new unRAID system, as each MyBook studio empties out, I'll move it's disks into the unRAID array. A slow process, but worthwhile in the long run. The first 4TB MyBook is now de-commissioned, giving me 2TB in the unRAID array (2TB parity, 2TB data), this disk is now nearly full, which has allowed me to de-commission the second 4TB MyBook. One of these drives is now pre-clearing, and ready to increase the unRAID system to 4TB; the maximum I'm able to do on the free licence. I've been using a USB key that by co-incidence, I was given at Computex, but I'll go out and buy a couple of Lexars this afternoon and get my order in for a Pro-licence so I'm not restricted for the future. Now onto my questions.... 1. The drives in the MyBook Studios that I've been using are EVDS and EADS drives. As I mentioned earlier, I also have a couple of 2TB EARS drives that I'll be adding to the system soon. - What is the difference between these drives, and what impact will that have on my unRAID configuration if any? 2. When I take the drives out of the MyBook Studio, they were formatted HFS+, with GPT partition tables. In unRAID, they don't need to be GPT, and my understanding is that they won't be if they're less than 2.2TB. When I used the pre-clear script on the latest drive, it gave me a warning that GPT was not supported. - Does it matter that the drives had GPT partition tables? - Will the GPT be replaced by MBR by the pre-clear script / unRAID system? 3. So far, I'm getting about 35 ~ 40 MB/sec write speed to the array, and arount 85 MB/sec read speed; pretty impressive, especially the read. I've heard that write speeds can be improved by upgrading the parity disk to a 7200rpm drive, and also by including a cache disk. I don't mind buying a new drive to improve things, but I also have a 2nd Generation Intel X25-M 80GB SSD I could use, and a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Black that might be better. I'm guessing that an SSD cache has no benefit, because the bottleneck will become LAN throughput, not disk. - What drives are recommended for the parity disk, to improve performance? - What drives are recommended for the cache disk, my understanding is that this could be an SSD? 4. As I mentioned earlier, I'm using unRAID 5.0b, currently 5.0b7. I've found it to be very stable so far, and I've also found it very easy to add additional features. I've used the /extra/ folder on the flash drive, and I've also modified the bzroot using CPIO as mentioned on the forums. One of the biggest issues that I found during early testing with the P4 rig, is that the web based control of the array can get really confused if you're using some of the array disks for additional software that you've added. I'm reasonably happy working at the command line, and don't feel that I need to use add-ons like unMenu. As v5.0 is still in Beta, there doesn't seem to be a lot of clear information about what works and what doesn't. - What is the best way to add software to unRAID 5.0? - How can I safely start and stop the array from the command line / script? - How can I safely power down the system from the command line / script? 5. I understand that I'm using a new hardware configuration, and would be happy to run my system through the 'level' testing for hardware compatibility. - Does the 'level' testing only apply to 4.x software versions? - What is the process for submitting my results to have the hardware added to the wiki? Woah, that was a lot of writing, not bad for a first post. I hope I've given enough information, and not bored anyone. Neil.