RussellinSacto

Thanks Everyone... I only see the "user" folder within Midnight Commander, under /mnt/user along with /mnt/disk1, /mnt/disk2, /mnt/disk3, etc. Still don't know what to do with it.... I really think I accidentally created it when I was moving files around with Midnight Commander, but I guess it isn't hurting anything to leave it. :-) So.... As soon as I get a few more files backed up, I'm going to jump into this upgrade.... wish me luck. :-) And what a cool GoldWing... Wish I was more talented in motorcycle repairs - hence the reason I sold my CBR600 a few years ago. Thanks, Russell Schutte

Wow, I'm always so impressed with the forums here. UnRaid, while it's been good to me for many years and works astoundingly well from the user perspective, is unforgiving and complex for "normies" when it comes to upgrades. :-) To keep things simple, I've always used ONLY the "unofficial official unraid hardware," so I hope I'm okay with upgrading. (Can't find my old post which would list my hardware - seems they get deleted after a few years). I know I don't want to take any shortcuts - I wasn't wanting to skip an upgrade for that reason - I just feel my install isn't anywhere near clean. Good luck with your bike Sideband. I have a few questions: 1. When I'm in Midnight Commander, under /mnt/, I see "disk1", "disk2", etc. I also have a "user" folder. Am I supposed to? What should be in it? (I have a whole ton of JPGs, a bunch of folders full of things, and other non-UnRaid files in there). As far as I can tell, there's nothing UnRaid in there - and I think I should use Midnight Commander to move "user" to one of my disks? 2. I know I have a failed CrashPlan install and can see in \flash\packages\ a lot of things: - CrashPlan_3.0.3_Linux.tgz - CrashPlan_3.0.3.cpi - a CrashPlan-install folder - openssh files (dated the same day as CrashPlan, I think part of my attempted install) - openssl files (ditto) - cpio files (ditto) - jre-6u11 files (ditto) - monthly_parity_check files (another add-on that I never got working) Is there a way I can clean this up? Some of these might be working - many probably aren't. I was wondering if I could just delete everything that isn't a CONF File (since those seem to be the standard). There's also a scripts folder in there (\flash\packages\scripts\) that has a bunch of CrashPlan stuff and a run.conf file. Can I do the same - keep the CONF File and delete the rest? 3. I have UnMenu (Version 1.3 Revision: 97) running. Is there a way to uninstall it - then install the newest version when I'm upgraded? Or what's the proper way to handle this? 4. I'm a bit freaked out about the "Permissions Utility" thing that lots of people seem to be struggling with. I presume I'll be okay following instructions - I only use the "root" account, since it's just me using UnRaid. Thanks so much for all your help. Russell Schutte

Hi Guys, Thanks for clarifying. I'm disappointed that I don't feel like my Unraid works well now (NEVER get a clean shutdown, can't get CrashPlan working, and at least one other thing I can't remember). I expect those issues will stick through upgrades, since they're probably user error on my end... I simply feel like I've upgraded too many times already (been using UnRaid for 3-4 years now). Like with Windows boxes, I thought it just made sense to start clean sometimes. Until that's possible, I guess I'll just leave it alone - so thanks for the advice. A bit disappointed, Russell Schutte

Hi Guys, I messed around with the Crashplan plugin for DAYS about a year ago - and I have some "tinkering time" again, so I thought I'd backup my 4.5.4 flash drive (Pro License), install the newest RC, and fire things back up. Should I expect any issues with that? How do I transfer my Pro License to the newly formatted flash? Then I hope I can install UnRaid and get the CrashPlan plugin going. :-) Thanks, Russell Schutte

Hi, I purchased two of the UnRaid Pro Keys about four years ago... and I've kept one around as backup, should the first one die on me... And now I realize that over the past several years of UnRaid, with no knowledge of Linux at all, I've managed to get several things customized and upgraded (many thanks to the UnMenu developers). Now I'm concerned that my second key is not only outdated, but also doesn't have the customizations that I've managed to get done (and would struggle to redo). What's the easiest/best way (preferably using Windows) to keep my license file/key or whatever, and migrate the settings from my existing key? (I can access the key at \\myunraidservername\flash so I hope that makes it fairly easy). Thanks, Russell Schutte

So, you do the onsite initial sync... and then how do you get it to maintain synchronization offsite? Russell

Again, someone is getting hung up about the 'beta' label. All current releases, except the latest betas, are known to have a known bug which could strike at any time, causing significant loss of data. I know which version of the software I would rather trust my data to ... see my sig. so 4.7 is gonna be updated soon to avoid this bug ? as i have a card that from what i read WILL not be supported under 5.0x builds of unraid... Only LimeTech knows for sure, but he has indicated his intention to release a 4.7.1 soon. Ahem, for those of us somehow not in the know... What is this bug??? It sounds terrifying. How can one know if the issue affects them? Thanks, Russell

Just FYI: 3TB for $109 with free shipping: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QMA882 Russell

Hi Joe, Thanks for filling me in on the details of preclear - and thanks for creating it. While I found the instructions lengthy on the main thread, the guys at GreenLeaf have written instructions for Linux unfamiliars, like me: http://www.greenleaf-technology.com/Blogs/BlogHowTo/index.php?published-min=2011-02-01T00:00:00-00:00&published-max=2011-03-01T00:00:00-00:00 Since I've just built my second UnRaid, I decided to try out your script following their instructions. I hope there are no issues in running four Telnet connections to preclear four drives at a time - that's what I'm doing - running the three iteration preclear to check things out before I start to put this machine in use. Neither set of instructions (yours or theirs) say what to do when the preclears complete - I assume I just go to the Devices tab and assign the drives to an array - will I then be able to simply start the array? or do I need to do anything special to have that option available? (Just asking ahead of time - my 2TB drives, times 3 iterations, look like they'll take a couple days). One other question, if you're still here, Joe... How much of the lifespan of my drives am I using up with these Preclear cycles? Thanks again for the direct help Joe, Russell

BoxeeBox for me. Highest WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) product I could find. Russell

So, TeamHood, did you ever find a solution to this? I'm working on RSync over OpenVPN (or Hamachi) but haven't got it all worked out yet. Would love some help/advise. (I too need usable files on each end) Russell

I've not pre-cleared my drives - ever.... even on a brand new system I built just last weekend... Last I saw, Tom still didn't officially support pre-clearing drives. Is that still the situation? Russell

Just trying to help here, but typically you can access your UnRaid shares through the UnRaid's name, plus the share name or disk share: \\tower\disk1 - your first non-parity drive \\tower\music - a folder in the root of one (or more) of your UnRaid disks I'm thinking you'll have no options to make it faster - I think the copy is going to have to happen through your Windows/Mac box. You can map a drive to your shares if you wish - let us know your operating system and the NAS you have and maybe you'll get some better ideas. Russell

If you're going through all the trouble - maybe it's time to consider some off site backup? I'm still looking for the "easy to use" UnRaid to UnRaid Offsite solution. :-) Russell

Hi Guys, I have a stack of 1.5TBs that I had in another UnRaid system, and I know that one or two of them had been taken out of the array by UnRaid - I think for write failures... but I lost track of which was which and now I have them all booted up in a new UnRaid system and I can't tell that there's anything wrong. I can run the SMART reports with UnMenu. Should I be looking for values that exceed the Threshhold? Or at what point is a drive worthy of warranty replacement? Thanks, Russell

Hi everyone, Looking over the addins that accompany UnMenu, I noted that one of them referred to securing the "defined logins" for your UnRaid system - which I take to mean adding secure passwords to default accounts like "root". What are these various defined logins and how do I set all their passwords? Thanks, Russell

I was hoping others might contribute some great ideas for noobs/newbies - or those who use their UnRaid as an appliance (like I do). I've got a couple more tools to suggest for Windows users: TeraCopy - which allows you to move files around on your UnRaid or to your UnRaid (http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php). What I like most about it is the CRC check of file copying. I suggest choosing "Options" from the "Menu" button in the bottom right corner of the software, and then checking the box for "Always test after copy." I also always click the "More box" to see the details when I copy files - but TeraCopy has been great for copying files from unreliable sources (DVDs and CDs in particular). When the CRC shows an issue, I simply give the disc a little extra cleaning and try it again, until I get a proper match. (Another way to do this - which is probably faster for Unraid to Unraid moving/copying involves dipping your toes in the Linux pool. You can download Putty.exe (from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html), set it to connect to Host "Tower" and click the "TelNet bubble", then click "Open" and it should connect to your UnRaid system. Login with your username and password (default user is "root" and no password). At the next prompt, after your login, you can access a file manager called Midnight Commander by simply typing "mc" and then Enter key. It's very much like the old DOS utilties, but fairly easy to figure out - and you get to use those cool "Function Keys" (like F6) at the top of your keyboard). (NOTE: You can open up to FOUR telnet/Putty connections, so you can have a few of these going simultaneously if you're doing a majore resorting of files - four seems to be a limit). IndexYourFiles - from indexyourfiles.com - keeps a database of your files, unlike Windows Search which scours your hard drives when you excute a search. In doing so, searches take portions of a second instead of 5+ minutes. And you can schedule the software to reindex every once in a while if you want (so it stays accurate - mine is set to the dfault 12 hours and I manually reindex if I move a lot of files - which only takes a few minutes for 15TB). If you're constantly looking for files (by name or contents) that you can't find, and you're really tired of waiting for Windows Search, this is a great tool. Oh - and it won't spin up your drives when you run searches - that only happens if you decide to access the files you locate. (another frequently suggested, similar solution, is Locate32 from http://locate32.net/content/view/18/31/ ) but I simply didn't like it as much as the IndexYourFiles solution. (It may be fractions of a second faster, but doesn't have "Preview" panes for viewing contents of files).) Anyone have any other great ideas/tools for new users / appliance users? Any good ideas what should be your first (SAFE) steps into Linux if you're ready to make that step? Thanks, Russell Schutte

Hi Everyone, I've had my UnRaid a few years now and I thought I'd try to offer a few tips for noobs - as a contribution to the community and as a thanks for the help I've received from others on these forums. Having an UnRaid with lots of TBs can create significant organization issues - in particular with duplicate files. As an avid photographer, I have thousands upon thousands of image files, but these tips apply to pretty much any collection. Here are my suggestions (using a Windows box to connect to my UnRaid): Step 1 - Create a "Dump folder" on Disk1 that is alphabetically before all your other folders (or utilize all of Disk1) and place any new files that you load onto your UnRaid into this folder. (When I get back from a photo shoot, I simply copy all of my files to this folder. Do the same thing with your movies, MP3s, etc.) Step 2 - Scan your UnRaid for duplicate files utilizing DoubleKiller (or DoubleKiller Pro) which can be downloaded from: http://www.bigbangenterprises.de/en/doublekillerpro/comp.htm For many users, the FREE version will be more than adequate. On the Options Tab, you can set the tool to check for duplicate files by Name, Size, Date, and CRC checksum (a math calculation that is file unique). I suggest the CRC checksum for maximum reliability, but it's the slowest. Also note that when you "Include Subdirectories" (to choose the regions you want scanned) instead of browsing you can always type the location directly into the "Folder" box - for example, enter: \\tower\disk1 and it will be added to the scan list. I simply add all of my UnRaid drives in this fashion and then click "RUN" to find the duplicates throughout my UnRaid. Step 3 - When the Scan is complete - I push the button for "Check the First Dupes" which will check the duplicate files in the earliest alphabetically found location (this is the reason to use a folder like "aaaaa" or all of Disk1 as your "Dump Folder"). In a moment, all of the duplicates will be checked, and simply clicking "Delete Checked Files" will get rid of them. NOTE: If you purposefully have duplicate files elsewhere in your UnRaid, you can page through the DoubleKiller list and uncheck files you don't want deleted (or if there's a system to this duplication you have, simply take those regions out of your scan in Step 2). By using this alphabetical system, if you have duplicate files somewhere else on your UnRaid, they will be left in their location (probably an organized/sorted, specific location) - the duplicates will be removed from the earliest alphabetical locations first. Step 4 - DoubleKiller doesn't remove folders, even if they are empty because of its operation - so to clean things up, you can use "Remove Empty Directories" - a FREEWARE utility you can download from: http://www.jonasjohn.de/lab/red.htm The software will delete all of your empty folders (allowing you to preview them before it does so). This "system" works with just about any collection - movies, television shows, MP3s, photographs, etc. The key benefit is that you can use this "Dump Folder" (as I call it) to dump all of your files to when you get them, download them, or otherwise offload them to UnRaid and you can quickly ensure you don't have duplicate files all over your UnRaid system. I often load old CDs of files right into this folder then scan and dump anything I already have. I can then review the remaining files and determine if I want them or not. Other tips: Photographers and Videographers who shoot a lot of material - I highly recommend having a hard drive based field backup. My current device is the HyperDrive Colorspace UDMA - I can backup 500GB in the field, without power. Back in the car I can offload that 500GB to one of several USB drives (no laptop required) and repeat the process. It's not unusual to come home with several TB of images (I often backup files more than once (to multiple USB Drives in the field - wanting to be "safe, not sorry")) - so removing duplicates is critical. Photographers should also take a hard look at Photool's IMatch software - for organizing your images. It's simply incredible. I can't do it a worthy job in this forum, but I assure you that you won't be disappointed - it's amazing (and simply a bargain for $65): http://www.photools.com/imatch-3-overview/ Programmers, Photographers, Authors, and others who create multiple versions of their work - if you don't have a versioning system - there's an excellent (very simple) versioning software that you can run on your Windows computer called AutoVer which is FREEWARE (donations accepted) downloadable from: http://beanland.net.au/AutoVer/ You simply tell it what folders you want monitored and where you want versions stored, and it does the work. Very easy to use (works with FTP, network drives, etc.) Hopefully this will come up in searches for people looking for a few tips - and hopefully this is helpful. Thanks again to everyone on here who's helped me with UnRaid. Russell Schutte

Okay guys, you've convinced me to try CrashPlan, provided I can turn the encryption off somehow? (There's got to be a setting or INI/registry file setting somewhere). Ideas? Thanks, Russell

Thank you Jupilerman for confirming what I'd thought I'd noticed. Hopefully it won't be too tough for me to go back and delete the smaller size version of the same name for those times I did say "Yes." Any chance there is a way to set the MOVE operation to copy a file, delete the source file, copy another file, delete the source, etc? By default, it seems to COPY all files to the destination, then go back and delete all the SOURCE files in one batch... While it's probably a tiny bit faster this way, I'd really prefer that it operate one file at a time (makes it easier to estimate the space and time it will take to complete a move). Thanks, Russell

Thanks for trying it Rilles. I appreciate it. Anyone else have some ideas? Anyone know the answer about turning Encryption OFF for CrashPlan? Other solutions? Thanks, Russell

I'm still not sure what it means when Midnight Commander (used to copy/move files on UnRaid) replies with "Incomplete File Was Retrieved" and asks is you want to save the file. I have learned a little... You can get this message if your destination doesn't have the required space for the file - but you can also simulate the problem and get this message if you pick a decently large file, select a destination for it, press F6 to move it... and then ABORT the operation. You'll get the same message. But I'm still not sure the proper answer - YES or NO to save the file? Thanks, Russell

A. Does anyone know? (above question) B. Also, it seems that when MC moves files, it copies ALL of the files first, then goes back and deletes - not one file at a time, but as a group - so if your destination drive can't hold all the files, the operation aborts - and you end up with at least a partial set of duplicates... could be many, many GB of files. Is this right? Is there a way to change it to a PER FILE move operation? Thanks, Russell

Must be a huge company - apparently BackBlaze only has 10 PetaBytes: http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/01/05/10-petabytes-visualized/ Russell

Silver, I agree it's nice to have integrated server/client in one software - and while some have gotten it running on UnRaid, it doesn't seem like anyone without Linux experience will be able to do it. Hasn't anyone made easy instructions? (I've searched the forums and it looks Greek to me.) Is there a way to setup CrashPlan without Encryption? It seems it's possible with CrashPlan+, but I thought that was a SERVICE - not a product? Still looking for that ideal backup solution - I look forward to what you find ProStuff. I think most people would need the server installed - and an easy way to script the client - both installed on UnRaid. Are there other competitive solutions out there for offsite backup (not hosted) (with local seeding) and secure transfer to remote that works automatically/scheduled? (Bonus for sync and versioning support) Thanks, Russell