Hi gang, I have spent about 2 days reading up on unraid and I am pretty sure that its for me!  I do have a few questions that I still have that I’m hoping someone can help me with.  I’m hoping this community is gentle on newbs like me!

 

1. It sounds like 3tb drives are workable, but only under a beta release… can someone recommend which is the most stable beta that supports this?  it’s important to me because I have about 3 of these drives kicking around

 

2. I’m unclear what if any upgrade process exists… so for example if I setup a system with the beta version, but then a upgraded stable release comes out, do I need to re-setup the whole system and array etc, or is there a way to simply upgrade the flash drive?

 

3. I also have a three WD MyBook external usb drives that I’d like to ‘open up’ and remove the physical hard drives, and then put into the array.  I wonder if anyone has done this, or forsees any problems?  I know I cracked open a Seagate external usb drive and used inside my pc using sata and it worked fine for years, but have never done this with WD

 

4. Last question- I have a question regarding how to migrate from my current setup of data to the unraid array… currently, I have about 10 data-filled drives all directly connected to my pc (7 internal, and 3 external usb) all ranging between 750gb and 3,000gb… currently I have NO redundancy and they are all hooked up individually (internal through sata, external through usb)… of course I want to get them into a new box, and supported by parity.  I guess the way I will migrate to that is to build a new box, add two brand new drives, make drive one the parity, then copy existing data over onto new drive two, then take the old drive I copied from, format, and install into the array.  From there, then take a second old drive, copy data off into old drive one (now installed into the array), then format and install old drive two.  Then copy data off old drive 3, copy onto old drive two (now in array) and etc etc… does this sound like the correct process?  I guess this could take  quite a while, installing each drive, preclearing, then copying, installing, preclearing etc for about 10 drives and I guess rebuilding or adding to the parity drive each time.  Not complaining, but just want to ensure I understand the process before starting!

 

Whew sorry for the long q’s… if I’ve posted in the wrong place I apologize ahead of time

 

1) dont use the betas so can't comment but I think it depends a little on what network chip you end up with i think

 

2) only have to copy 2 files to the flash

 

3)Can be done but the data on the hdds will be wiped.

 

4) That is the way I would go. You may be able to get it done faster by mounting the drives like with SNAP but it is probably more difficult than it is worth.

 

Josh