Thanks for all the responses folks! Great to hear some of the in's and outs.

 

I have a couple rather newbie questions and if some of you folks have a moment to reply that would be great.

 

1. Just a bunch of disks in unRaid (without parity)?

I saw a customization called SNAP - believe its for the already created partitions/drives

Never really cared for parity or backup of my media (I have 5gb or so the really important data that i back up using other methods). Its actually a life style choice (prefer to not let the media control me; if the box burns to the ground oh well time to go outside and enjoy the sunshine)

 

Yes, you can run unRAID without a parity drive but, for the cost of an extra drive, it does give protection against any single drive failing.  Peace of mind, and lack of any hassle when (not if!) a drive fails, is well worth the cost.  But it's your choice.  Just be completely aware that, unlike real RAID systems, each drive (except the parity) can stand on its own and data can be retrieved.

 

2. uMenu vs 5.0 Plugins - what is the differences?

 

I'm not sure - I've haven't played with any Plugins yet.

 

3. uMenu installs are just temp?

It appears you cannot "permanently" install a package... I really liked the functionality of installing it a custom space (like a 2GB slice/volume) that hold all the goodies without having it install it every time.

 

Because the 'system' drive is a ram disk, it is completely initialised every time unRAID boots (from the boot images held on the flash drive).  However, all your running configuration (including unRAID and any packages installed through unRAID) is configured on the flash drive and automatically installed on each boot.  As far as you are concerned, everything is permanently installed and automatically appears on each boot.

 

However, if you install a cache drive, you can hide parts of it from the usual cache processing and then use this as a permanent storage.  I have configured SqueezeBoxServer to run from the cache drive.

Well you folks have convinced me to try the jump. I posted a similar thread regarding level of support in FreeNAS forums and after same period (or longer) I have only received 1 reply (which was from a new user registered last month). The lack of feedback/support in that community is unfortunately a problem with their upcoming beta release of FreeNAS 8.

 

Ordered a build this week and it has arrived:

Triple Core AMD 3.2ghz, 4GB, 4TB NAS Server Build

$80 AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor

$29 Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express Network Adapter 1 x RJ45

$55 MSI 760GM-P33 AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

$20 LITE-ON SATA DVD Drive

$160 (2) Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

$41 CORSAIR XMS 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory

$65Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

$9 (2) OKGEAR 18" SATA 6 Gbps Cable, Straight to Right Angle W/Metal Latch, UV Blue

$110 LIAN LI PC-A04B Black Aluminum MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case

Shipping (no tax): 30

Total: 599.00

 

Lets see how it fairs with unRAID

 

~dpc

Well you folks have convinced me to try the jump. I posted a similar thread regarding level of support in FreeNAS forums and after same period (or longer) I have only received 1 reply (which was from a new user registered last month). The lack of feedback/support in that community is unfortunately a problem with their upcoming beta release of FreeNAS 8.

 

Ordered a build this week and it has arrived:

Triple Core AMD 3.2ghz, 4GB, 4TB NAS Server Build

$80 AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor

$29 Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express Network Adapter 1 x RJ45

$55 MSI 760GM-P33 AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

$20 LITE-ON SATA DVD Drive

$160 (2) Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

$41 CORSAIR XMS 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory

$65Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

$9 (2) OKGEAR 18" SATA 6 Gbps Cable, Straight to Right Angle W/Metal Latch, UV Blue

$110 LIAN LI PC-A04B Black Aluminum MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case

Shipping (no tax): 30

Total: 599.00

 

Lets see how it fairs with unRAID

 

~dpc

 

Damn, you where doing so well until you reached that case, it put you over.

 

Just kidding 

That mostly looks okay, but I'm wondering what the DVD drive is for ... perhaps you intend to rip directly on to your file store?

 

One item which is not totally suited to a file server is the power supply with its triple 12V rails.

You will want to find out which connectors use which of the 12V rails.  Still, with 22/25A rails, you should be good for up to 10/12 green drives.

Just remember unRAID does not need a ton of CPU horsepower to do its file serving. For instance I'm running a single core Sepron 140 2.7ghz. Of course I'm not using it for Transcoding, but just simple file serving.

 

Like mentioned you don't need a DVD drive since the current build of unRAID doesn't support optical Drives.

 

Also what is your goal as far as drives? Do you plan on running say 10 drives? Just asking to gauage your power requirements and remember you need a 3rd 2TB drive so you would have 3 of them to get your 4TB.

There is a LOT of help with hardware on this site, but actually knowing the inner workings of unraid, it will be rare to find someone who can fix a problem the first time it shows up.  Usually it consists of the person who had the problem doing trial and error on their own, then telling the community how they fixed it.

 

For example unraid no longer recognizes my mobo's SATA controller but defaults to the SATA controller card I just installed.  All I've gotten is blank stares as to how to fix it.  Even though if this happened in any other OS it would take someone who has a basic understanding of the OS's code to fix it.

Well I figured with this build up to 7 drives at most but realistically 4-5 drives is going to be my max. 8-10TB is kinda insane for me. The case supports 5-7 nicely and my motherboard has 6 ports so for now I think it will last me till the next generation.

 

The DVD drive is out of habit and as a precaution in case I want to try alternate options (for the measly 20 bucks i would hate to want to pull down the machine over a weekend and try something new and realize i dont have dvd drive...). The machine was built out today for headless NAS but maybe in a year I will want to run it as a NAS and Media Center combo (unRAID ontop of Slackware? who knows). The triple core and 4GB of RAM really insane overkill for a standard NAS unless running something like ZFS dedup and even then...

 

I liked that the PSU was modular and received 5 egg rating on newegg with many reviews (almost all if not all items are 5 egg purchases - generally will be good).

 

As for the case it was nice it had sideways mounted hdd cages and I always thought about a Lian PC case especially from my hackintosh days...

 

Its a toy project something fun to tinker with and have some fun benefits. I dont take this stuff too much to heart more of an enjoyment things  

 

~dpc

 

 

Just be careful with that PSU and a bunch of drives. It has 3 of the 12V rails, so you could overload one if you have to many drives on it. A lot of us try and stick with a PSU that has a single 12V rail, that way we don't have to worry about that so much. Esp if you want to go 10+ drives... if you are sticking in the 5-6 drive range, should be ok...  Just balance the rails...

 

Shawn

 

Then that great you will have a fun time learning.

Yeah I agree my only concern is the PSU. Like you said you want to enjoy your machine and I'm sure you will.

 

So of "Them" get a bit wild and crazy on their builds, but currently mine is setup with a few cages to hold at least 12 Drives with a $100 controller card so I can expand from the onboard 6ports. Of course now I'm only rocking 5drives, but who knows with HD video cameras becoming so cheap lately.

 

Just take your time and consider the future because Drive Sizes are getting larger as well as Files. So what you have now could possibly expand or simply be upgraded for years and years to come.

Here is a good unRAID PSU reference: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12219.0

 

Here are some alternative designs to consider: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7998.0

If I just did my quick look correctly that board has the Atheros NIC in it... which can cause problems with unRAID.

 

Try 4.7 as it is that latest stable, and f that does not work, try out 5.0b6 to see if the NIC is better supported.

There is a LOT of help with hardware on this site, but actually knowing the inner workings of unraid, it will be rare to find someone who can fix a problem the first time it shows up.  Usually it consists of the person who had the problem doing trial and error on their own, then telling the community how they fixed it.

 

For example unraid no longer recognizes my mobo's SATA controller but defaults to the SATA controller card I just installed.  All I've gotten is blank stares as to how to fix it.  Even though if this happened in any other OS it would take someone who has a basic understanding of the OS's code to fix it.

 

I don't want to try and diagnose your issue in this thread, but you only posted about your issue a day ago.  Plus, it sounds like a hardware interaction issue, not one with unRAID... though I could be wrong.

If I just did my quick look correctly that board has the Atheros NIC in it... which can cause problems with unRAID.

 

You must have overlooked the fact that his build sheet included an Intel PCIe NIC. It looks like @delicatepc actually did some reading about what works and what doesn't before picking out his h/w.

If I just did my quick look correctly that board has the Atheros NIC in it... which can cause problems with unRAID.

 

You must have overlooked the fact that his build sheet included an Intel PCIe NIC. It looks like @delicatepc actually did some reading about what works and what doesn't before picking out his h/w.

 

Haha, you are correct.  I was glancing at the list quick to find the motherboard and see what it was.  I COMPLETELY overlooked the fact that he had a NIC card added into the mix.