I know the technology is still new and that for BOOTABLE 3TB's a UEFI mobo is needed, but since we are using unRAID here, with version 5.0 on the way and beta testing in progress, is there anyone who has been using 3TB drives in an unRAID setup successfully?  What mobo(s) have you use and/or recommend?

 

Or is the technology still too immature to recommend going to 3TB drives yet?

 

Curious minds on the fence want to know... 

I know the technology is still new and that for BOOTABLE 3TB's a UEFI mobo is needed, but since we are using unRAID here, with version 5.0 on the way and beta testing in progress, is there anyone who has been using 3TB drives in an unRAID setup successfully?  What mobo(s) have you use and/or recommend?

 

Or is the technology still too immature to recommend going to 3TB drives yet?

 

Curious minds on the fence want to know...  

 

The problems with support for 3T has nothing to do with motherboard or BIOS.  The problem is unRAID does not support GPT partitions.  Until it does, there will be no 3T array partitions.  

 

I have testing with two motherboards, one about 3 years old and other other about 1 year old.  Both support 3T drives just fine (non-boot disks).  But this does not mean anything if unRAID can't create the GPT partitions necessary to use them.

 

I have successfully "downsized" some 3T drives to 2.2T (max size of MBR partition).  These work fine.  When GPT partitions are supported, I will be able to upsize my disks to their full 3T capacity and gain my final 800G.  But until then, I can buy and use about 75% of the capacity of the disks.

 

Read THE THREAD for more details on 3T and the procedure to temporarily downsize one to 2.2TB.

 

If this is an important feature to prospective buyers, they might want to email Tom so he know people (besides me) are waiting on this feature.

Off to email Tom... 

I haven't been keeping up with the 5.0 beta's, but I thought I read a thread of thought somewhere in the forums long before 4.7 was release about the upgrade quandary with unRAID in its roadmap to supporting 3TB drives, and integral to that step was a decision whether to introduce some preliminary support via a 4.x update but would not be backward compatible with older 4.y releases, or wait until 5.0 to introduce these new features making it easier to let users know that it would not be backward compatible with v4 unRAID, but delaying actual full support for 3TB until a future 5.x version.

 

So am I mistaken in the belief that a 5.0 in the not-to-distant future that supports 3TB is NOT really in the works unless more users ask for it?

It's slated to be on the 5.1 schedule if I recall Limetech's messages on the subject.

According to the development page >2TB support was originally supposed to be a feature of 5.0-beta4.  But if you click the link you'll see Tom's comments.

 

In unRaid OS this means supporting GPT partitions. Should be minimal other changes, but need to review the driver.

 

Support for >2TB disks in hardware remains to be seen.

 

I will try and get this feature into 5.1.

No, You mistook the technical need for internal data record changes to mean full support for > 2TB drives. Full support for > 2TB drives in unRAID was never intended or slated for 5.0 beta 4.

Originally >2T support was on the Roadmap for 5.1, but it was later revised for 5.0b4 (this was before 5.0b3, which turned into a whole series of bug-fix betas ending at 5.0b6a).  That makes >2T in the next beta, according to the Roadmap.

 

Tom has reported that he has already done the behind the scenes work to support large partions, including updated the super.dat file structure.  The last step is to create the GPT partitions.  That should not be hard as Linux supports GPT partitions already.  Tom also reported that he bought a pair of 3T drives.  Given that 3T drive have already dipped below $130 $110, and demand is going up for the support of these drives amoung forum members, I am hopeful that Tom will not wait very much longer to release the > 2T beta.  I won't predict when.

 

The most the community can do is send him some emails requesting he add the support soon.  That's may be the best guage for him of the demand and urgency.

Just keep in mind the urgency to insure there is no corruption of our drives is the most important aspect of our drives and rushing to 3TB is not.

I don't think I'm missing something here but there is only one 3TB close to that price...the Hitachi.  Soon, Hitachi won't exist.  That doesn't inspire confidence with me.  But for sure, if the only thing holding us back from using them is an unRAID change then that's pretty cool.  I hope the emphasis is placed on testing (and I mean stress testing) to make sure they work reliably. 

Just keep in mind the urgency to insure there is no corruption of our drives is the most important aspect of our drives and rushing to 3TB is not.

 

I definitely concur with this requirement; zero corruption of data since the loss of any single multi-terabyte (not to mention multiple drives) is a huge amount of data that may be impossible or just too time-consuming to replace.

 

In the meantime (which I'm expecting probably a year from now before an official 5.1 release), I will have to resort to "add-on" hard drives (i.e. external) to "expand" capacity of my Media Server as it has now officially maximized all possible SATA ports with 14 2TB drives.

Are you planning on using just a couple external enclosures with 2TB drives and connecting with eSata? 

My mobo doesn't have any eSATA ports (otherwise I would have converted them to internal usage) nor does it have any more PCI slots (just the one; it's an SM ATOM board), so I'm stuck with just USB.  I'm wondering of a 3TB USB drive would work...?

 

Regardless, it would be some 2B+ USB external that would just be a temporary solution until 3TB internals are supported by unRAID.

you can not add USB drives to an unRAID array as part of the parity protected area.

Yes @prostuff1, I already know this.    Otherwise, I wouldn't even be mentioning replacing the mobo right now since I've maxxed out SATA ports, and why I said they would be temporary solutions.

 

I would be adding USB drives only as a temporary and unprotected solution.  As this is on a Media Server, losses on the unprotected USB drives due to hardware issues would be acceptable (I would put the least valuable media on them) as it does not make sense for me build yet another unRAID server that would cost roughly $600 that would take up even more space and power that will eventually be "retired" once 3TB drives are supported by unRAID.

 

Whether I attach the USB drives to the unRAID box or my Media Player (PCH-C200) would be the only question.

Whether I attach the USB drives to the unRAID box or my Media Player (PCH-C200) would be the only question.

 

You probably don't want to upload files onto the usb drives while attached to the C200 - unless time is not an issue?

No, time wouldn't be an issue as I would only be uploading one or two movies now and then via FTP (tis faster to the PCH).  The only problem is the nagging issue of the PCH potentially reassigning USB drive letters on restarts when there are multiple USB drives attached, which invalidates any YAMJ indexes to videos on those USB drives.

 

Which is why I'm thinking of attaching them to the unRAID, but then from my limited research you have to manually mount USB drives in unRAID.