Odom

The parity check was running because I had it scheduled to run on the first of every month. It just finished now: The Main screen looks like this: The SMART for disk 6 looks like this: The free disk space on the cache stabilised. When I check the scheduler settings it doesn't show as the Mover working Is there another way to show you what the array operations are? What can we do about disk 6? Thank you very much for the help so far, it is really appreciated!!

I think so. I did a pre-clear on disk 6. I had a USB drive attached and was using Krusader to copy data and at the same time I was copying data from my PC to it as well. I enabled the cache on a folder without considering that there wouldn't be enough cache free for the data I'm copying. I ran a quick SMART test and it also came back fine. Maybe it was too much for the drive and it bailed. How can I get it back enabled?

The parity check is still running. Is it advisable I wait until it is finished before doing anything else?

How do you do this? Is it the procedure of replacing a data drive and simply re-use the same one?

If you mean what I copied today yes, not the other 30TB. Disk 6 is the latest I added to the array, I"m only copying some copies of backups onto it. How do I only rebuild disk 6? Edit: Do you mean following this procedure? https://wiki.unraid.net/Replacing_a_Data_Drive

Hi, I was copying data to my unRaid Server and didn't notice that the cache ran full. I meanwhile changed the setting on the share to not use the cache and cancelled the copy-process. When I checked the unRAid dashboard I saw a lot of notifications that the cache was full andsomewhere in between that a drive was disabled. A parity check was running the past hours and still is. I attached the diagnostics file. The mover is running (I assume, as I can see space getting freed up on the cache drives). This is my Main dashboard: How come the drive was disabled? And what can I do now? I'm still very new to unRaid and still in the process of setting it up bit by bit. Many thanks!! Odom diagnostics-20190501-2002.zip

Hello, I finally have my first unRaid server running and already replaced one older Qnap, I now want t o replace the other one I have. I have 3 Qnaps in my family spread out in 2 countries and they are currently replicating over the internet via Hybrid Backup (their tool, essentially uses rsync I think) but I now need to find out if it is possible (and how) to sync the other 3 Qnaps over the internet to my unRaid Server. Does anyone know how this can be done? I'm having a hard time figuring this out and finding useful information. I read that unRaid already includes rsync, but how do you use it? How do you execute commands? If I have another Qnap on the outside and I execute an rsync command on it, don't I need an rsync server/docker/deamon running on my unRaid that listens to these incomming requests? Or, easier yet if possible, do you know of a synchronisation tool that I could install on a Qnap and on unRaid and after some configuration they sync between each other? Many thanks!

Correct, I have an old motherboard and CPU with no embedded iGPU, the external GPU is borrowed for now. I was planning on getting a simple one, like the GT 710, barely consumes anything.

I have a workstation I use for daily activities (gaming, browsing, stuff you do at home ) and I was planning on eventually running some VM's on unRaid and just connect to them from my main PC. Some Linux VM's, various Windows Server editions, whatever labs I'd need for training, I wouldn't do any pass-through. So, with a cheap graphic card (like a GT 710 with low power consumption) I could still run VM's and connect via RDP or VNC just fine, if I understood you correctly?

Hi, I'm very new to unRaid and am currently running a trial version on some old hardware (i7-950, 6GB 1066GHz RAM). I'm using multiple older drives that I had lying around. I'm trying to understand the requirement for graphic cards. I have an old one borrowed from my beighbor (Radeon HD7950) that gives me monitor output. So far so good. I eventually plan to put the server in a corner with only network and power and manage everything via the gui. Later I would like to have VM's, and this is the part that confuses me. I read about being able to pass-through hardware and graphic cards to a VM and the benefits of that. But what I don't understand is, do I have to do that? My VM's would only be for test labs, I would have no requirement for dedicated graphic cards in a VM, just to be able to have a VM running and using VNC or RDP to connect to it. I guess my question is, can I have a single graphics card and still run multiple VM's, possibly a monitor connected to the card as well? Or can I only have a graphics card to connect the monitor to and see the GUI, and then for VM's I would need another card? Can I use one for everything? This one more out of curiosity and understanding: If you pass-through a graphics card to a VM, can you still attach a monitor to it and view the output of unRaid, or will that no longer be possible?

OK thanks. I guess when I get it I'll boot it up and will see what firmware it comes with. If it is below then I'll update it. I'm on day 5 of my unRaid trial and so far I'm only pre-clearing my old disks and finding out which ones need to be binned due to errors. I'm really excited to be playing with unRaid and the possibilities it offers. Can't believe i didn't hear about it before getting my Qnap...

Hi, I purchased myself this card: LSI00244 9201-16i PCI-Express 2.0 x8 SATA / SAS Host Bus Adapter Card and I guess I have to flash it to IT Mode, right? (I just got into this and don't know much yet about these cards, but still learning ) I found a link earlier in this topic to this site: https://www.broadcom.com/support/download-search/?pg=Legacy+Products&pf=&pn=SAS+9201-16i+Host+Bus+Adapter&pa=Firmware&po=&dk= Could someone just confirm that this is the correct package that I need (bottom of the list): 9201-16i_Package_P20_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows Is this correct?

Thank you for the help! i ended up getting the LSI 9201-16i off ebay. That way, if I need to expand in the future, I still have another PCI slot I can use.

Hi, I'm new to unRaid and I just got my unRaid trial running on a temporary PC so that I can get used to it and learn about it. The only thing missing now is an LSI card, of which I don't know much about. I've been roaming these forums and reddit and I pretty much managed to get a list of many LSI cards. What I don't understand is: - is there a difference between them? - is there a limit of disk sizes they support? I noticed that most people here have 3TB and 4TB drives. What about 8TB - 14TB drives? Would these also work? So I found these to be commonly used: LSI 9201-8i LSI 9211-8i LSI 9207-8i LSI 9300-8i LSI 9201-16i LSI 9300-16i Dell H200/H310 IBM M1015 I also understand that they need to be flashedto IT mode. Preferrably I would like to be able to get 16 drives connected, to start with. Would you rather recommend to get two xxx-8i or one xxx-16i? On ebay in Germany the xxx-16i I can find for 100€, which is OK. And do I also understand correctly, that I then need to get an SFF-8087 to SATA breakout cable, something like this? Many thanks for your help! Odom

Many thanks for the help, I didn't know that you could request certain drivers to be added to unRaid. I've got a very old PC from my brother since a couple of days ago and am giving uRaid Trial a go. My next purchase is an LSI expander card, after that I'll try and finalise my first build.

Hi, I'm planning to get unRaid and build a setup based on Ryzen 5 2600. As I have been out of touch with hardware I'm having a hard time deciding on compatible hardware (mainboard & ECC RAM). I found a mainboard (ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate) that has a built-in 10GBe NIC. Is there a compatibility list where I can find out if this 10GBe NIC is compatible with unRaid? Or if I decide to get another 10GBe NIC (not built-in to the mainboard, as the ASUS 10GBe for example).

Thanks, that drawing explained a lot, I'm finally beginning to understand I have an older Coolermaster C690 II that I'm planning to use. I have many smaller drives that I want to play with when testing, but for the proper build I'm planning to put in Seagate Exo drives. Somehow here they are cheaper than the other Seagate or WD of the same size. I was thinking of getting one or two 10TB or 12TB Exo drive for parity, so that they are big enough for the future. I have a few WD Red 8TB drives I can use from my old QNAP, then add 2x Samsung QVO 1TB drives for cache (as these cost 112€ at the moment). I don't know what CPU and motherboard my brother still has, I'll find out next week. Initially I was thinking of getting an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and 16GB or 32GB RAM. These Ryzen CPU's are cheaper than Intel and also support ECC RAM, should I decide to get that. I was planning on a microATX, but I see that won't work, as I need multiple PCI slots (SAS card, video card). I'm also thinking about upgrading my network to 10GBe at home and recently found two affordable switches. How important is ECC for unRaid?

Many thanks for the info! So, you can connect the 2 ports of the LSI 9211-8i to 8 drives using those breakout cables (4 SATA on one end, an the other goes into the LSI card). The SAS expanders are yet another card, so another slot, right? How do you connect the expander to the LSI card? Is there a drawback in connecting more than 8 drives via an expander to an 8i? If you don't mind some more questions I looked on eBay, for example. Are there any relevant differences between LSI 9211-8i and 9240-8i? Dell Perc H200, Dell H310, LSI 9211 or IB versions, is that more or less all the same? I understood that you need to flash them to IT Mode, so that they only pass-through the drives, essentially losing all the functions form the card itself. Does it make a difference wich one you get then?

I was born and grew up in Lisbon, but am living in Germany now, I have dual nationality. My friends and family still live there and I try and go back when I can. As to my unRaid build, my problem is understanding the hardware. I'm trying to understand how HBA's work what cables are needed, etc... If I use 10 drives, how would I connect that using one of those LSI 9211-8i? The documentation says these can take hundreds of drives, how would you do that? Or just connect 30? Then all those SFFxxxx cables, breakout cables, SAS Expanders.... I"m having a hard time understanding how all that works together. I'm getting an old build from my brother (hope it still works) and I'll play with unRaid once I get it this weekend. I basically only want a fileserver (main usage), but down the road I'd like to run a couple VM's as well for testing (not permanently on). Small steps

Hi, I'm half portuguese (but don't live in Portugal anymore) and am planning to start my first unRaid build next week. Will be getting an old PC from my brother and I want to use the trial version on it. I haven't used unRaid yet, but am planning to use it to replace my Qnap NAS. I hope to have my final unRaid build finished by summer.

I remembered one more question regarding the licence. If I get unRaid now, does that entitle me only to v6.x or also any future versions, like v7.x and so?

wow Thank you all very much for all the answers!!! Now I just need to figure out what Motherboard and RAM to get, then I can start building the rig and giving unRaid a go.

Hi, many thanks, so here goes As I understand, you can mix and match all kinds of hard drives and the parity works differently from the traditional RAID. If I have 5 drives, of which one is the parity, how is the data spread across them? Say for example, 5x 2TB, 8TB usable, if I copy 4TB of data over, how is it spread out over the drives? Is it evenly spread out (one file here, another there) or does it first fill one drive, then the next? What exactly does the cache drive do? I mean, I know what cache is for, but if I mainly use unRaid for storage for movies and series (many single big files), how does cache improve anything, if it isn't the same size of my total storage? After watching a movie I understand it would be cached, but I'm not watching it again, so I see no advantage there. When transferring data from my Qnap over to unRaid, will it put that data on the cache, which will then in time offload it to the storage array? What would be a recommended size for a cache drive? I've read a lot in this forum and Reddit that when docker apps, VM's and some other config files are held on the cache. Doesn't this cause a lot of writes and weares out the consumer cache drives? I plan on using unRaid mainly for storage, but also to run the occasional VM every now and then for testing scenarios. I read in the forums that people put their VM's on the cache SSD. Would it be possible to get an additional SSD and keep all VM's on it? Even if I don't have this particular SSD in the main storage array? When having 20TB - 50TB of storage and more, does it make more sense to keep one big array or smaller ones? Is there an advantage/disadvantage in having 2x 20TB arrays or simply one big 40TB array? Regarding the hard drives: Is there a limit to the amount of hard drives you can have with unRaid? Seeing as this is not exactly like traditional RAID, is there an advantage in using NAS designed drives? For example the WD Red, will the NAS features of these drives be taken advantage of by unRaid? If not the above, does it then matter what drives I use, for example as long as they are all 7200RPM? If I mix up all kind of drives, how is the performance impacted? Say I have 5400RPM and 7200RPM drives and I copy 5TB of data to the array. If the files are spread over the drives, am I correct to assume that on the 7200RPM drives the process would be faster, only to then slow down when copying to the 5400RPM? And regarding storage in general, here I lack the technical knowledge a bit. If I want to have more drives than my motherboard allows, I read that there are these HBA cards, risers, expanders. I'm not sure I understand how these work. I understand an HBA card to be some kind of an expansion card. Looking up some online you can have from 64 to 256 extra drives attached to it. They usually mention SAS drives, but from reading this forum you can also use standard SATA drives. Most HBA cards I googled in thi forum only have 2 ports and people use a cable that fits that port and on the other end has 8 device connectors. How do you get to use (connect) the remaining 56 cards? Does everybody buy them cheap on eBay? When I look up the prices these cards are often 200€ and upwards. I read a lot here and there about flashing these HBA cards to IT Mode and found plenty of guides how to do it, but why exactly do you do this? What does it mean to flash to IT Mode? Does anything speak against using a combination of the SATA ports from the motherboard plus the ones from an HBA when you run out of ports on the motherboard? Or is it recommended to rather run all storage devices from an HBA? I have an older Coolermaster case and a PSU at home, so I was planning on getting a motherboard, CPU, Cooler & Ram to complete the setup. Considering price/value, I was considering a Ryzen 5 2600 setup. I never build anything with AMD, always had Intel, due to at the time of building my rigs they were the best for gaming, but this being purely for storage and running the occasional VM and docker, the Ryzen5 and Mobo would be around 200€ combination. I saw a few threads about issues between unRaid and AMD Ryzen setups, but these threads were a year old. Would a combination like this work well? I haven't build a PC in a while so I'm pretty out of CPU/motherboard and RAM speeds. Would a Ryzen 5 2600 work well with a Gigabyte B450 AORUS M motherboard? (https://www.alternate.de/PC/PC-Konfigurator#!/product/0/43/1471765, I used a PC configurator to help find a compatible motherboard, as I never build an AMD rig). I read that some people have ECC RAM, what is the advantage of that in conjunction with unRaid? Can you only use ECC RAM when you have a Xeon CPU? If I get the CPU and mobo from point 2, and 16GB or 32GB RAM, what speeds should I get? The CPU shows as going up to DDR4-2933, so does the Mobo. Would that be OK? I also read in a thread somewhere that overclocked RAM caused problems, if I remember correctly in that thread the mobo overcklocked it automatically, however this could be turned off. And as a follow-up to point 4, is it better to get 2 or 4 sticks and fill all the slots? I understand that having only 2 slots filled allows for easier expansion at a later point in time, but does DDR4 require all 4 slots to be filled? I think this is it fow now, sorry for the barrage of questions, but I appreciate any answers anyone could provide. Once I have the last 3 missing components I'm definitely getting a trial version of unRaid, hoping to upgrade it to the full version afterwards, with the ultimate goal replacing my Qnap NAS. Thanks very much!! Odom

Hi, I'm very new to unRaid, only recently having heard of it, but I am already really interested in it. I had Qnap NAS devices for a long time but was now considering building my own NAS, and so far what I read about unRaid it looks to be really amazing. This past week I have been reading a lot about it (here in the forums, the FAQ, Reddit, other videos and articles), but I still have a lot of questions about it, especially also to the hardware required (as in will this work, or what is this). Is this the right forum (Pre-Sales) to post these questions, or should I put all the hardware questions in the relevant sub-sections? I do have a first question about the licensing. If I purchase the Plus version, can I later upgrade to the Pro edition, using the same USB stick and setup that I have? Many thanks!! Odom