Where to go from here, stay with unraid or...?

[neurorad]

<moved from general support... I think maybe this is the more appropriate forum section, didn't see a way to move so copied, sorry for the cross post>

 

I'll try to be brief. I'm on old hardware with an old version of unraid (5.0 something I think, can't double check at the moment because I'm having difficulties accessing the server), built about 7-8 years ago around a lowish power AMD system. Never updated other than HDD expansion and maintenance as needed (not broken don't fix). Never even used a chache drive setup, my needs were just storage primarily, not performance so much. Have about 40TB space, maybe 30TB or so used.

 

 

 

Over the last couple of years it has been increasingly difficult and frustrating to keep the unraid server visible to various Windows computers. Have had a little more reliability with visibility on streaming devices like fire stick.

 

 

 

Now I suspect the hardware may be giving some issues as I can't even see server webpage. Need to troubleshoot. But it's likely time to do something different.

 

 

 

I do have a lifetime unraid license, so more or less starting over with new hardware and migrating drives and/or data is an option. I have an unused ~5 year old core i5 system with M.2 drive if that would be a suitable starting point. I used an SATA expansion board in old system (whatever was popular at the time). Would have to see if this i5 mobo would give enough storage with modern drives. 

 

 

 

So, fix old system and keep chugging along on old unraid version? Use i5 to upgrade hardware to hopefully run newer unraid version? Would newer hardware even be needed? Are windows visibility issues still a plague even in new builds (I see the stickies, doesn't look encouraging?). Is there a better option for me, like prebuiot NAS or something? My storage desires were pretty extreme 8 years ago. Pretty modest in comparison these days so maybe more options like that are worth considering?

[JonathanM]

Don't know if this will effect your decision, but drive formats from the 5.0 era were limited to ReiserFS, which is unsupported and will be completely removed in the future. So, at the very least you need to get your data backed up to new file systems. 4ea 16TB drives in your newer system would totally cover your storage needs, and I can't imagine it has fewer than 4 SATA ports.

 

You could always spin up a trial version of the latest Unraid on your "new" hardware with a scrap hard drive and the M.2 and see how it acts.

[neurorad]

Thanks. I'll have some time this evening to try troubleshooting the old server. 

 

I've been looking for some sort of wiki or faq or guide that covers the process and options for migrating data to a new server in the case that is my only route. Haven't found it yet! I was thinking the drives are readable in the case the hardware fails and they need to be physically booted in another machine. Is that correct? If so would that be another unraid machine, windows environment, Linux?

[Hoopster]

2 minutes ago, neurorad said:

I've been looking for some sort of wiki or faq or guide

Have you seen this forum post?

 

You can upgrade to version 6 on current hardware if the CPU is 64-bit.  If that is the case, you can upgrade Unraid first and then worry about changing the disk format to XFS, BTRFS or ZFS depending upon your needs and migrating the data. 

 

If your old hardware has a 32-bit only CPU, you would need new hardware before upgrading to version 6.x of Unraid.  At least 4GB RAM is recommended for version 6 and if you want to use docker applications and/or VMs more (16GB+) is better.

 

Changing/converting to a new file system type is covered here.

[neurorad]

Awesome, thank you. My searching skills have been failing me. I think first step is to troubleshoot the existing server to see what shape it's in. I can thn decide whether to try to update it, migrate data to an entirely new unraid install, or go with some other basic NAS device.

 

Are new versions of unraid better visible in windows 10/11? That has me a bit gunshy about sinking more money into a new unraid server. It has been increasingly difficult and frustrating over the last couple of years to just keep the server visible to other PC's on the same hardwired network.

[Hoopster]

7 hours ago, neurorad said:

Are new versions of unraid better visible in windows 10/11?

Microsoft has been getting rid of support for SMB1 for years now due to security concerns.  Each subsequent version of Windows and major updates moves further away from SMB1.  SMB2 is better but what they really want you to use is WSD (WS Discovery).

 

Unraid 5 relies heavily on SMB1.  It is not surprising that Windows 10/11 access with Unraid 5 is problematic for you.  In a  6.x version of Unraid (can't remember which one), WSD was implemented.  SMB is still supported but you have the option of choosing which you want to use for visibility in Windows.

 

Under SMB Setting in Unraid 6.12.4 (and some previous versions) more control over SMB and WSD is possible.  I personally have disabled NetBIOS/SMB1 all together and rely on WSD as much as possible.  I have also disabled SMB1 from the Windows side (all my Windows clients are now running Windows 11) This has resulted in more reliable Unraid visibility in Windows. Here are my settings:

[neurorad]

OK, had a little time to investigate. Old server won't post at all. I cleaned and reseated everything. Likely memory or CPU, and with the age of the system seems like a waste of resources and effort to continue troubleshooting and repairing, unless that is the only way to avoid data loss. It was a sempron 145 based system with 1GB memory, AOC SASLP-MV8 expansion card.

 

The unused and available system seems to still work fine after testing tonight. It's an i5-6500 with 32GB memory, 6 onboard SATA ports I think, and a 512GB Samsung 950Pro M2 drive. Seems I read somewhere that AOC card I have isn't supported in newer unraid versions?

 

Seems this would be a decent platform to migrate unraid to. But, how? Given the old system won't post, therefore I can't just copy data over, what is the best way to access data on the old drives and get that to a new unraid box? Is it possible to physically move drives, boot the new system with my old USB and old unraid version, and expect to actually be able to access data and upgrade? Or is this going to be a more difficult process?

[JonathanM]

5 hours ago, neurorad said:

Is it possible to physically move drives, boot the new system with my old USB and old unraid version, and expect to actually be able to access data and upgrade?

Worth trying. If that isn't immediately successful, do you know for sure which disk was in the parity slot?

 

Marvell chipset controllers give issues to many people, but not all. It's probably ok to try.

[neurorad]

1 hour ago, JonathanM said:

Worth trying. If that isn't immediately successful, do you know for sure which disk was in the parity slot?

 

Marvell chipset controllers give issues to many people, but not all. It's probably ok to try.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I want to migrate from old cube server case to a rack mount case so I'll wait for that to arrive before merging new CPU/mobo and old drives/controller to see what happens.

 

I also ordered an IO CREST SI-PEX40138 4 port SATA card with the JMB585 chipset that afict from forum posts is better recommended for newer unraid versions. I'm using 9 drives currently, 8 on the controller and 1 on mobo, and with the 6 onboard on the new mobo this 4 port should at least handle current drives. 

 

I guess first things first, see what happens with old controller, then I can figure out how to migrate to new controller.

 

And unfortunately I do not know which drive is parity, unless I'm lucky and only have one 4TB drive in the system. I'll take a look at the drives as I pull them. I can't boot current unraid so I can't get a snapshot of drive assignments.

Edited October 27, 2023 by neurorad

[JonathanM]

Make a backup of the Unraid USB stick first. Then try booting it on the new rig with no drives. That may give you the drive list, obviously with all of them showing missing.

 

Pretty sure the old and new controllers you mentioned both use plain SATA HBA mode, so it shouldn't be an issue moving from one to the other.

[neurorad]

Ha, good thought. I'll do that, thanks. New case arrives Monday so a little finger tapping until then 

[neurorad]

Geez. Stumped at the simplest of things.

 

I booted the i5 system from the unraid USB and was able to successfully login to console, and so I assume successfully boot unraid. But that's all I can do.

 

I can't see the webgui for the server from any connected devices on my network. Not access shares, just see the unraid hosted web gui. And I don't know why. 

 

I can think of nothing of significance that has changed on my network since I last was able to access the webgui. I've been struggling to keep visibility of drives in windows, but it was when the inability to even see webgui developed that made me think I had a hardware failure.

 

The network.cfg file is set for DHCP=0 and a static IP, netmask, and gateway. As far as I know, there is no reason those settings should not still work. I did try editing the network.cfg several times, changing static IP, deleting that and setting DHCP=yes, deleting the entire network.cfg from USB drive, etc, to no avail.

 

Since I can't access the webgui, I can't investigate the drive assignments. Worse, I'll have the same issue when swapping physical drives over... stuck at console without any ability to really access unraid.

 

I tried searching for console commands to see if anything was helpful, but didn't find much for an old version like this.

 

The network card in that i5 box should be fine. It has a Windows install on the M2 drive and when booted to windows, all is good there. I tried to find a way to investigate network status from console when booted to USB but no luck.

 

Any suggestions?

Edited October 28, 2023 by neurorad

[JonathanM]

From the console can you ping the router's IP?

[JorgeB]

Also a good idea to post the diagnostics.

[neurorad]

When pinging router I get 'Network is unreachable'

 

Entering 'diagnostics' at root prompt in console I get 'command not found'

 

I did find that ifcong is like ipconfig (Linux idiot here). That gives me IP of 127.0.0.1 and mask of 255.0.0.0, which obviously isn't right. 

[itimpi]

2 hours ago, neurorad said:

Entering 'diagnostics' at root prompt in console I get 'command not found'

What version of Unraid as this command did not exist in v5.     If so it could be worth booting with the latest release so that you can get diagnostics (no key needed) so we can get an idea what is going on.  

[neurorad]

It's a 5.x version. Don't recall the exact version... but I think  release candidate 8 was in there?

 

Not sure I follow about booting a new version. I have a hardware failure in the current server and it can't even post. Wouldn't do any good trying to boot off a current unraid version USB. I was trying to boot the new server hardware off the existing USB to see if we could pull drive assignments prior to moving HDDs over. It boots, but seems I have no network currently to interface with it. Booting the new server off a new USB install wouldn't tell me anything useful about drive assignments. Would it shed enough light on the networking issue to be worth doing?

[itimpi]

33 minutes ago, neurorad said:

Booting the new server off a new USB install wouldn't tell me anything useful about drive assignments. Would it shed enough light on the networking issue to be worth doing?

Actually it would as it would help sort out any networking issues as we could then get diagnostics that would tell us what is going on under the cover if there are still issues.

 

Also if the super.dat file from the existing flash drive was put into the config folder for the latest release it would show your current disk assignments if it booted up successfully to the latest GUI.

[neurorad]

Got it. That makes sense. I think I have another USB drive lying around, I'll try tonight to get a trial new version booted and see what that does. Hesitant to mess with current USB even though it's backed up a couple of times!

[itimpi]

2 hours ago, neurorad said:

Got it. That makes sense. I think I have another USB drive lying around, I'll try tonight to get a trial new version booted and see what that does. Hesitant to mess with current USB even though it's backed up a couple of times!

To do a basic confidence check of the network it is not even necessary to get a trial licence for the flash drive you try.

[neurorad]

OK, created new USB with latest stable version, left network to use DHCP for now. Boots fine, assigns IP, I can see webgui on other computers on the network.

 

The USB for old server had been working fine in this house and network for about 2 years, so scratching my head as to why it won't initialize network in the new computer. Does it know somehow the environment has changed? Is there a way to reset network config to default settings and go from there?

 

I'll see about copying over super.dat file onto this unraid 6 USB. 

 

Would the new unraid version recognize the old drives if I installed them into new server, even though file system isn't supported? Wondering if I need to get old unraid USB working and go through upgrade process, or if just skipping to new version is possible without a real risk of losing data? My previous use was as NAS only. I didn't make use of any plugins or anything at the time that is of any consequence to me. i.e., nothing else in the old config/install I care about keeping. Just data on the drives.

[neurorad]

diagnostics file from the new unraid ver 6 USB

skynet-diagnostics-20231028-2305.zip

[neurorad]

I copied network.cfg from new version 6 USB to the old version 5 USB, they looked very similar, was hoping default install settings would clear up the network issue. It did not. Same results as before.

 

I also copied the super.dat from old USB over to new USB, booted up, and was able to see and save the drive assignments from old configuration, so hopefully that will help. And good news... only 24TB, less than I was thinking. Looks like drives have advanced quite a bit, all I'm using are 3TB and 4TB drives.

Edited October 29, 2023 by neurorad

[JorgeB]

If the new v6 install works use that one.

[neurorad]

So fresh ver6 install, with super.dat file from old install? And just assemble with old HDD and let it rebuild parity if needed? Manually move license key to new USB?

 

And then update HDD filesystem in new version?