caimakale

The HP deal is still pretty good. I was in dire need of more space. I was at a little more than 90% capacity on my 3TB with oly 50% of my DVD collection ripped and only three of my 8 computers backed up via crashplan. My three 3TB drives shipped today and will arrive next week. My system will be busy adding in the new drives and accepting all of the new data coming its way. Hopefully my new Asus rt-n66u ships next week so my network will quit crashing. My Netgear can't handle all of the connections and streams I'm throwing at it and it has to be rebooted every other day.

Bummer...keep an eye on it just in case inventory pops back up. I think this deal is supposed to be good all week. There's a chance they could get more inventory.

It takes a little work, but it's not difficult. I just ordered three 3TB hard drives for $111 each. Directly from SlickDeals: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex External Hard Drives: 2TB USB 2.0 Drive (STBC2000100) $90 or less, 3TB USB 3.0 Drive (STAC3000101) $130 or less + Free Shipping Staples.com has 2TB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex USB 2.0 External Hard Drive for $109.99 - $20 off coupon code 97751 = $89.99 with free shipping. Staples also has 3TB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex USB 3.0 External Hard Drive (STAC3000101) for $149.99 - $20 off coupon code 97751 = $129.99 with free shipping. Click here to go to the hard drives on the Staples page. You can buy a $25 off $75 coupon for $0.55 from http://www.e-junkie.com/keejohncoupons (this is who I bought mine from) via PayPal. Delivery of the coupon code is sent immediately after payment via email. Some people have had a problem stacking the coupon code above (97751) with the 25 off 75 coupon. I had no problems at all. I didn't log in at all, added the product to my shopping cart, added the first coupon, then applied my 25 off 75 coupon, then checked out as a guest. In all, I got $45 off the discounted price of $149.99 for the 3TB hard drive. I'll crack these open and add the drives to my system. I'm not too worried about the warranty status since it's only two years on these drives.

Yes, you can still access hidden and private shares. You just need to make sure Finder is the active window (it will say Finder in the top left menu bar if it is active) and then hit cmd +k and type the share in as mentioned above (using smb:// instead of \\).

Only 5 left in stock....get them fast before they're gone!

After hitting cmd + K, you'll need to enter your link like this smb://tower/disk1 instead of \\tower\disk1. If you don't prefix it with smb it will try to use the afp protocol. After entering your path, you can click the + key and add the server path to the list of favorites (the list is located in the same window where you enter the path). I find this particularly useful with my hidden folders since the mac doesn't show them while browsing a disk. An example I use is smb://tower/cache/.apps Also, because I'm a little OCD and can't stand all of the .DS_Store files that get left behind when using a mac to browse the folders, I have the package installed via unmenu that deletes them on a set schedule.

I just signed up for 22/5 business plan with Comcast. Because I'm cutting the cord with DirecTV, I'll be doing a lot of streaming via XBMC (netfilx, hulu, amazon prime, live streams, etc). I need the capacity and in the end, this will be much much cheaper. The fact that I can back up my data now without worrying about exceeding the 250 gb cap makes me feel much better. Best of all, because I office from home anyway, this is also a tax write off for me.

I'm making another assumption here, and it's that you're using the unmenu package installer for the mysql database. I'm not sure if it will recognize a my.cnf file in the package directory at each reboot. You can always try it. Stop mysql, put your my.cnf file in the directory, and restart mysql. Then use vi to look at the loaded my.cnf file. If the changes are there, then you know it works. Others may have some insight that I obviously don't. I just started using unRAID a few weeks ago and am still learning things myself. I jumped right in to version 5.0b14 so I have no experience with older versions.

I've also heard there are no speed caps, or if there are, they are ridiculously high. I've looked into this and would sign up for the 22/5 plan (I think that's what it is) and I read that people were consistently downloading at 75 mbps. They mentioned the only thing that really slows it down is network congestion on the node. Any experience with that? A year commitment is nothing. I already have a motorola surfboard docsis 3.0 modem, will they need to install a new one or is it as simple as provisioning my account/equipment to be on a business plan?

I use SSL on newsgroups to prevent prying eyes from seeing what I'm downloading. However, I don't want the call the about going over the limit. When you exceeded the bandwidth limit, how far over were you? I'm wondering if it's worth it to go all out this month just to get it over with and then manage my bandwidth in the coming months. In the meantime, it looks like it's back to the grind of ripping everything manually. I'll have to reserve my bandwidth for my files that need to be backed up.

I'm wondering who you guys have for an ISP and do they have a bandwidth limit? If so, how do you manage the best use of the allowed bandwidth given. I'm new to unRAID and a HTPC environment. I have a large dvd/bluray collection that I've started ripping and encoding but as many of you know, it's a time consuming process. The easier thing to do would be to use couchpotato, set it up to download and process each movie I own, and be done with the whole process. I estimate that the initial setup this way would likely take a few hours versus the several weeks it will take me to rip my movie/tv collection. My fear in doing this is that I will blow by my ISP's (Comcast) bandwidth limit of 250GB. On top of that, I would like to start backing my data up to Crashplan. The most obvious items to back up are my pictures, home videos, and documents, of which I have about 500GB worth. I know I can pay and seed the data with Crashplan but again, this is an inconvenience caused by the cap imposed by my ISP. Most of my data is currently backed up with iDrive and that account doesn't expire for another month or two. I may start incrementally uploading my files (pictures and documents first) over the next couple months until I'm completely backed up. So how do you manage? If you're with Comcast, have you had any problems if/when exceeding the cap? I'm thinking of switching to their business service since I do office from home and run a part time business from here. That will help me avoid the bandwidth limit altogether, albeit at a premium price.

I'll assume you're using unRAID 5 and the mysql plugin. If it doesn't help you, it will probably help others. My setup consists of my unRAID box running b14 and my XBMC clients running Eden beta 3. If you're not running this same setup, these settings may or may not work for you. This also assumes that you've already successfully setup and configured your XBMC database. Before you do anything, you should make a backup of your database. I also like to export my library as well. There may be better ways to do this, but this is how I do it and it works well for me. Telnet into my unRAID box and type the following (your installation directory may be different): cp -pr /mnt/cache/.apps/mysql/MyVideos60/* /mnt/cache/.apps/db_backup/MyVideo60/ and cp -pr /mnt/cache/.apps/mysql/MyMusic18/* /mnt/cache/.apps/db_backup/MyMusic18/ Then go to XBMC and navigate to System >> Settings >> Video >> Export video library. When prompted, select "Single File" Do the same thing for your music by navigating to System >> Settings >> Music >> Export music library. I do this just in case something goes wrong. It adds a little redundancy to the database backup process. Now, in the Eden betas, you no longer need to specify a database name. I'm showing this here because throughout the betas, the DB versions are getting updated and rather than updating my advancedsettings.xml file to point to the updated database with each new release, I let XBMC find it automatically. Here's the portion of my advancedsettings.xml file that connects my clients to my database: <advancedsettings> <!-- ####################################################################################### Allows advanced customization of the default database settings for video. ####################################################################################### --> <videodatabase> <type>mysql</type> <host>###.###.###.###</host> <user>xbmc</user> <pass>xbmc</pass> </videodatabase> <!-- ####################################################################################### Allows advanced customization of the default database settings for music. ####################################################################################### --> <musicdatabase> <type>mysql</type> <host>###.###.###.###</host> <user>xbmc</user> <pass>xbmc</pass> </musicdatabase> <!-- ####################################################################################### Sync the thumbails and fanart for our shared media library. ####################################################################################### --> <pathsubstitution> <substitute> <from>special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/</from> <to>smb://###.###.###.###/cache/.apps/xbmc/Thumbnails/</to> </substitute> </pathsubstitution> </advancedsettings> Now, to start the optimizations. You need to edit your my.cnf file for your mysql installation. This is pretty easy to do if you're using the unRAID 5 plugin. When using the plugin method, the mysql plugin checks the plugin directory every time it is started (at reboot and/or via the enable/disable function in the unRAID settings) for a my.cnf file, if it exists, it will load it rather than create a new one. With mysql running, telnet in to your unRAID box and type the following: cp -p /etc/my.cnf /boot/config/plugins/mysql This will copy your current my.cnf file to the mysql plugin directory. From there you can open and edit the file using a text editor from your regular computer (\\tower\flash\config plugins\mysql\my.cnf). You need to add skip-name-resolve to the mysqld section. This portion of my file looks like this: # The MySQL server [mysqld] port = 3306 socket = /var/run/mysql/mysql.sock skip-locking skip-name-resolve key_buffer_size = 16M max_allowed_packet = 1M table_open_cache = 64 sort_buffer_size = 512K net_buffer_length = 8K read_buffer_size = 256K read_rnd_buffer_size = 512K myisam_sort_buffer_size = 8M Save it and restart your mysql server. Now you need to run some code to add/alter the database tables. Telnet back into the box and type the following to login: mysql -u root -p when prompted enter your password. Then type the following (edit it to reflect your databases): use MyMusic18; CREATE INDEX idAlbum_idx ON song(idAlbum); CREATE INDEX idArtist_idx ON song(idArtist); CREATE INDEX idArtist_idx ON album(idArtist); CREATE INDEX idArtist_idx ON exartistsong(idArtist); CREATE INDEX idArtist_idx ON exartistalbum(idArtist); ALTER TABLE MyMusic18.song ADD INDEX idx_idArtist(idArtist); ALTER TABLE MyMusic18.song ADD INDEX idx_idGenre(idGenre); ALTER TABLE MyMusic18.song ADD INDEX idx_idAlbum(idAlbum); use MyVideos60; ALTER TABLE movie ADD INDEX idMovie(idMovie); ALTER TABLE movie ADD INDEX idFile(idFile); Your setup should now be optimized. I take no credit for any of the above information. I've simply compiled it from various sources found via google.

What version of unraid are you using? If you're on a 5.0 beta, are you using the mysql plugin?

I just swapped my parity disk and disk1 through the gui, reformatted, and now everything seems to be functioning fine without any errors. The parity-sync is taking place now and is looking good.

I just received my server today, installed three disks, and setup unraid. My setup is as follows: HP Proliant N40L Server Bay 1: 1 TB Seagate (previously used disk, reformatted) Bay 2: 1 TB Seagate (new disk, just received today) Bay 3: Empty (awaitiny a used 1 TB disk after I back up contents to the new array) Bay 4: 250 GB (Disk that came with my N40L server) Booting from Kingston 4GB USB Thumbdrive After installing and formatting the disks above through the GUI, the new Seagate disk in bay 2 started showing errors. The errors eventually stop and the full capacity of the disk is writeable, should I ignore these errors, reformat it, or try something else? I'm not sure what to do with it at this point. Any advice is appreciated.