Okay, so I have my first unraid server up and running with 8 2TB drives, and its functioning great, its now time to add a few toys. I don't have a cache drive yet, so I'm looking for recommendations on what is a cheap but reliable pci-express controller card, I have 8 sata ports on my board that are used up by the data and parity drives, so to add a cache drive to install apps, I'll need a sata controller card, I don't care if it only has 1 or 2 ports, I only need one port to add the cache drive.

 

So to summarize my questions

 

1) What is a cheap but reliable SATA 3 controller card?

2) Would any of the more experienced folks be kind enough to write a detailed how-to on how to install SAB, Couch Potato, and Sic Beard to the cache drive using unmenu AND configuring them, the info seems to be scattered all over the place and somewhat incomplete, maybe make it a sticky, I see too many people asking about how to do this, hopefully if someone was kind enough to write an updated tutorial covering the newer versions of unraid, it would cut down on the number of people asking for help on how to even get started, which is the catagory I would fall in

Come on folks, is there no one that is willing to write an updated tutorial for 5.0rc3 to install and configuring SAB, SickBeard and Couch Potato, cheers

You're better off running the cache drive from one of your on-board connectors, they'll be faster than your PCI controller card, and you want your cache (and parity) drive to be the fastest drives in the system.  I have a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 for my PCI express card, but if you only want one additional port that card may be over kill (you will need to disable int13 on this card if you purchase it).

 

Regarding Sab, Sickbeard, and CP, I'd recommend getting Simple Features, and the PLG files.  Below are the plg files I've found that work properly with 5.0rc3.  I use a cache drive, so I can't really help you with your specific setup.  With my setup I have the config going to /usr/local/appname (where appname is appropriate for the application, i.e. sickbeard, couchpotato, sabnzbd).  The data directories go to /mnt/cache/.apps/usenet/appname (where appname is the same as previously mentioned).  I installed and configured the apps in the following order, sabnzbd first, as the other two rely on it, then sickbeard, then couchpotato, ensuring they were all running on unused ports.

 

There are plenty of guides out there for setting up the apps, but specific to the unraid install, I have a user share for downloads, and then a user share for Movies, and another for TV shows (as I have them set to different split levels).  Sabnzbd downloads to the download user share, and then Sickbeard, and Couch Potato are responsible for moving and renaming files (which you can configure via their user interfaces).

 

PLG files I use:

 

sickbeard-0.5.2-influenced.plg

sabnzbd-0.7.2-influenced.plg

couchpotato_v2_mod.plg

 

You should be able to search for these via google/forum search to find and install them.

 

If you think there needs to be a more complete tutorial, you can always create one.  One of the issues with a step-by-step guide is that the person who creates it becomes the person supporting it usually.  With a product like unRAID it's somewhat important that the administrator knows what they're doing, and the best way to figure that out is via trial and error IMHO.  I've run into some strange issues with Sab/SB/CP (like plugins hanging on start, leaving the Array up, but listed as Starting forever), and if I knew nothing about scripting/linux I'd have assumed they system was broken.

 

Hope it helps a bit.

 

 

 

 

For the plugins: https://github.com/W-W/unRAID

 

And check the 5.0 plugins forum for the support thread.

thank you, I'll see if that can get me going, I currently have 8 2TB disks attached and I dont have any more free sata ports, but I'm only using 6 TB so i can propably shrink the volume and use one of the drives as a cache and hot spare

okay so I have removed one of the drives from my array and assigned it to be a cache drive, so my setup now is eight 2Tb drives, one of them is the parity another is the cache and the last six are data giving me a 12Tb array that is half full. I have a couple of questions to get me started

 

1) How do I make sure that SAB and Sickbeard and Couch Potato and transmission will reside on the cache drive, or do apps automatically go there?

 

2) Is there any disadvantage to using unmenu or simple features to install SAB?

 

3) what is the difference between unmenu and simple features?

okay so I have removed one of the drives from my array and assigned it to be a cache drive, so my setup now is eight 2Tb drives, one of them is the parity another is the cache and the last six are data giving me a 12Tb array that is half full. I have a couple of questions to get me started

 

1) How do I make sure that SAB and Sickbeard and Couch Potato and transmission will reside on the cache drive, or do apps automatically go there?

 

2) Is there any disadvantage to using unmenu or simple features to install SAB?

 

3) what is the difference between unmenu and simple features?

 

Okay when I used unmenu to install SABnzbd it automatically installed it to the cache drive, but i dont see Sickbeard or Couchpotato under Pkg Manager in unmenu

does any one know where or how to install simplefeatures?

Did you try looking at the SimpleFeatures thread?  Take a look at it and if you have any other questions, let us know.

I have seen it but I haven't tried it yet, do you know if the installs and more importantly the configurations will survive the reboot? if it is reinstalling the apps every reboot wouldn't that cause it to lose the configuration and the settings?

Simple features will re-install on reboot, as long as you put it in your go file.  The plugins have config directories and install directories.  The config directory should be something that will stick around (on one of your drives), where as the install directory goes to /usr/local/xxx and will be reinstalled on reboot.