Newbie- Questions on initial setup (Solved)

[tunetyme]

I have a couple of questions on the initial configuration.  I have read both the official and users guides.

 

I have the most recent software and I have pre-cleared my drives.  I have 3 - 2TB Samsung 5400 RPM drives.  One for parity & 2 data disks.  I also have 1 - 1TB 7200 RPM Samsung drive for a cache drive.

 

I have identified my parity drive and data disks then I ran parity sync.  Where do I go from here?

Does it matter which format is used for the the drive?  Pros & Cons?  If I want to use NTSF would this be a problem?  Could I remove a server NTSF drive and plug it into my windows system and be able to use all my files?

 

Initial transfer of data from windows to server.  I have a N 150 router that connects my PC and server.  Can I direct connect the PC and the server to take advantage of the 1 gig transfer rate?  Would this require a special cable or just buy a 1 gig router?

 

Is it feasible to have a working 2TB drive on my PC and mirror all my work on a 2TB server drive?  How could this be done?

 

Can I backup the operating system to a thumb drive and if I experience a failure could this be a boot drive?

 

So many questions and so little time...

 

Tunetyme

[Joe L.]

I have a couple of questions on the initial configuration.  I have read both the official and users guides.

 

I have the most recent software and I have pre-cleared my drives.  I have 3 - 2TB Samsung 5400 RPM drives.  One for parity & 2 data disks.  I also have 1 - 1TB 7200 RPM Samsung drive for a cache drive.

 

I have identified my parity drive and data disks then I ran parity sync.  Where do I go from here?

If you have assigned the drives, then they will already have been formatted as "reiserfs".  unRAID ONLY uses reiserfs for its protected data drives.  You cannot use any other file system.  You can mount other file-system disks as un-protected drives, but that is something you do either on the command line, or via one of the user-add-ons.  If you were to assign one of your NTFS drives as a data drive it will be completely cleared and re-formatted before use.  You would lose all the files on it.

Does it matter which format is used for the the drive?  Pros & Cons?  If I want to use NTSF would this be a problem?  Could I remove a server NTSF drive and plug it into my windows system and be able to use all my files?

As I said, it would completely cleared and re-formatted.  DO NOT ASSIGN AN NTFS DISK WITH DATA TO YOUR ARRAY.  IT WILL BE GONE.  Using the "SNAP" user-add on, or the unMENU user-add-on you can access the files on the NTFS drive, but it will not be protected and NOT be assigned to the unRAID array on its management screen.

Initial transfer of data from windows to server.  I have a N 150 router that connects my PC and server.  Can I direct connect the PC and the server to take advantage of the 1 gig transfer rate?  Would this require a special cable or just buy a 1 gig router?

You can but a gigabyte switch, it is much less expensive and still use your existing router.  Just plug all the gigabyte lan connections to the switch and one connection from the switch to your existing router.

Is it feasible to have a working 2TB drive on my PC and mirror all my work on a 2TB server drive?  How could this be done?

Yes, but you would need to install some kind of software on the PC to periodically copy your files. There is nothing in unRAID for this specifically.

 

Can I backup the operating system to a thumb drive and if I experience a failure could this be a boot drive?

It already exists on the thumb drive.  It is already the boot drive.  You can save a copy of the "config" folder elsewhere if the flash drive were to fail.

 

[tunetyme]

Thanks!

 

That clears  up a lot of questions.  I used Unix 25 years ago and I think I forgot everything I ever knew...

 

One more question regarding the cache drive.  I am using a 1TB drive  as a cache drive which is overkill.  Can I partition this drive and use 500 GB for other data such as backups from my windows PC?

 

Tunetyme