I have built this small unraid server that is running successfully. I want to have the hot swapping feature with the same, My main reason ...

 

To be able to copy huge data on my shares, which takes a lot of time on LAN. If I am able to just plug in the HDD, copy data and plus out, that would be great as then the data copy would be much faster than on LAN. I have AHCI enabled on my mobo, Hot Swap (Vantec Easy 4) bay installed and ready. Just need to know how to get this work. This is what I have tried .....  

 

1. If I stop the array and then insert the drive in to my Vantec Bay, nothing happens, unraid does not detect it.

2. I had to reboot the server to get the hdd detected. Which then starts to show under Disk Devices. This defeates the purpose of a Hot Swap.

 

For now I am preclearing the hdd, it a small 80GB HDD just for testing.

 

Can any one shed some light how can we make the hot swapping work with Unraid.

 

Thanks in advance

Regards

Sammy

 

Current unRAID versions don't do hot swap. Doing hot swap right on a shared controller takes more than a removable drive bay. Regardless, you'll need to shut down, change drives, boot, copy, repeat.

 

That said, the network isn't usually the bottleneck. What takes longer is writing to parity protected drives. Gb Ethernet can do 100MB/s, depending on card, driver, etc. Protocol overhead drops that somewhat but I regularly see 80MB/s across the network to my cache drive. Copying to an unRAID protected volume, more like 50MB/s on a good day. It'll vary with the drives you use but in general, writes are not going to be faster locally unless there's something wrong with the LAN.

Thanks cyrnel, currently I am just using the unregistered version of Unraid, so I have only 2 drives and no parity. My LAN is Gigabit (with Wifi n). But I do not see my speeds anything above 20-25MB/s on LAN, while internal copying crosses 50, hence this approach.  It seems strange and surprising that a NAS Linux based OS does not support Hot swapping, when this is a common feature among the same. Anyway, what are my options, is there no way I can mount and unmount drives without restarting the entire server.

 

Regards

Sammy

OK my 80GB preclear completed and this is what I tried ....

 

I stopped the array and tried to change the drive under Disk Devices for Disk 2 to 80GB one from the 1TB one. Snap below ...

 

 

But Unraid makes it an invalid configuration, in command area under disk status. Cant I change the disk when the Array is stopped. copy the data and then change the disk again and restart the array with its original config.

 

 

 

Current unRAID versions don't do hot swap.

 

This is not true.  Current 5.0b10 fully support hot swapping.... I do it all the time.

 

However you must be using AHCI on the mobo.

^^ BubbaQ ...please need some more information on this, How does 5.0 hot swap work. Shall I upgrade to 5.0. (it being still in beta stage),

I need hot swapping coz I do this data shifting all the time and I want this mounting and unmounted on the fly. Please provide some more information or point me in the right direction.

 

Thanks in advance

Regards

Sammy

I suspeck you will have 3 problems;

 

1. You aren't using the 5.0 beta

2. You have to initialize the array if you keep swapping array disks, which will be OK only if you never use parity.

3. You are likely going to try assigning a data disk that doesn't have a reiserFS on it.

 

Try unMENU so you can easily mount the disk outside of the protected array and also use different file system types.

 

Peter

^^ BubbaQ ...please need some more information on this, How does 5.0 hot swap work. Shall I upgrade to 5.0. (it being still in beta stage),

I need hot swapping coz I do this data shifting all the time and I want this mounting and unmounted on the fly. Please provide some more information or point me in the right direction.

 

Thanks in advance

Regards

Sammy

 

What I've done & it seems to work fine is:

 

Stop the array

Remove the drive

Insert the new drive

Refresh the web page

The new drive shows available

Assign the new drive

Restart the array

 

Hope that helps accomplish what you want...

 

Mike

 

 

Friends I think I need to upgrade to 5. I have few doubt that I have asked in the other thread about upgrading. Mean time I have found this SNAP utility, that might be the solution for the time being. Let me try that out and see how it goes ....

 

 

Friends I think I need to upgrade to 5. I have few doubt that I have asked in the other thread about upgrading. Mean time I have found this SNAP utility, that might be the solution for the time being. Let me try that out and see how it goes ....

 

 

Snap will work as long as the drive being inserted is not one of the protected drives assigned to the array. (and as long as your BIOS and MB supports AHCI)

 

Even in the 5.X series, you must stop the array to change/re-assign drives in the protected array.  It is more of a "warm" swap.

Thanks Joe. No I am not using any drives in protected currently. I have plugged in an 80GB test drive which is not a part of array. Its precleared though.

 

Once I have everything I need up an running (like all addons. hot swap etc n all experimenting done) I am gonna buy the plus version and add 4 more drives to my array including Parity. And I have enabled AHCI in my bios as well. Had to reassign the 2 drives again when I did that.

 

Can you address few questions I mentioned here as well..

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=14627.msg138128#msg138128

 

Or maybe I can quote it here as well

 

so shall I upgrade to 5, even though its in Beta. Would all my setting, add ons be intact, like Himachi, Squeexbox etc. Also I am planning to buy Unraid Plus, so does it make a difference, what I should do first, I mean upgrade first and purchase after or vice versa.

 

If you do suggest to upgrade, please point me in the thread direction on instructions to upgrade to 5

 

Always appreciate your help for total Linux newbies like me.

 

Regards

Sammy

Thanks Joe. No I am not using any drives in protected currently. I have plugged in an 80GB test drive which is not a part of array. Its precleared though.

 

Once I have everything I need up an running (like all addons. hot swap etc n all experimenting done) I am gonna buy the plus version and add 4 more drives to my array including Parity. And I have enabled AHCI in my bios as well. Had to reassign the 2 drives again when I did that.

 

Can you address few questions I mentioned here as well..

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=14627.msg138128#msg138128

 

Or maybe I can quote it here as well

 

so shall I upgrade to 5, even though its in Beta. Would all my setting, add ons be intact, like Himachi, Squeexbox etc. Also I am planning to buy Unraid Plus, so does it make a difference, what I should do first, I mean upgrade first and purchase after or vice versa.

 

If you do suggest to upgrade, please point me in the thread direction on instructions to upgrade to 5

 

Always appreciate your help for total Linux newbies like me.

 

Regards

Sammy

All your add-ons should be intact.

 

You can upgrade, or upgrade to 5.0 in either order.

 

Upgrade instructions are in the release notes here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Server_Version_5.0-beta_Release_Notes

It is really very simple when upgrading from 4.7.

^^ Thank you Sir. I am gonna upgrade now. BTW I managed to get SNAP working, it pretty effective, a bit difficult to get it running though. I have shared my experience in the last post of the SNAP thread ...

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5904.msg138172#msg138172

Current unRAID versions don't do hot swap.

 

This is not true.  Current 5.0b10 fully support hot swapping.... I do it all the time.

 

However you must be using AHCI on the mobo.

 

I have a hard time taking 5 as current yet. Must be getting short and pissy with age.

Okie upgraded to 5, and purchased the Plus version.  Waiting for the Registration Key.  Eager to add rest of my drives .....

When one upgrades their unraid version, does current configuration and packages remain set/working/saved?

When one upgrades their unraid version, does current configuration and packages remain set/working/saved?

Depends on the package, some do and some don't.  The majority of them do work just fine, others do not.