July 5, 201115 yr It's been a few weeks now that I've been playing with unRAID; yesterday I finally got my IcyDock enclosures, and the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 that I ordered should be here in the next week. I'm now up up to 7 drives, in the following configuration: System Case: Lian Li PC-P50B 5-in-3s: IcyDock MB455SPF x 3 Motherboard: Foxconn H67MP 2 Port SATA 3 Expansion Card: Biostar DCSA3 CPU: Intel i3 2100 RAM: 2 x 2GB Samsung PC3-10600 PSU: Antec Neo Eco 520 Array Configuration Parity: WD20EVDS Disk1: WD20EVDS Disk2: WD20EADS Disk3: WD20EADS Disk4: WD20EARS Disk5: WD10EAVS Disk6: WD10EAVS From the very beginning, I had intended to use this server to store my media files, and also to run a few applications. In particular, I wanted to run Squeezebox Server and Plex. During some early testing, I found that running applications on an array drive, or indeed a cache drive, was causing big problems when starting and stopping the array, changing settings, and shutting down. I've therefore come up with a solution to this that I thought might be valuable to share with the community. Before anyone shouts out, I do realise that there are established solutions to some of these issues, and even the newer topics (such as Plex) do have some some suggestions; but never found anything that I felt really comfortable with. I should also state that I'm running 5.0b7, and have never even tried running 4.x but much of what I'm suggesting should work well there anyway, though I've not tested it. unRAID runs in a RAM disk, which is decompressed from bzroot on boot up. Most of the package managers for unRAID work on the basis of installing packages to the RAM disk, after it's been de-compressed, and then making other changes every time you reboot. This slows down boot time, but more importantly, it can make your 'Go' script quite long and complex. The first thing I did therefore, is to create my own custom bzroot image, using the instructions on this old post from 2007. Starting from the standard bzroot, I've made these changes so far: Added Packages - For SSH openssl-0.9.8r-i486-3.txz openssh-5.8p1-i486-1.txz - For Screen screen-4.0.3-i486-1.txz utemper-1.1.4-i486-1.txz - For vim vim-7.3.154-i486.txz - For Plex alsa-lib-1.0.23-i486-1.txz Customisations - For SSH After installing the SSH packages, and starting the service, /etc/ssh folder copied to the new bzroot Added authorized_keys file to /root/.ssh for key based login 'touched' /var/log/lastlog to prevent sshd errors in the log Commented out Telnet line in inted.conf - For Screen Added .screenrc to /root home directory, for screen customisations - For vim Deleted /usr/bin/vi (before installing the package) - Additionally Copied preclear_disk.sh to /bin directory Edited /etc/samba/smb.conf [global] section to include 'hide files = /Network Trash Folder/Temporary Items/ Edited /config/smb-extra.conf to share the USB Apps HDD Created /mnt/apps folder as a location to mount he USB Apps HDD My case only holds 15 HDDs, all of which I would like to use in the array. I have enough SATA ports for one additional drive, but no-where to mount it, no spare power, and if I am able to think of a way to add an additional drive, I'll use that in the array or cache as well. It occurred to me that a USB HDD would be an ideal solution to both all of these problems. I have several 2.5" USB drives spare, they're bus powered, don't get very hot, and are outside the array, so won't cause problems with unRAID operation at all! When plugged in, the USB drive appears as sdh on my system, and when formatted with reiserfs, can be mounted quickly and easily in the folder I created /mnt/apps and shared out over SMB. So far, I've installed Plex onto this disk, and intend to install Squeezebox server there as well when I've got a bit more time. The only problem that I've noticed so far, is that when changing the configuration of your disks (as I did last night, after installing the IcyDock cages), the id of the USB drive can change (in my case, from sdg to sdh). This caused unRAID to mount one of my array disks in /mnt/apps, and then fail to start the array. Not a big problem, but it meant editing the go script to reflect the change. I've not finished yet, this is a work in progress!
July 9, 201114 yr if you install snap then the drive is identified by serial number and mounted automatically. It is then available as a share that you define. This is the method I used for installing to a disk outside the array because I didn't want to have to update scripts every time I changed my disk configuration changes.
July 9, 201114 yr you do not need "snap" in order to mount a disk by its serial number. You will find the USB drive, and its partitions listed in /dev/disk/by-id Here is an NTFS formatted drive plugged into my unRAID server: ls -l /dev/disk/by-id lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jul 9 01:20 usb-USB_2.0_Storage_Device_00042222200000039882-0:0 -> ../../sde lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jul 9 01:20 usb-USB_2.0_Storage_Device_00042222200000039882-0:0-part1 -> ../../sde1 If I create a mount point for it (an empty directory) I can then mount its partition by its "by-id" name. mkdir /mnt/temp_mount_point mount -t ntfs-3g usb-USB_2.0_Storage_Device_00042222200000039882-0:0-part1 /mnt/temp_mount_point The "by-id" name will never change even if the /dev/sdX device changes. Joe L.
July 9, 201114 yr Author I've run into some problems with the latest beta (beta8c) that are causing the use of USB mounted drives to become unreliable, resulting in kernel 'Oops'. Tom has said this should be fixed in the next build (beta8d); but you should be aware of this issue if you're considering following my information above. Thanks for the time by the way Joe, I actually worked this out today myself, but because of the issue didn't post any update yet.
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