emagsamurai

I have an aging server that I am getting close to capacity on, and I'm considering purchasing a replacement. I built the last one, and it's worked well for years (it started life as a Microsoft Home Server), and was later repurposed to an unRAID server. I'm weighing my options between building my own rig vs buying an assembled unit (minus the drives) from a vendor. Which brings me to my question. Are there currently any recommended vendors that offer pre-built unRAID servers? The Vendor Forum doesn't have any recent activity, so I'm not sure if any of those guys are still in business.

Crisis averted! Parity check complete, with zero errors. I wasn't worried for a minute Thanks agains for the help! Now I think I'll go ahead and preclear that extra drive I bought.

I was waiting on the parity check to finish, but it would probably be best to start another thread if something went south at this point Thanks for the help!

Is this in Safari? If so Safari > Preferences > General Tab > File Download Location > then choose either your default location or ask for each download If you're using a different browser or utility, there should be a similar setting somewhere.

I don't think I understand what you're asking for, but once I enabled smb, my shares show up in finder whenever I open a folder. My server appears as a "Shared" device. EDIT: It's been a long time since I migrated to a Mac, but I did have to updated my hosts file in order for Safari to resolve my server by name rather than IP address. Not sure if that is related or not to my server showing as a share in finder.

My array appears to have been successfully rebuilt from parity. I woke up this morning to all green disk status. Running a parity check now. I'm actually starting to feel better

Yes and yes!!! I keep telling myself this is what unRAID is for.... it still hasn't made me feel any better. I'm trying to cruise around on the forum here to keep from hitting refresh repeatedly on my server interface.

New drive is in. After a bit of a scare where the web interface stopped responding for about 10 minutes, it now says it's rebuilding. I won't claim victory until it's finished

Thanks for the reply! So the "Data Invalid" error is normal? Thanks again!

The web interface to my server began responding very slowly, so I stopped my array and rebooted. At least I tried. My server didn't boot back up. When I went to check on it, there was that unmistakable click.click.click.click coming from one of the drives. This is the first drive I've had fail in my servers (and it's been running for years). I've already ordered two replacement drives, but I'm hoping someone can hold my hand and tell me what to do next. Once I got it booted up, here's what my dashboard looks like. Is this normal for a failed drive? I'm worried about the Parity status showing "Data is Invalid." Is that the normal error when a disk fails? As I understand it, I'm supposed to shut down the server, remove the failed drive, and put in the new one. And then rebuild the array. I'm not exactly sure how to do that last step, but I'm hoping it will be fairly obvious once I put in the new disk. I generally preclear my disks, but in this instance I'm guessing I just need to put the disk in and let unRAID handle clearing it when it rebuilds the array, correct? Sorry for all the questions, and thanks in advance for the help!

Nope, no solution.

I finally have a solution of sorts to the issue. My Verizon router finally lost its 4G connection a few nights ago. Once it became an internet issue, I could finally get some support from Verizon. I'm not exactly sure what the problem was, but the solution was a complete restore to factory defaults of my Verizon router. This solved my 4G connection issue as well as the video stuttering when streaming between my unRAID server and my DUNE player. The Tech said they recommend rebooting the router about once a week to make sure it gets the proper updates and renews its connection with whichever tower it prefers. He said they see all sorts of issues once these systems have been left on for several weeks without being reset. So there you have it. Apparently if it's not rebooted regularly enough, it will end up requiring a complete system restore. Not exactly a great solution, but at least its one I can work with.

I've rebooted the router during all of this, but when I get a chance I'll put everything back to its original configuration and reboot both the router and the switch just to make sure. Also the Verizon router is about two months old and my switch is only a couple years old. So I wouldn't think I'm seeing age related issues. Also, the fact that I can replace the "newest" component in the chain (the Verizon router) and my video stuttering goes away also leads me to believe it's not an age related problem. It's a valid point, though. I have no idea how old that router was before it came out of the box. The firmware is up to date, though. I'll report back once I've had a chance to put everything back and reboot all the components. Thanks again for all the advice!

Thanks again! I have an auto negotiating switch, and my slowest hardwired device is my Dune (and possibly my Verizon router, now). Everything else on our network (including my printer) is wireless. That said, I think I did as you suggested. I've been considering it, but needed a nudge. I set my Verizon router to DHCP relay, and I connected it to the "internet" port on my Netgear router. Then reassigned my LAN addresses on the Netgear router and connected it to my LAN. My Verizon Routers IP address in now XXX.XXX.1.1 and my Netgear router is assigning IP addresses in the XXX.XXX.2.1 range. So now I think my Verizon router is on a different subnet (is that the right terminology?). I have no idea if I set this up correctly or not, but I can get to the internet through either a wired or wireless connection using my Netgear router, and my video does not seem to be stuttering. So I think it's a successful change. Whether it's optimal or not, I'm not sure. I'm open to any suggestions for how to optimize this setup.

I have a 1G switch that all of my devices are connected to. The Verizon router only has one Ethernet cable connected to it and that is connected to my 1G switch. Also, the Verizon router appears to be a 1G router, but it will only connect at 100M for some reason.

Well, the plot thickens. That file will barely play at all off my desktop. The problem seems to be related to my Verizon HomeFusion router. About two months ago we changed broadband carriers and we got a new router. I didn't think about it because we changed to Verizon several weeks before I upgraded my unRAID server. I guess I just didn't watch any movies during that time (that's kinda sad I must say). I plugged in the old Netgear router, and I watched the test scene four times with no stuttering. Now the question is how do I configure the Verizon router so that it stops choking my network? It seems like a fairly straightforward setup. It's providing DHCP on my network and the access to the internet. I don't understand why it would be choking my network so severely.

I'll see if I can save the file to my PC and access it from Dune player. I've not done that before, and I set the thing up years ago so I've forgotten a lot of the Dune networking details. The video doesn't stutter on the same frames each time, just during high bitrate scenes. I can play the same scene three or four times and it will stutter in different places each time. Thanks for the feedback!

Our network is pretty straight simplistic. Since we have a data cap on our internet, we don't have many devices connected (no xbox, play stations, etc.). That is correct. Before the upgrade to 5.0.4 I had 7 data disks. I added the 8th, and that's where I've added my newest movies. Last night I found a scene that I remembered being particularly bad, and played it. Sure it enough, it stuttered. I MOVED the movie from disk 8 to disk 6 (I just picked one with enough space, nothing special about it), and replayed the same scene and it stuttered during the high bitrate portions.

We have our iDevices, a laptop, a desktop, and the Dune. The short answer is I don't think any of those would be a problem. I don't believe the iDevices are a concern. The last time I watched a movie, the desktop was off, so it shouldn't be a problem. I can't think of anything that my laptop would be doing that would require moving lots of data, and it goes to sleep when I'm not using it. I can make sure to shut it down the next time I test this out, though. It's worth eliminating every variable. I did eliminate one additional variable. I started wondering if I could be having an issue with this new data disk, so I moved one of these movies to an older drive and watched a problematic scene again. There was no improvement. My Dune claims the scene was somewhere between 30 and 40 Mbps (lowercase bps). I think that eliminates the specific drive as a problem. Also, if I can transfer a file FROM my unRAID server at 70 MB/s (capital B), there should be no issue streaming a video requiring 40 Mbps (lowercase b) correct? Is there a way to monitor the traffic/data coming from my unRAID server to try to figure out where the bottleneck is? I can't say this enough, but I really appreciate the help!

A bit of an update. I copied a 50GB ISO from my unRAID server to my windows machine and got just over 70MB/s at the end of the transfer. My Dune player does not have GigE interface, but even at 100 MB/s, that should be enough for an HD stream.

Dale, you are a machine, sir! I greatly appreciate the feedback! I am accessing the ISO files directly from the server. The DUNE player handles the files directly, so my server is not transcoding anything. My understanding is it is just operating as a file server. I do not have a cache drive, you are correct. I'm not sure as to whether this affects movies loaded prior to 5.0.4 or not. I can only say for sure that I've seen this on the three movies I've added to my server since the upgrade (i.e., I've added three movies since the upgrade, and each has stuttered). I don't believe I've watched any other movies since the upgrade. I have no idea about running out of RAM. Does 5.0.4 use significantly more RAM? I never had an issue before, and after I setup my server initially (4.7) I ran some high bit rate test videos to see what would happen. No issues then. It's been a long time ago, so I can't remember what I used for tests or any of the specifics. Just that I was satisfied at the time that I should be able to stream movies without issue. Aside from streaming video, my unRAID server is just for backups. So read and write performance is not a concern with any other applications. I haven't noticed any issues when transferring files to it. I do not know if my DUNE player has a syslog. I'll look into that. Thanks again for the feedback! I'm open to any suggestions/advice.

These are Blu-ray ISOs. Each is a single file (with extension .iso) with an average size of 25 GB each. I haven't tried streaming a DVD, and I'm not sure I even have one in folder structure to test. It's a very strange behavior. Typically when it stutters, I can rewind and replay the same section of the movie with no stuttering. Thanks!

I recently upgraded to 5.0.4 from 4.7, I replaced my 2TB parity drive with a 4TB drive, and repurposed my old parity to a data drive in my array. Since the upgrade, I am seeing intermittent stuttering during video playback. I'm streaming ISOs from my unRAID server to a DUNE player, and I've never had any stuttering issues before. I'm not sure where to begin troubleshooting this, and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction! Thanks in advance EDIT: Syslog attached. Also, both my server and my Dune have statically mapped IP addresses assigned by my router if that's of any importantance. syslog.txt

Does OOMed mean "Out of Memoried?" Syslog attached. Thanks for taking a look! syslog.txt

Sorry. I messed that up royally. The Dynamix Web GUI is not responding. However, the unMENU web GUI is working properly. So http://Tower will not load, but http://Tower:8080 connects to the unMENU GUI which is responding normally.