If You Could Sell Me On Unraid With One Feature?

[SpencerJ]

For anyone on the fence, here's a great thread for you! 

 

 

[[email protected]]

On 9/23/2021 at 1:54 PM, SpencerJ said:

For anyone on the fence, here's a great thread for you! 

 

 

 

[[email protected]]

What sold me was the way the raid parity protection worked.  It means: 

1.   There is no raid performance penalty.  (ZFS and software RAID have major disadvantages including complexity)

2.  You can mix and match different size disks.

 

-Clayton

[Tjareson]

For me it was:
1. Transparent system/file layout and along with that the option to include own scripts in a clean and sorted way.

2. Finally the end of non-understandable constant hdd activity (I'm qnap-damaged...)
3. And last but not least everything which is programmed/contributed by the community. 

 

ah, I almost forgot the documentation. 

Edited February 16, 2022 by Tjareson

[JGKahuna]

On 9/23/2021 at 1:54 PM, SpencerJ said:

So many tremendous features like intuitive usage, ability to add hard drives of variety easily, but the one great feature to use unRaid, that should be on the top of everyone's list is The Community!!! Today I have gathered all the items for my new server and will be purchasing a license key, then migrating the drives from my test rig.

 

 

 

[Old-T]

One of the most boring softwares I've had.
- Install
- Setup all the plugins/dockers you need
- Use and forget
Nothing to fiddle with, nothing to supervise. I might go back to Ubuntu to have something to do...

Edited June 2, 2022 by Old-T

[[email protected]]

What makes it different that so many others is the way it does RAID.  Real time raid systems are overly complicated (especially to change a failed disk) and often have a steep performance penalty or hardware requirement.

For what I do, (movies, TV shows, backups) I just don't need instant RAID protection.  I can way until overnight for my raid parity protection to be generated.  I'm not a bank or a hospital!

[Squid]

10 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

What makes it different that so many others is the way it does RAID.  Real time raid systems are overly complicated (especially to change a failed disk) and often have a steep performance penalty or hardware requirement.

For what I do, (movies, TV shows, backups) I just don't need instant RAID protection.  I can way until overnight for my raid parity protection to be generated.  I'm not a bank or a hospital!

Unraid IS real-time protection 

[[email protected]]

Because I don't have a redundant cache pool, my configuration is not 100% protected until the parity is calculated (which I run late at night).   Systems like ZFS (and other RAIDS) calculate and write the parity as the data is entering the RAID system so are technically protected once that transaction is accepted.

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, [email protected] said:

Because I don't have a redundant cache pool, my configuration is not 100% protected until the parity is calculated (which I run late at night).   Systems like ZFS (and other RAIDS) calculate and write the parity as the data is entering the RAID system so are technically protected once that transaction is accepted.

I think I understand what you mean, but I would argue that what you said is not technically correct and could be misunderstood as there is no concept of an overnight parity calculation.    Instead there is real-time parity calculation the moment a file is written to the main parity protected array.   What I think you are referring to is the ‘mover’ job that is typically run overnight to transfer files that are written to a cache outside the array during the day for performance reasons onto the main array for their long term storage.

[[email protected]]

My 'parity' process runs at 2:00AM.   New files that have been written are unprotected until that time.  See below.  The orange icon indicates that new files have been added but are unprotected until the parity process completes.

[[email protected]]

Maybe there is something new in Unraid I'm not aware of.  I know you can have redundant cache drives.    Let me know if I'm not up to speed on it.

 

[itimpi]

4 hours ago, [email protected] said:

My 'parity' process runs at 2:00AM.   New files that have been written are unprotected until that time.  See below.  The orange icon indicates that new files have been added but are unprotected until the parity process completes.

That is not a ‘parity’ process.   It is a process (probably ‘mover’) that moves files from your cache (that I assume is not redundant so files on it are not protected) to the main array that is parity protected.   Since all writes to the Main array always use real-time parity that would be the point at which those files become protected by the array parity..

 

if any files are written during the day to a share that is configured to write directly to the array then they are immediately protected by parity because Unraid parity on the main array is realtime.

[[email protected]]

I disagree.

[[email protected]]

 In my ui, it says the parity check runs at 2:00 am and mover runs at 10 pm.

 

Can you show me some where it says that it's realtime?

[BRiT]

1 hour ago, [email protected] said:

 In my ui, it says the parity check runs at 2:00 am and mover runs at 10 pm.

 

Parity is indeed calculated and written in real time. It's simple for even novice users to see that in the UI dashboard by writing a file directly to a share in the array (bypassing cache drives and the need for mover) and notice how the WRITE COUNTS on the Parity Disk also increase.

 

Parity Check, with the keyword being CHECK. That is a different thing entirely than the real-time parity protection that is indeed offered by unRaid.

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/Parity

Quote

In a parity check, the system reads all the data disks and the parity disk, comparing computed parity with stored parity. This operation has a flag:

 

Quote

Using parity to protect your data inevitably has an impact on performance when you are writing data to the array. Any time a data disk is written to, the parity disk needs to be updated as well. Each write to a parity-protected unRAID data disk results in 4 disk operations: a read and write for parity, and a read and write for data. The platter of each disk has to make a full revolution after reading to position the disk head back over the sector being written.

 

Writing to the unRAID array is also limited by the slowest (rotational speed) drive involved. If only the parity drive is a 7200 RPM drive, then you are still limited by the speed of the data drive. You'll see no improvement in write speed unless there are multiple slower data drives being written to simultaneously, and one faster 7200 RPM parity drive trying to keep up with both of them.

 

[itimpi]

2 hours ago, [email protected] said:

 In my ui, it says the parity check runs at 2:00 am and mover runs at 10 pm.

 

Can you show me some where it says that it's realtime?

If you really have a parity check scheduled to run daily (rather than mover)  then that is far more than is needed.    Typically this is a maintenance task run something like monthly or even less frequently such as quarterly.

[[email protected]]

On 6/3/2022 at 10:48 PM, [email protected] said:

I disagree.

Ok.  I think you have convinced me.  Has unraid always done realtime raid protection   I thought it was always a post process.   If no, when did it change?   There has to be some sort of announcement to this effect.    

Thanks

Edited June 5, 2022 by [email protected]
Fix Comment

[JonathanM]

12 hours ago, [email protected] said:

Has unraid always done realtime raid protection

Yes.

[brittishsnow]

On 10/31/2021 at 5:20 PM, [email protected] said:

What sold me was the way the raid parity protection worked.  It means: 

1.   There is no raid performance penalty.  (ZFS and software RAID have major disadvantages including complexity)

2.  You can mix and match different size disks.

 

-Clayton

The ability to mix and match different sized disks was the main selling feature for me that sold me for using Unraid. I was interested for the past few years and finally set up my server a few months ago. Couldn't be any happier with the results

[ProServ]

All things being equal, the one feature that brought me to Unraid is its ability to use multiple different hard drives for its array. I have many drives but do not have multiple copies of the same drive. With Unraid, I can create arrays from the extra drives I have available. No brainer.

[ConnerVT]

Agree with the folks posting just above me here.  I had several disks stuffed in my Core 500 case of my daily driver, with a couple of USB enclosures plugged into it.  Needed to run it 24/7 as it was my media server + more.  Being able to repurpose some old hardware and move those drives to an Unraid server allowed me to actually power down the system I use each day, and actually save power and wear on that system.  That's what brought me to Unraid.

 

Of course, I found it was capable of so much more.  It is a very solid Docker platform, and the community has made it pretty simple for someone new to Docker to get things up and running quickly.  I have added so much more functionality to my media server, as well as enhancing my home's backup strategy, networking, and home automation.  But one need be careful - Finding things you can do is a rabbit hole that, while being rewarding, can also drain you wallet.  You can click the link in sy siggy to read my tale.  😆

 

 

[Devotee]

I'm still finishing my Unraid system but after two trials I would say the possibility of using different drive sizes, being able to expand storage easily by adding new drives or replacing existing ones and, in case of problems, you don't really lose all data. Even if both the parity drive and a data drive fail, you can still copy over the data of the remaining disks (and whatever you can salvage from the data drive if it didn't die completely).

[GRRRRRRR]

I just put it on free hardware and I can still run stuff on it. I like that.

I can also run one on a lsightly more expensive hardware to run even more stuff on it. I like that.

I can show it off to my guests and they will sh.t their pants with delight. He heh ehhehe.

Edited February 5, 2023 by GRRRRRRR

[threiner]

For me the best thing on UNRAD is by far that when the system fails or hardrives, all data is on the drive and there is no problem to access them. I had Drobos for a long time till one broke and had no other chance to get on my data as searching a used device and put my drives inside there... it was a nightmare