talex

Hi all, Looking for suggestions on an unraid build. I ran unraid a few years ago when it did not have the features it does today mainly recoding to it and as a home server. Today needs have changed. I started out thinking I could use the hardware I had which is a 3U case, Supermicro X9SCL/X9SCM Motherboard, Intel® Xeon® CPU E31245 @ 3.30GHz, 32GB Ram. What I want to do is backup my Synology box which I am using for Plex and the mobile apps and also to run VM's - I am particularly interested in running a VM that can run Davinci Resolve and encode projects, I have also been doing some stuff with Blender but have not gotten to rendering much yet - I don't care if it encodes super fast just that it can encode - even it is an overnight run type thing, editing is done on my main system and my current setup above is fast enough I can edit over my home network but when I installed the windows 10 VM it is sluggish and Resolve needs a GPU to work at all. I do have some gaming components lying around like an Asus MB with a core i7 7700k and 16GB, GTX770 and I also have a GTX1060 I could use but not sure if those will do the trick, the 770 might not fit the case. I also have another similar setup as I had 2 servers but the second has a slower XEON on the downside but can take I think up to 128GB ram - both were from the more or less same time period. So the goal is pretty simple (I think) - an unRaid server that I can backup my synology box to and that can run VM's snappy enough to open and render projects, even if it renders them slow as that will free up my PC - that is if this goal even makes sense. Thanks for any thoughts / suggestions.

Hi, Bought this a few years back - never really used it. Just booted to it the other day and it's booting just fine. $60 with free shipping to Cont US.

Hi all, It's been awhile. I purchased unRaid pro awhile back and wound up going a different direction but now am looking to implement a small file server with it. I have the pro.key I was sent on the Lexar USB stick I put unRaid on and backed up, when I boot the machine I can go to the webpage, but before I just roll with it I noticed there was a version 5 (maybe newer out) and I wonder what the process would be to upgrade to the current version (if I even can with my purchased version), do I have to re-do the entire process or just copy files? My last question would be that even though my unRaid is booting, the Lexar USB stick is pretty old so wonder if there is a process before I commit to the build to get a new key for a new USB stick... Also I think the version on the main page was 4.5. Thanks ahead of time for any help.

don't think I will try that beta, seems unRaid already does the "drive extender" stuff pretty well already, I look at unRaid like a drobo without the limits on drives by the case... this is what I want unRaid for, protection and serving of my video's. Ideally here unRaid could show up on my WHS so WHS could control backups and access permissions like WHS does. Do not know what will happen with WHS vail, but without DE I do not think I will be using it. What I currently have is a WHS v1 in my basement which is backed up to an unRaid box in my Garage...

well that is a relief, without DE... WHS is pretty much a dead product to me and it's nice to have unraid to fall back on.

Hi all, Anyone running unRaid with SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8? I had just built up a Norco and have 2 of these 4x Controllers in it (basically built one of the recommended systems found on AVForums) for a home server box, but with the dropping of DE I would like to use my Unraid Pro I purchased for this and want to confirm that unRaid will work reliably with these controllers.

Thanks alot, that is helpful, had them in my cart, but did find some for about 1/2 that. I love th egg but they can kill you on cables.

Then Bingo we have an answer, I will get a board with minimum 2x PCI-e 4x Slots and 2 of the PCI-e 4x 8 port controllers with 6 onboard. So I will configure like this: MOBO Port 0 - WD Black 2.5" 360GB - OS MOBO Port 1 - SLim DVD ROM MOBO Ports 2 - 5 - 4x Sata to Mini Sas Card 1 to Mini Sas Card 2 to Mini Sas That should work dandy for all 20 drives. Thanks!

The card I bought was a PCI-e X1, so that will be either resold or saved for my unraid server. I have not bought a motherboard yet, that is the reason for this post, to sort out how big a difference using 2 of the PCI-X card in PCI slots would be as compared to the 2 PCI-e X4 Cards.

Hi all, This is not directly related to unraid, as my unraid box is working great, this is more hardware and my windows home server which my unraid server serves to back up. So I am rebuilding my home server for needed expansion. Looking into my options I decided on the Norco 4220 case which houses 20 Sata HDD and uses mini sas connectors. Originally I was just planning on using some si 3114 PCI sata controllers, but after reading found more than 1 of these does not always play well on a single system, so I started looking at other options. My Current Server is on a Biostar board with a Phenom 9550 in it, the board has 4 sata ports, 3x PCI and 2x PCI-e x1. Looking around on the internet I found this posting http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14239786#Media If you look about 1/2 way down they list 2 different configurations for the 4220. 1 uses PCI-X in a PCI slot, the other PCI-e X4 controllers. They clearly state the X4 version is quicker but do not talk much about media streaming, in my house we occasionally have 2 or 3 clients streaming movies or recorded tv from the home server. My question is, can the PCI-x version do this without issue? I realize it would be slower than the X4 solution, however this would require a motherboard swap, I have the 9550 but only DDR2 ram and I do not want to have to buy new mb and ram for this if possible, but If there is a significant enough of a difference between the 2 I will try to find a board that can use the 9550 and my ram that would suit the bill, but only if the PCI-x solutions would potentially cause performance issues in a media streaming / backup server. Just looking for opinions pointing to either one of these solutions being far superior and why before I fill a shopping cart with more goodies for the build (already blew $40 on a 3125 PCI-e X1 4 port I will not be using.... all help is appreciated. thanks, Tom

It is not that we do not want to help, but there is NO way to do what you are requesting without a process listening on some port on the unRAID server. There is no such process. You can create one, but version 5.0 of unRAID is going to be a complete revision of the user-interface and creation of an API to the unRAID management interface. Anything you do right now will need to be re-done. The best you can do is leverage the work already done and either create a process listening on a port on unRAID, or be patient. Something similar to what you are trying to do was done here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Add_Ons#FEMUR Joe L. Joe, Anything displayed on a web page I could get at, for example, if someone added CPU usage or memory usage or whatever to the bottom of the main unraid page or created a different web page to display whatever info I could display it, I don't really think that is needed but if it was requested my answer would be no becasue I do not know how to code for linux. I was simply stating that request for features requiring coding on unRaid will not be done because I do not know how to code for linux and I do not have time to learn it. As far a version 5, if unRaid outputs html which I am sure it will or enough people use the add on as it stands, then maybe Lime can leave the current main page there for backward compatibility, if they don't I will either address reparsing the new page then or just not upgrade, it really depends on how many people use it and if there is anything in 5 that I feel I cannot live without. No knock to the community, but I really do not want to go digging through the Wiki forcing me to learn linux code. I wrote something useful for myself and I thought it might be useful to others and decided to share it in hopes this might bring more users over to unRaid. Tom I understand your feeling the way you do, and your work looks fantastic, but it will quickly go out of date as the entire user-interface will change. Now, it is completely up to tom if the current HTML on the main page will remain the same, but I'd not bet my life on it. In fact, it we as a development community have anything to do with it, it WILL change and evolve constantly. Trying to "screen-scrape" is simply the wrong way to approach your needs. You need to identify the specific "values" you wish to capture and put a service into place on unRAID to provide those values, without HTML formatting, and in an easy to parse format for your WHS program. We are eagerly anticipating something in a preliminary 5.0beta soon. Tom said in another post we might get a "Christmas" present.... If he switches to using a true extensible web-server (lighttpd perhaps) then a page can be written to supply the values you need for your program's display. Sounds good. The needs of what I wrote, a page is not really that bad because the usage scenario is boot unraid, backup... (take a snap shot of the main page to get data - <this is the parser, save>)... powerdown unraid. so adding services would be alot of work when the scenario my app uses unRaid in is mainly backup and not full time server. I am sure I will get requests for more, like I did before I even posted here, I had a guy ask if I could have the addon display real time info... I said sure all's I have to do is call my code already parsing unraid's info and not save it to xml, just run it through the parser... so I added realtime monitor, but noone will probably use this once they get everything running becuase it is meant to be set it and forget it. This really started because I wrote a manual program to start / stop and get some info on my unRaid box before I decided to make an all in 1 interface for WHS. I wrote a little tray app (unraidTray) that let me through right click on tray icon - start up and shut down unRaid and get a quick view of status... Anyways, if you get Lime (Toms?) ear maybe you could see if it would not be to much to ask to leave the old main page in and in it's current format so anyone who adopts this add-on could upgrade without breaking their stats... everything else (the meat of the addon will still work as long as the shutdown scripts work). Have not heard to much about beta 5... it was brought up a loooong time ago when I purchased unRaid, but have not been looking into it since then. Also, do you know who wrote the shutdown script posted on the forums? I cannot identity who the author is it is the script that you copy powerdown and init-powerdown to the root of the flashdrive and add a line to the go file, do you know who that would be? I would like to give them credit in the help file and about page. Tom

It is not that we do not want to help, but there is NO way to do what you are requesting without a process listening on some port on the unRAID server. There is no such process. You can create one, but version 5.0 of unRAID is going to be a complete revision of the user-interface and creation of an API to the unRAID management interface. Anything you do right now will need to be re-done. The best you can do is leverage the work already done and either create a process listening on a port on unRAID, or be patient. Something similar to what you are trying to do was done here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Add_Ons#FEMUR Joe L. Joe, Anything displayed on a web page I could get at, for example, if someone added CPU usage or memory usage or whatever to the bottom of the main unraid page or created a different web page to display whatever info I could display it, I don't really think that is needed but if it was requested all's I was saying is that my answer would be no becasue I do not know how to code for linux. I was simply stating that request for features requiring coding on unRaid will not be done because I do not know how to code for linux and I do not have time to learn it. As far a version 5, if unRaid outputs html which I am sure it will or enough people use the add on as it stands, then maybe Lime can leave the current main page there for backward compatibility, if they don't I will either address reparsing the new page then or just not upgrade, it really depends on how many people use it and if there is anything in 5 that I feel I cannot live without. No knock to the community, but I really do not want to go digging through the Wiki forcing me to learn linux code. I wrote something useful for myself and I thought it might be useful to others and decided to share it in hopes this might bring more users over to unRaid, in fact the only people who really stand to benefit is Lime because they might sell more copies of unRaid as well as get exposure if I decide to allow sites like WGS, HomeServerLand etc do a review. Possibly the community if it gains members, if noone wants to use my add-on, I am ok with that as well. Tom

I have released this into beta so I can get some additional feedback. Please realize this is beta, it works perfectly on my systems but I have only tested this on 2 systems (1 my actual WHS and unRaid) and WHS virtual and unRaid Test, so I anticipate some bugs to pop up. Bugs can only be fixed if I am told of them. Features request's will be considered but keep in mind I am not a linux programmer and so far no one here has offered aid with my request, so additional features which require changes or additions in unRaid itself will not be implemented unless someone who can code the linux end so that I can make calls to it from .Net steps forward to do so. Also as a beta release I do not want anyone reviewing this software, it just makes things and myself look bad when sites review software prematurely. Most likely no changes will be made until after the new year, so please document and bugs and or requests and send them once you have a few. This installs just like any other WHS Add-On, just copy the MSI in the .rar file to your addons folder. A help file is also included and feel free to inform me of improvements that can be make there as well, just click help at the main screen in the WHS console. This software is available to use at YOUR OWN RISK. Although I see nothing that could really harm anything, being free software I take no resposibility for it's use. Do NOT click the install shutdown script in the first run screen during initial setup if you have installed the powerdown script on these forums (the one that contains powerdown and init-powerdown and the entry in the go file because it will modify the go file agian appending the entry if it can... I am adding a check for the files and go entry, but have not done this yet, if you have no powerdown script installed, by all means runs this because it is required for powerdown to work properly. There is an email link on the settings page to contact me. here is the link. http://www.newsgeek.com/au/autounraidwhs.rar Enjoy, Happy Holidays. Tom

look up microsoft synctoy, anything that can do this can do because it uses that as a backup engine.

That's the part that has this make sense to me. I apologize, I wasn't trying to be harsh. To me, the 80% solution is redundant storage, the 100% solution is redundant storage + offsite storage. That's for the home user. Certainly the are lots more solutions for enterprise. Until you added offsite, I didn't see the benefit. In my case, I've got WHS and unRAID sitting in a closet next to each other, so there isn't really a benefit in my case. And while there may be lot's of benefits of storing media on WHS, those benefits are true whether you choose to use WHS duplication or unRAID backup, don't you agree? You also lose what is, in my opinion, the primary benefit of unRAID - redundancy at much less than 1 for 1 replication (that is, one parity drive provide replication for up to 20 other drives). In this case, a file will be stored 1 for 1, on WHS and unRAID. Brett No apologies required, I did not take anything as harsh. It always boils down to what one prefers and what one is comfortable with. I guess I partially agree with your benefits statement, either can store media and offer a degree of protection. In the WHS case I noticed a marked improvement when I turned file duplication off once I had a full backup done to unRaid. Perhaps faster machines than mine would make less a difference, but my WHS box has a Phenom 9600 in it with 4GB Ram and 8 1.5TB Barracuda's in it so I doubt it is hardware... but in my case it is noticably better, then again I also have the full 10 clients attached so perhaps if I only had 2 or 3 maybe I would not notice a difference? Also the server especially at night is usually streaming movies or music to at least 3 clients, many times 4 or 5... (I have 3 teens at home). To your other point... since I am using unRaid I do not see how I am loosing any benefit unRaid offers, I just don't use it as a Media Server. Like I said in my last post, to each their own, I have lost more than 1 drive in a system before that cost me, I have also many times had data get corrupted for ?? reason especially on Windows boxes and duplication will duplicate corrupted data, in fact WHS has a data corruption bug in it until a patch came out and many people lost data, look in the unRaid forums and you see cases of peple loosing data for who knowsw what reason. I am not comfortable with that. I explain this in the help file I am writing. I started backing up my WHS to a drobo, but ran up against the 4 drive limit, I had to rebuild my WHS once already ( thankfully I had it backed up) and unRaid is perfect, not always unraids fault, could be a faulty PS, a stick of ram goes bad what ever... bottom line if I did not use unRaid to back up WHS, I would use another product even if they sat side by side as they did when I had my drobo backing up WHS... guess working in IT all these years and noting redundant backup being the only safe option touted by just about every one I have ever worked with made me partial to the 2 copy approach... I am not comfortable trusting years of memories to a single solution until it can be proven perfect, if you are willing to do so then that is your choice.

I do use WHS and unRAID, where I store all my media on unRAID but let WHS do the backups. I don't understand the idea of storing media on WHS (without duplication) and backing it up on unRAID. What advantage does that have over turning on duplication in WHS? Seems like either way you are duplicating data on two drives, and actually unRAID would be worse because you are duplicating on two drives (WHS and unRAID, plus the unRAID parity), plus the cost of an unRAID machine. What are the benefits? Brett Backing up to an external source is the way to do it, redundant backup... file duplication does not do you any good if more than 1 drive fails or something else bad happens on the WHS, there are other methods to backup WHS, however none are as expandable as unRaid. As far as media is concerned, WHS has moved a ton toward being a great Media Server to compliment it's client back-up, you should check out the web guide add-on and with PP3, it has real nice integration with windows 7 Media Center which is what I am using as a front end on all clients. File duplication also comes with overhead, thus performance reduction as every file operation needs to be duplicated. I leave file duplication turned off because I have duplicates on the unRaid server in case of WHS failure. As far as hardware, many people have older machines which can run unRaid or WHS for that matter, drive space is drive space so it does not really get affected, if you have 4ish TB of data what difference does it make if you have 4x 2TB drives in WHS + the System Drive with File Duplication on or 2x 2TB in WHS w/o File Duplication + System Drive and 2x 2TB in unRaid + Parity drive? The difference, redundant back up, better WHS performance and in my case my unRaid server lives in my Garage, my WHS lives in Basement which means my house could burn down or my garage and I would still have all my data... Everyone has their own preferences, I have to many photo's, music files, movies, videos, code libraries and other documents to risk losing...

Well I am going to finish it pretty soon, I don't use unRaid as a media server simply becuase WHS is already there and does it very well, especially with Windows 7 which all of my clients now have and unRaid does not offer those features that integrate with Media Center and other add-ons like mymovies which WHS does. Performance on WHS is better this way to because I can turn off file duplication. unRaid is in my opinion at this time the best backup option for home server at least for those of us with large media collections or large amounts of data to keep safe. pm me if you want to be notified when it is released for beta 1.

Hello All. I have been working on an Add-On for Windows Home Server (WHS) to Automate and work with an unRaid server where the unRaid Server provides backup capabilities for WHS. I think this add-on could bring many users to the unRaid community if done properly, so far it works well, but I could use a little aid to make it better... I have 99% of the program working perfectly and have started on the help file for the Add-On. There are sections of the help file I could use a little help writing and a few things that would be great if I could get an unRaid developer to help me with. An Overview of my WHS Add-On: Presents configuration, stats and info in 1 interface via the WHS add-on. Via Scheduled Task (schedule in the WHS add-on): It powers on the unRaid server via wake on Lan. Runs MS SyncToy as configured in the add-on. Creates a snapshot of current unRaid Server status. Writes a log file. Powers off the unRaid Server - via internal telnet code. Writes the backup info into WHS so that the backup shows in the WHS backups screen. Where I could use a little aid: I cannot pull the information for unRaid for stats if the Server has a password on it because I am parsing the unRaid Home Page which presents a logon windows when a password is set, if there is a way around this then I would certainly like to know it, I know there are ways in windows to get ahold of a process and populate things, but this seems like alot of overhead in the add-on that I would rather not do. Currently I very simply I create a browser instance, make sure the page has loaded, parse the contents and then kill the browser instance... save or display the information. If there was a way some one could write the scripts needed to just get the info in a parseable manner I could read in, that would make it easier, but then there still is the password issue.. also in the same package if commands for spin down etc could be made in an easily callable way would be excellent. Secondly if someone could offer to help a little with the documentation for setting up unRaid explaining installation in a simple manner which would be friendly to users who would be using Windows Home Server (some WHS users are very advanced, many are novices which is what WHS targets). Here are some screen shots of the add-in... initial screen (wizard) Main Settings Screen Log Viewer Server Info Also the shutdown script I am using came from these forums, the package contained powerdown and int-power, I would like to distribute these with the package (currently it is setup this way) and the package automatically copies the files to the flash drive (if it can find it) and enters the required info in the go file, so I plan on keeping it that way unless there is a protest here or someone can write the scipts or whatever I mention above that could provide that functionality without using the script or a telnet instance which I am creating in code now to log into unraid can run powerdown... Ideally because of the target auduience as much as possible should be included in the add-on and made as easy as possible. The add-on is freeware... Several WHS sites have expressed interest in the Add-on and would like to do write ups once it is complete. I have several beta testers already with varying degree's of technical know how who want to run the add-on. Any suggestions, offer of help etc greatly appreciated... thanks

I am almost finished writing a windows home sever plug in which used unRaid to backup the home server shares. Plugin is pretty simple, it wakes the unRaid server, runs microsoft synctoy, turns off the unraid sever using a vbscript. As this is nearly complete, there are a couple things I could use a little help with... 1. For display in the WHS add-in I am parsing the unRaid servers home page so I can display a quick view of the space on the unRaid Server. (for those interested I also wrote a small windows app that displays this from a tray icon) simular to the drobo software.... for this I could use some html files of the unRaid standard home page which is what I am using for the parse, ones wth different hardware configs than my own, just for testing. So if some of you guys could send me a html of your home unRaid page, that would help. (see image - arrow indicated parsed info) I am speaking of). 2. Does anyone know how to automatically close a vbscript window? my shutdown script runs perfectly, but the script window sits there intil something is clicked, would be nice if it just went away when done... 3. Under the usage scenario I listed, is there a period of time that should be recommeded to allow the unRaid server to run after a backup so unRaid can do what it does? If so would that be different for large and small transfers? In other words if it should be allowed to run for x period of time would that x period of time be the same for a couple hundred megs and a couple hundred gigs? I already have the setting, but need to know what to recommend if this is the case. 4. If there is a better way of getting unRaid info than parsing the basic unRaid home page, I would be happy to know it or if someone could write a page that would be easier to parse that could be just dropped onto the flash drive and work, I have a few people very interested in considering unRaid for the usage scenario I use it for and I am sure they would not be to adept in tinkering with the unRaid software, so because this is WHS add-on, I am targeting as non tech of people just as WHS does. I also realize this type of thing could be used without WHS, systems could run synctoy or another piece of software and maybe at some point I will do something with that, for now though...whs. Any other help or sugestions would be greatly appreciated... Thanks, Tom

i cannot even get unmenu or bubba raid to run at startup unless I download it and install each time! Telnet is kinda a drag in .net unless you buy 3rd party, I think a page scrape is probably the best I can do.

Hi, I just wrote a whs add on that lets me use my unRaid box how I want it to work. There would be a couple nice things to add, but I am not a linux guy... thus the post... Is there a way to poll the unRaid server and get total space and total free space? or other info such as the drive temps, status? I know I could potentially scrape the web page, but if that changes then I have to re-work it. thanks ahead of time.

Well I decided to stick with unRaid. I wrote a Windows Home Server Add-on that let's me do what I want... It lets me schedule what I want using the Home Server Counsel and easily change it. It powers on my unraid server, performs a sync and then powers off the unraid server. Does not get much easier, set it and forget it...

Yes, one way is to create a batch file (script) along the lines of: WOL <unRAID box> synctoy <...> shutdown <unRAID box> Then use Windows "Scheduled Tasks" to execute the batch file when needed. There are a number of topics in the forums about WOL and shutting down the server remotely which will help with those aspects. You should check if your MB's WOL works under Linux/unRAID before spending too much time on setting up the script. Started research already, I have a mainboard that does support Wake on Lan, I already tested this with some vb.net code. I think my preference will be to write the app in .net because I can make it report back things I want to know and have a WHS add on interface. I have no clue about shut down though as far a linux and what I would have to send... that could be the deal breaker...

MS Free program SyncToy works as well, but it would be nice if the home server could recognize the unraid box as a backup because it will then do it natively. Speaking of my usage scenario... is there a way to write a script that would send a wake on lan to my unRaid Server, then launch an application like synctoy and one done shut down the unRaid server? This would be awesome because I could just schedule the task and forget about it alltogether.

I don't think simply naming it "NAS" will do what I was talking about. What I was talking about is having my home server recognize it as a backup NAS device. If I plug an external USB drive into the home server or install a NAS unit with software on the home server, it recognizes that and will ask if you want to use it as a backup device. unRaids shares do not currently do this.