Well,

 

I love my UnRaid System. What I don't love is the basic abandonment of support for the product.

 

I get maybe an answer via email every week or so after I email several times about the same issue and start getting frustrated via email.

 

 

To me there is no problem with someone moving on with their life, if things are not working out the way they expected with a product, business, or venture. That is normal for life.....but the issues I have are they if that happens, and there are people who are still in NEED of support, please let us know.

 

I know I am not the only one who feels this way and maybe if more of us tell Tom how we feel, then maybe we can find out what is the real future of this product.

 

The possibilities of this product are beyond anything that has come along in a long time, but it seems that the force behind it is slowly or maybe even quickly, showing us a lack of interest.

 

Please all of my fellow users lets band together to tell Tom how great this product is and how important it is to us, and the support that is needed.

 

DTT

 

Well,

 

I love my UnRaid System. What I don't love is the basic abandonment of support for the product.

 

I get maybe an answer via email every week or so after I email several times about the same issue and start getting frustrated via email.

 

 

To me there is no problem with someone moving on with their life, if things are not working out the way they expected with a product, business, or venture. That is normal for life.....but the issues I have are they if that happens, and there are people who are still in NEED of support, please let us know.

 

I know I am not the only one who feels this way and maybe if more of us tell Tom how we feel, then maybe we can find out what is the real future of this product.

 

The possibilities of this product are beyond anything that has come along in a long time, but it seems that the force behind it is slowly or maybe even quickly, showing us a lack of interest.

 

Please all of my fellow users lets band together to tell Tom how great this product is and how important it is to us, and the support that is needed.

 

DTT

 

DTT,

We may have to wait a bit for Tom to react to your message to him in this thread. From what I can see, the last time Tom checked in here on the unRaid forum was on June 9th so it might be a while before he reads this.  I suggest that we e-mail copies what we post in this thread to Tom as well. (He might be reading his e-mail)

 

I agree, support from Tom on this forum and the AVS forum has been sporadic for over 6 months, and Tom's involvement minimal.

I personally think Tom has found himself a day job, and put unRaid development as a lower priority. 

 

As you said, he needs to be reminded how important he is to us for support, especially since we're now getting reports from Rharvey that the current "beta" release of unRaid does not rebuild an upgraded disk.

 

Tom, please respond when you read this thread...  ???   If you cannot contine providing timely support, let's brainstorm on how it can be provided.  We obviously need some of your time, but many of us would be willing to assist and have the skills needed to help get the product where it is stable.  We really need basic functionality rock-solid (basic disk administration working as expected)  and then would love to see unRaid address the features many have been requesting. (better concurrent read/write performance, SAMBA and UNIX Security, etc)

 

As DTT said, there is still nothing that suits our needs in the market like the unRaid server.  We love the product, we deserve some answers.

 

Joe L.

To all,

 

I second Joe's proposal.

 

If Tom would only provide a weekly status report as to what is going on I think that many of us would be satisfied about Tom's commitment to unRaid.

 

Right now, my unRaid servers satisfy my needs, but I would appreciate upgrades that will improve the reliability of the servers.

 

Just a thought.

 

Regards,

TCIII

When I purchased the starter set I heard back from Tom right away. It was suppose to ship on Monday and I asked that he email me the tracking label. So far, nothing, nada... I just sent him an email inquiring about the status of my order.

 

It is tough to read this thread because I waited so long because I wanted to make sure that Tom is still supporting his product. The more I read the more I worry about my purchase. I lost 600 gigs worth of data the past 2 months which forced me to start working on something. I sure hope that we can keep this alive because there is NOTHING at all on the market that allows us to use different size disks.

 

I will keep my fingers and toes crossed.

When I purchased the starter set I heard back from Tom right away. It was suppose to ship on Monday and I asked that he email me the tracking label. So far, nothing, nada... I just sent him an email inquiring about the status of my order.

 

It is tough to read this thread because I waited so long because I wanted to make sure that Tom is still supporting his product. The more I read the more I worry about my purchase. I lost 600 gigs worth of data the past 2 months which forced me to start working on something. I sure hope that we can keep this alive because there is NOTHING at all on the market that allows us to use different size disks.

 

I will keep my fingers and toes crossed.

 

In Tom's defense on the product shipping issue.  From what I have always read, seen, and experienced, Tom has always shipped quickly and promptly. I don't believe there has ever been an issue with that at all.

 

 

I too am concerned. I've always tried giving Tom the benefit of doubt, but I think a weekly 'status' thread at the very least would calm some nerves. Even it it's just a 'been super busy in the real world, haven't dropped unRaid' would suffice. I'm thankful for folks like Joe L. that freely give support and knowledge in lieu of Tom being here.

 

Regarding timely shipping, I ordered my USB thumb drive from Tom on Saturday the 10th. After my second email to find out status, Tom replied oh the 14th that my unRaid software was shipping that day via overnight post. I live in the 'sticks' so overnight was actually 2 nights but it DID make it here. Hope to setup the server this weekend, but obviously Tom is still getting hardware out.

 

-PGPfan

You do have to ask yourselves one question.  What do other companies do.  Look at MS they sit on products and beta for who knows how long.  Tom is slowlly making progress and hopefully he will have another update soon.  All good things come to those who wait.

You do have to ask yourselves one question.  What do other companies do.  Look at MS they sit on products and beta for who knows how long.  Tom is slowly making progress and hopefully he will have another update soon.  All good things come to those who wait.

 

Well to be honest I don't think we should and we cannot compare a basic one or two man business to a business like Microsoft.

 

First off, you are implying that because one company does something that it is fine another to do the same thing.  Plus lets be honest you are not giving a good comparison. Microsoft is not a company you want to place in the position of a great example when it comes to communication and releasing of information.

 

Anyway, if you want me and basically everyone else to treat Lime Tech just like Microsoft, then you are saying that the product is mediocre, hyperware, unstable, not worth the money, etc.

 

BUT this does not mean that it cannot be fixed. We all seem like a MORE then normal understanding bunch. If Tom came out and told us what the deal is and the future plans, then I don't see why we cannot move on from there, but that is not even looking like the future at all.

 

I would like to think and do believe that it is some great software and has tons of potential. 

 

From a business perspective, I own a company that does hundreds of millions in sales, in a SERVICE oriented industry.  If someone wants to create a business and only have it for about a year, then giving 'normal' service is the way to go.  If someone wants to just do something to get out of a 'regular' job, then creating a small business and doing it normally without anything special is the way to do it.

 

I pose this question. How many of us would really shop at 95% of the stores we shop at if there were another store selling the same items but with better service??

 

I drive out of my way and will often pay a bit of a premium for better service. Pricing is irrelevant when in the middle of the night or early morning on a weekend, there are issues and you cannot get any answers or help.

 

What we are dealing with here is NOT the situation I just described. 

 

What we are dealing with is an email sent on Monday of last week and another one sent on Wednesday, then another on Saturday. Now it is Wednesday of the following week from the FIRST email and we don't even get an annoying auto-response!

 

Here is the way I gage my service experiences on line.

 

Email response in:

 

4 business hours = exceptional

 

12 business hours = better then average

 

24 business hours = average

 

24-48 business hours = below average

 

48 - 72 business hours = way below average

 

5-7 business days = A Time Limited business (limited in time because if will be dead within 6 months)

 

No Response = Well I don't know what to say....

 

The only reason UnRaid could survive this is because it is a great product.  But even great products without ANY support are doomed to fail. Plain and Simple.

 

We are not talking about bad service, if we want to make this thing survive we need to ALL be honest with each other and Tom with us. This is not a company with bad service, it is more of NO service at all.  When emails and forums that are monitored are plain and flat ignored, then that is what the situation is.

 

I would not be half as upset about this situation is we were not all told and implied that there would be support for the product.  When I buy a CHEAP ($10) RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 card from ebay from a seller overseas with no implied warranty etc. I expect NOT to have any service.

 

This situation is not the one I described above.

 

Oh and by the way...let me finish the statement you started above:

 

 

"All Good Things come to those who wait, but only those things left by those who hustle."

Abraham Lincoln

 

Changes the meaning a little bit when you know the whole statement huh? 

I too am growing concerned. Tom, it would be good to hear something... anything.

I emailed Tom a link to this topic and I guess we will see what happens.

 

 

Just to update, I did send Tom an email Monday or Tuesday this week. I still have not heard back from him on the status of my starter set. I don't mind waiting as long as it is tested and when I build my system everything works. I would love to hear something though.

 

I use to work customer service for Motorola Two-Way products where we interfaced with our established dealers and let me tell you, our customers loved us. We were always on top of the ball and assisted is any possible ways. Problems do happen and our dealers loved to call in and talk with us because they knew that we could fix almost any problem and right any wrong.

 

I am guessing Tom is just busy, but still.. if he wants customers he should make customer satisfaction a top priority.

I Hope Tom is OK and will respond to US soon.  I have been looking at ordering another complete system from him and i really need to know that we will still have some support. Please TOM let us know whats going on.

 

Thanks

 

 

Well,  I think the lack of response (hell even a deleting of a thread response!)  has shown the inevitable future of this project.

 

From some of the other issues posted on the forums we don't even know if the current beta version really works for rebuilding a drive!!

 

I am not angry, nor am I mad.  It is more a feeling like when I watch the movie "Tucker, a Man and His Dream"

 

Just sadness that something great is not going to be able to happen.

 

If we have this forum still here, we might as well start discussing other options for our backup/storage needs.....

 

Anyone who has any ideas, please start a new thread....

Anyone had any contact with Tom??

 

Still nothing for me!

Anyone had any contact with Tom??

 

Still nothing for me!

It still seems as if the last time Tom logged in on this forum was June 9th, so he probably has not even read any of this thread yet.

 

The last time Tom went inactive he was still shipping product.  I wonder, who had had the most recent contact with him,  either by e-mail, shipped-product, or phone?    Please post dates...

 

(putting on most optimistic hat I own) Could be he went on an extended vacation and did not want the world to know he left town cause nobody is at home, He'll be back any day...  or (putting on least optimistic hat) he got overwhelmed with feature requests, performance issues, nagging bugs that didn't show in his tests, it took a toll on his health, and he is hospitalized somewhere... or worse.

 

I'm going to look more closely into the upgrade issue rharvey mentioned and see if it happens on my smaller 4 disk array.  If it does not, then we are at least able to function with knowledge that we can recover our data in the event of a failure of a single disk, but that the current management web-page does not issue the correct commands to do it on its own.

 

If that is the case, then we can see if the initial release of the management tool can recover the data.  If it can, then again we can deal with the issue.  If recovering from  a failure, boot the "previous" version of unRaid. (assuming it works, that is)

 

In either case, I think it is time for me to set up a "development" Slackware machine and see how difficult it will be to use the existing raid tools normally supplied on Slackware to request the unRaid array to manage its disks.  Since Tom based his work on the "md" driver there might be a chance it could work.

 

Tom... want to join in on the fun???  Or would you rather we learn how to build our own management tools where yours don't work?  It would be so much easier with your involvement and knowledge. (I'd much rather spend my free time watching movies)

 

Joe L.

As this is the second time that Tom has gone MIA, his return to the scene a few months ago did bring this forum on-line but in all honesty his involvement during that time was brief and often without much substance.  Additionally, we have seen ZERO progress on the product both in terms of fixes and enhancements, post 324 which may have bugs anyway. I guess it would be safe to say that I'm loosing faith in the product.

 

If you reach way back Tom's timeline for the enhancements we have long been asking for would have had them delivered several months ago.  In my case I have several customers that are looking for large media storage solutions and were ga ga over the UnRaid when it was first announced.  But with all the performance issues, suspect protection etc. and now AGAIN this overall lack of support I can't in all fairness turn any customer onto this product.

 

Once again I'm thinking about self support like I know many of you are.  I'm not sure just how far that will save us and to what extent we can go but it's painfully clear that Tom is not going to play an active role in this product going forward.  Do we ban together and attempt to self support or abandon now and find an alternative solution.  There are also moral questions that we all need to ask and step up to if we choose to self support the product.  I have been one that has had serious issues with the reliability of the flash drive.  The last time Tom went MIA I elected to soliciate the help of a co-worker and together we were able to create a back-up flash drive that worked.  But this is where the moral issue comes in, this is a business for Tom, sure one that I'm not sure he really has much interest in but that does not discount the moral issue.  But on the other side of the coin if my flash drive were to die and Tom and Lime were gone where would I be then, this is why I did what I did, not to steal money from him but to protect my data at a time when we could not find the man at all.

 

So having said all that where do we go from here.....!  I know all of us would love to see Tom return but I would add that we need to see the Tom from last year return.  The Tom that was responsive and all over this product.  Support and enhancements on a consistent basis, etc.  Someone here compared Lime to Microsoft, wrong model and totally un-fair to both.  But compare Lime to a company like TheaterTek, for those who don't know TheaterTek (and you should) it's a small one man shop out of Atlanta that created what many feel is the best software based video player available today.  But it's the product support that is what has made the company successful not so much the product alone.  The owner of the company, Andrew is drop down supportive, also has a forum but he is ALL OVER IT daily helping customers.  In less than 4 years he has released one major release (version 1.x to 2.x) and dozen of minor releases all of which included significant enhancements requested by use his end users.  Spot on way to build a small software company and gain unwaivering loyality from your customers.

 

Tom on the other hand has done just the opposite, yeah I know that is a very critical statement and like all of you here I too have been very tolerant of Tom and his lack of support and always have attempted to be optimistic but at some point...............!

 

So here I sit with a 12 drive system that I know for sure after several tests is not protected as Tom designed.  I have 4-5 customers that are eager to buy such a device and the owner of the company has AGAIN gone missing, in my case he has not responded to my several frantic data lost emails in over a full month.

 

Makes me think of Austin Powers playing chess with the chick from "Third Rock from the Sun" when she says (insert bad russian accent here) "What to do, What to do"     

I certainly don't want the unRaid concept to die.  How would the self-support option work? 

Once again I'm thinking about self support like I know many of you are.  I'm not sure just how far that will save us and to what extent we can go but it's painfully clear that Tom is not going to play an active role in this product going forward.  Do we ban together and attempt to self support or abandon now and find an alternative solution.  There are also moral questions that we all need to ask and step up to if we choose to self support the product.  I have been one that has had serious issues with the reliability of the flash drive.  The last time Tom went MIA I elected to soliciate the help of a co-worker and together we were able to create a back-up flash drive that worked.  But this is where the moral issue comes in, this is a business for Tom, sure one that I'm not sure he really has much interest in but that does not discount the moral issue.  But on the other side of the coin if my flash drive were to die and Tom and Lime were gone where would I be then, this is why I did what I did, not to steal money from him but to protect my data at a time when we could not find the man at all.

 

So having said all that where do we go from here.....!  I know all of us would love to see Tom return but I would add that we need to see the Tom from last year return.  The Tom that was responsive and all over this product.

rharvey,

I'm pretty sure most of us feel the same way as you.  The moral question of self-support in Tom's absence is not too hard for me personally as I can probably support my own unRaid server, but I can't see anyone supporting Tom's product for others without his involvement.   Yes, we can support each other through this forum, but it would sure be better with Tom's constant input and advice.

 

I suspect the issue you are seeing with a replacement drive not being rebuilt is that it is not being asked to be rebuilt. (Oh, you pressed the button on the web-page to reconstruct the upgraded drive, but I'll bet that request never got sent to the "md" module.)  I wonder how far the web-based-interface got in its attempt at reconstruction?   It would first have to create a filesystem on the disk and then rebuild it.  Did it fail in that process and not provide feedback to you that an error was encountered?  Who knows?

 

When you went to upgrade a drive and it did not reconstruct the data onto the new drive did you notice if it did anything at all? (I've never done this on my array so I don't know if it displays any progress messages)

 

So... my first step is to understand the issues we are dealing with, then go forward.

 

My plans are to do an experiment with two spare disks of differing sizes and to swap them in and out of my current array.  I plan on watching the logs and the console as a new disk is added and formatted to see what the current interface is doing.  I expect that it will be possible to write a few small scripts to perform the equivalent functions as performed by the current web-based interface.  Some tasks may be harder to accomplish, but with source code for the module available, I'll bet most of the functionality can be worked through.

 

As far as the reliability of the unRaid flash drive, glad your co-worker was able to assist when your original flash drive was not working reliably.  I've previously described on the AVS forum how to use the "dd" command to copy it to an image file on one of your disks. That is a good first step to recovery in the event it stops working. (you still need a new encrypted serial for the new flash drive to work as the old, but a mismatched serial just keeps the web-interface from running. If you got that far, booted, but array not started, somebody could talk you through mounting the disks so you could get to the data, even if not as an unRaid array)  Odds are high that if your flash drive is working it will keep working, baring physical damage or accidental overwriting.    

 

In Tom's absence i don't think we have any choice other than self-help.  It sure would be nice to have him back, involved, and actively making the product better, working on the fixes and enhancements.  

 

Joe L.

While I currently do NOT own an unraid system, I have been following developments closely since the public announcement on AVS.  UnRaid looked like a perfect solution for media server storage, until I heard about the performance problems with simultaneous read/write.  I was going to use it for storing HD streams (SageTV).  I thought the performance problems will be solved once a SATA version is released, but it never happened. I also wanted use it as a Backup server at work.

 

After this second disappearance of Tom, I don't know if I want to put all my data on UnRaid.  But it is such a perfect solution for my needs.

 

To me, one of the biggest benefit of open source software (FSF/GNU/BSD etc) is the ability to fix the problems yourself or pay some one else to fix it, since the source code is available.  It appears from the discussions on this forum (I do NOT own an UnRaid), that at least the Kernel driver (and possibly some utilities) are based on GNU licensed software and they will have to be open sourced.  The web based management probably is not required to be open sourced.  But the web based utilities are not needed to access your data anyway.

 

So, keeping this in mind, I wanted to see if there is an interest in taking the "open source" portion (supposedly this source is already separated and made available in the Beta versions) of UnRaid code and branching it out for a "Community Supported" UnRaid.  That way people can contribute to the core driver (bug fixes, performance improvements etc).  Lime Tech can still sell their web based tools for this "open source" core.  I think this will remove some of the uncertainties surrounding the future of UnRaid.

 

Comments? Suggestions?

 

Thanks

 

SV.

Update:

 

I received my Start Kit yesterday via FedEx 2-day. (Note: I ordered this I believe on the 15th) I last heard from Tom about the 16th stating that he will be testing and sending out a few starter kits on Monday the 19th. That was the last I heard from Tom. I asked him to please email me a tracking # and I also sent him another email last week asking status on my order. I never heard back from him on my order. I have not had time to build the server and I won't for a few weeks since I leave for an extended vacation next week. I am a bit worried if Tom shipped out the latest software that is having issues.

 

This is a great 'idea' and if we can make this work.. then it would be sooo easy to turn on a lot of people. I won't recommend this product until I am sure that it is supported and working!

 

-Mike

Note: went through my starter kit tonight, everything looks good... BUT NO SOFTWARE / USB DRIVE .................... ???

Teamhood,

 

It may not apply in your case, but I'd make sure that there aren't any envelopes or anything in any packing materials. When I got my USB stick, I was surprised how small it is. It came in a manila 8.5 x 11 enveleope with a couple sheets of info regarding system setup. I hope you do find it!

 

-PGPfan

Anyone had any contact with Tom??

 

Still nothing for me!

It still seems as if the last time Tom logged in on this forum was June 9th, so he probably has not even read any of this thread yet.

 

The last time Tom went inactive he was still shipping product.  I wonder, who had had the most recent contact with him,  either by e-mail, shipped-product, or phone?    Please post dates...

 

Joe L.

 

Hi all, to respond to Joe L., I had an email from Tom on June 8 about time everything went silent.  Bit difficult to tell what is happening, but agree with others, not looking good!

 

Dave 

I guess my long term issues are more enhancement related.....!  Already have a backup flash, have found that although the data re-build process is suspect it's still possible to recover data a kinda back-door way, slow but it works.

 

So with the assumption that Tom is really NOT commited to this product as I think we all hate to think but has now been all but proven.  It's logical to also assume that enhancements are not going to come anytime soon or at all.  Read / Write performance and security are the two that just toast this box for me, without a fix there this is never going to be a long term solution for me nor one I can offer to customers.

Already have a backup flash

I hadn't appreciated the copy-protection element of UnRaid, having paid so much for it (plus UK Taxes) the idea that if it fails, or gets knocked/damaged, I'm stuffed isn't acceptable to me.  I guess I'll need to research these backup methods a little more closely.

 

Already have a backup flash, have found that although the data re-build process is suspect it's still possible to recover data a kinda back-door way, slow but it works.

Could you post a step by step "How to" on recovering data via your backdoor mathod please?

 

I've a couple of 250gb drives which are to be replaced very soon and had assumed it would simply be a case of pull out a 250gb put in a 500gb and let the unraid recover from Parity.  Are we sure this would fail all them time on release version 324 (not beta), the version mine shipped as?

 

I was really happy when I finally got this server up & running, but it's really not offering a whole lot more than my old Suse server and it appears I've replaced the Mobo(twice), Sata Drives, CPU and IDE Controllers all to get to a state of apparent non-protection.

 

One thing has occurred to me, this could be down to some kind of family or personal tragedy, in which case a simple message would at least make us aware of what (if anything) will be happening and it what time frame.

 

Mark.