I'm about to start ordering parts for my first build. Couldn't find answers to these in the FAQ:

- How are files spread across the disks? For example, I could and would like to fit all my music on one drive, but my movies won't fit so they'd have to be spread across disks. Do I have to faff around with which drive to put each file, or is it done on-the-fly in the background by the OS? If latter, how does it know which drive to put each type of file?

- What are good practices in physical HDD management? The box I'd get would fit 10+ HDDs - how do I know which one to replace when unRAID reports that Drive Y is out of commission without having to trial and error it? I'd like to put label stickers on the HDDs but don't know in what order they are added to the array. Do I add a drive one-by-one and label them as they are added and reported by the system?

- As I understand, SSD and hybrid drives offer little to no benefit as cache or parity drives. Instead I'd spend the money on two relatively high-speed traditional HDDs, one for cache/hot spare, one for parity. Is this a good approach?

Try reading this section on user shares.

 

http://www.lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#User_shares_2

 

Ask more specific questions if there is something you still don't understand.

 

As for the drive management. unRAID shows the serial number when you assign a drive. You can identify the failed drive using this number. You may want to put all or part (like last 5 digits) of the serial number where you can see it when the drive is installed.

 

You probably don't want to buy a 2T SSD so a normal drive will have to do. The cache write speed is pretty good with a normal drive unless you are going to tweak your sending machine, your network and the unRAID machine to get the best possible write speeds, which then means a SSD or hybrid might be of benefit. A typical HDD as a cache will increase your write speeds by 2 to 3 times.

 

Peter

 

Try reading this section on user shares.

 

http://www.lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#User_shares_2

 

Ask more specific questions if there is something you still don't understand.

 

As for the drive management. unRAID shows the serial number when you assign a drive. You can identify the failed drive using this number. You may want to put all or part (like last 5 digits) of the serial number where you can see it when the drive is installed.

 

You probably don't want to buy a 2T SSD so a normal drive will have to do. The cache write speed is pretty good with a normal drive unless you are going to tweak your sending machine, your network and the unRAID machine to get the best possible write speeds, which then means a SSD or hybrid might be of benefit. A typical HDD as a cache will increase your write speeds by 2 to 3 times.

 

Peter

 

 

Thank you for the link and tips, very helpful!

 

I skimmed through the User Shares, and it looks like Split Level is what I'm looking for. Using different allocation methods I could ensure there's always space on the music disk, and spreading movies and TV shows across several disks.

 

Yes, 2TB SSD is out of the question so regular HDD it is.