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I just finished setting up my first unraid box and I put in a 500gb disk as a cache drive because I simply had one laying around in an enclosure All you have to do is add it as a cache drive, and then under each user share, you will have a new setting asking you about enabling the cache drive for that share. For instance I set up my movies share to use a cache drive. Whenever I copy something to the movies share on the unraid box, it actually puts the files on the cache drive first, and then overnight, mover script moves it over to the array disks. While the files are on the cache drive, they still do appear in your movies share. So from an end user's perspective you can't tell whether the file is on the cache drive or the array unless you mount the drives and check for the contents. It is completely automated. For scripts that write files to the array such as sabnzbd, you don't have to change anything in their settings. As long as the user share is set to use a cache drive, sab downloads will go to the cache drive first. The mover script by default runs at 3:40am every day, but you can change that. That way, I minimize writes to the array and the parity drive. (As you know, sab not only downloads, but also extracts, sometimes multiple levels and each extraction is another full write process. This way, all those are handled at the cache drive and the final files are written to the array once and all at once) There is one disadvantage worth mentioning though, while the files are on the cache drive, they are not parity protected. So make sure you preclear your cache drive at least three times before adding :-)

I stand corrected :-) Thanks for the clarification. Do you know if having a mix and match of adv and reg causes problems in 4.7? Because I kind of remember reading that it did, but I did so much reading in the last two weeks (a lot of contradictory statements too due to the dates they were written, because things always change) that my brain turned to soup

FYI I just set up my first unraid server and went through the same dilemmas as you. The conclusions I reached on this topic are: 1) Advanced format drives were a problem in the past, but now the latest stable and betas support advanced format 2) You cannot mix and match advanced format and regular formatting 3) One option is to have all drives with regular formatting (requires use of a jumper on adv format drives) 4) OR, you can do advanced format on all your drives (advanced format on older drives does not cause any problems) I went with adv format on all. You just have to change the setting in unraid web interface. After changing the setting, preclear script will automatically use -A option to use advanced format on all future preclears. Make sure you preclear any drives that you had previously added to your array again (unless the -A option was already used) (and keep in mind that the preclear will completely wipe the drives) The reason I didn't do the jumper/old formatting is because, most of the newer harddrives are adv format, and some don't even come with jumpers. It is better to start your array with all adv format to prevent future problems. For help with preclearing multiple drives at the same time, see this thread about screen: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Configuration_Tutorial#Preclearing_With_Screen

hey bonami, I am in the process of setting up my first unraid box as well, and boy did I have my share of troubles. Motherboard incompatible with the ram, overvolting it out of the box to the degree that it would hang before the boot screen (no bios entry made it impossible to change voltage and timings) or usb external hard drives with SMART data not being read, or HPA on hard drives, etc. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that the configuration tutorial linked below is a great resource. I followed it to a "t" and had no problems with the config. For instance preclearing with screen is a must for large drives (I put in 4 2TB, 1 1TB and 1 500GB hardrives, all external originally in there and have been preclearing for weeks lol) Pre-clearing a 2TB usb 2.0 drive takes about 3 days. But I did have my unraid box up and running with access to media the whole time thanks to screen. http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Configuration_Tutorial

Ah sorry, I should have mentioned I am on 4.7 I have gone through the manual that dgaschk posted and I already set up security. It's just that I wanted to provide anonymous access to all devices on the network while providing read-write to certain users. For instance, a friend comes over with their kid. I want the kid to be able to access the movies, music, etc. without a password, but I also want to make sure that he doesn't accidentally delete all my movies. :-) These are the threads I found about this exact thing, but linux scripting is a little over my head, and since these are all at least 2 or 3 years old, I was hoping this functionality would be built into unmenu or something by now. I guess I'll have to do some research to figure out these scripts. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2098 http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3542.msg43168#msg43168 http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ#How_can_I_get_more_advanced_control_of_the_Samba_configuration.2C_users.2C_and_permissions.3F

thanks for the reply, but i don't think that will work for me. I would like to keep some folders public, some private. The public ones (such as movies, tv shows,etc) would be read-only with anonymous access and read-write with user account. The private ones (photos, work files, etc.) would require white listed user account for read or write access. It is just that the wifi is so easily hacked, I would like another level of security just in case. Thanks

Hi I am in the process of building my first unraid server. I set up some shares and started moving my media. If I enable user share security, I cannot have any guest access (no extender can access as they rely on guest access) If I don't enable share security, anybody that hacks into my wifi (which is pretty easy to do) can mess with my media or someone in the house or visiting us might accidentally mess with it. So I would like to set it up so that user shares are enabled, specific usernames have read/write access, and the same shares are still available for guest access (without a password) but only for read only access. I saw some threads about this but they were from 2009 and required script editing. Unfortunately, I am kind of a linux newb and was wondering if there is a simpler method now. Thanks

UPDATE: The one drive did the "-d sat -t short" and no errors reported The other drive finally accepted "-d sat,12 -t short" completed without error Now the golden question is, does that mean the preclear was successful with no errors reported??? Thanks EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot to use the -a option, when I used that, it told me no smart errors were reported. I am going to go ahead and dissect the casings and run two more cycles through SATA. Thanks everyone for your help.

Ok, the preclear is finally over and I tried the "smartctl -a /dev/sdX" and got the following response smartctl 5.39.1 2010-01-28 r3054 [i486-slackware-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net /dev/sdc: Unknown USB bridge [0x0bc2:0x50a1 (0x100)] Smartctl: please specify device type with the -d option. Use smartctl -h to get a usage summary For one of the drives, the option "-d sat -t long" seemed to work (it will take some time to finish, if it ever does) But for the other one, whatever -d or -t option I tried resulted in an error. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks PS. How do you guys deal with this issue where you're trying to test an external drive that will be added to the array without voiding the warranty before preclear?

Thanks for the help guys, These are brand new drives and I will do 3 full cycles. However, through usb 2.0, one full cycle is taking about 115 hours (close to 5 days) for both drives at the same time. I would like to cut that time down as much as I can :-) Per Joe L.'s suggestion, I will try "smartctl -a /dev/sdX" at the end of this first cycle (should be over by this afternoon, currently at 92%). But if that does not work, what options do I have in determining whether the drive is bad or not without opening the case? Is SMART data still generated and stored on the drive regarding any errors during the preclear process? Can I hook it up to another machine afterwards, maybe win7, and try to read that SMART data there? Thanks

Oh ok. I will definitely try a manual smart report when it is done. And when you say another preclear is not needed, is one cycle really enough to determine the reliability of a new drive? Because on these boards I have been reading about people recommending three cycles, but I'm not sure if it's overkill or not. Thanks

Hmm. So basically doing this is not really going to tell me if the hdd is reliable or not? When I open it up, connect it through sata and run the preclear again, it might find a ton of errors? I better try to open it without voiding the warranty. I'll bust out my hairdryer :-)

Hi, I am building my first unraid box. Due to the flooding in Thailand, the cheapest 2TB drives I could find lately were two external drives. I wanted to run them through a preclear before I opened them up so I wouldn't bork the warranty. They are both running at the same time through usb 2.0. Although pretty slow at 19MB/s each, it is fine as I am not in a rush. (One preclear cycle will take 3.5 days) The only problem is that SMART is currently not working. When I started it, it warned me that SMART was not going to work, but typing "Yes" still started the process. Is the preclear still going to work even without the active SMART reporting?? Thanks.