Has Unraid stagnated due to lack of support and communication from Limetech?


jaybee

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I think a lot of people think that release candidates or even beta's, are inferior compared to the 'stable' 4.7, and should be avoided... which is not true. They think 'stable' means that it 'runs stable', like it wont crash or does not contain bugs, while actually 'stable' means that it's just no longer 'under construction' and contains all functionalities that were specified... it can and it will STILL contain bugs and issues. I've never ran 4.7, went straight to v5.0-rc1 and it works perfectly. There will be some bugs and issues, i've never encountered them. Just like there still will be bugs and issues in 4.7...

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It is not that simple. Something that is beta should always be considered beta. If it was stable it would be called stable. To consider otherwise is to break a naming convention used countless times for decades.

 

In any corporate environment it is way more than semantics to call a beta a stable.

 

It is the difference between known bugs and unknown bugs which is a clasification of risk.

 

Lest we not forget unRAID releases slow because it is all about making sure you lose no data.

 

But yes for many people unRAID v5 operates perfectly and that a big sentiment to Limetechs development skills. But i suggest that until it hits RC the testing base is a fraction of the userbase and has not seen the ;level of testing unRAID users have come to expect

 

 

 

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How much time does it take to come on to the forums and communicate an update though really? 10 minutes of his time.

I'll repeat, 4.7 is not what can be referred to as a stable product in that it has a major bug. This was promised to be fixed. It has not been due to focusing on version 5 becoming FINAL instead so that a 4.7 fix would not even be required. It's only fair that in paying for a license you get at least one stable product.

 

I think a lot of people think that release candidates or even beta's, are inferior compared to the 'stable' 4.7, and should be avoided... which is not true. They think 'stable' means that it 'runs stable', like it wont crash or does not contain bugs, while actually 'stable' means that it's just no longer 'under construction' and contains all functionalities that were specified... it can and it will STILL contain bugs and issues. I've never ran 4.7, went straight to v5.0-rc1 and it works perfectly. There will be some bugs and issues, i've never encountered them. Just like there still will be bugs and issues in 4.7...

 

A build given a status of Final or Stable should mean a production version with all KNOWN bugs/issues sorted out.

Version 4.7 was released as stable, but then a new major bug was found so it is not a stable build any more.

Version 5 has not been released yet in a final form. Quite a few people (myself included) have issues using our data in an array that has not been signed off as an official release, i.e. Beta builds. Yes 5 final is close, but we paid for a product to use that was not beta. If we wanted a beta product we could have used flexraid which used to be free when in development. Now it is polished there is a small cost associated. I do not appreciate paying for a license to be an official guinea pig.

 

I think we need someone (Limetech) to take a hold of this forum as said already and to properly list out all of the reported bugs/issues with 5. Get an action plan together/roadmap as to what is going to get done and the hurdles. I'm not convinced version 5 is just hardware incompatabilities judging by the amount of posts in the RC forum with problems people have.

I personally don't mind if version 5 had to have 3 different releases (versions0 based on hardware (realtek issues, controller card issues, etc). Just get it done, or fix 4.7.

 

I wonder how Limetech would feel about refunding people that have paid for a licensed working product? This is not meant to cause offense, and is a genuine question.

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I was going to steer clear of this debate / discussion but here goes.

 

First point Limetech has been on line check his profile he has been on the forum -

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1

 

I think the worst thing is he was releasing fixes / updates and communicating with the group and we where millimetres from a final then bang nothing.

 

If you ask a community to test fixes and they are doing it happily and you are so close to a final and everyone is getting involved as a group to reach a common goal you should keep everyone updated.

 

Even if the update is "Sorry back in 5 months" it would just keep everyone on track and expectations going.

 

That has nothing to do with business, paid for licences or the like just simply a courteous way of communicating with a group of people who are all trying to reach a common goal.

 

All said and done I am happy with my unraid 4.7 and can't fault it.

 

Tom will be back and we will get to v5 eventually but just a 5 second update would be a god way to go to keep the community thriving.

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New release on it's way........

 

I can almost hear the "oh god not again" :)

 

Time for a new game, what do you think tom looks like lol. When I saw the post I imagined him rubbing his eyes saying not again, and for some reason I picture a early 90s grunge fan.

 

Indeed! Lets see if we'll get another flurry of activity..

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  • 2 weeks later...

It seems like more recently, betas and RCs are less looked at as a risk. At least judging by the amount of people running them. When I built server 1, a lot of users on the forums were nearly yelling to avoid anything but 4.6 final. And that's what I did. Maybe there's been serious improvements made in the betas or RCs, but I'm STILL reluctant to trust my data to a beta release.

 

Waiting patiently for 3TB disk support. 8)

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What bugs?

I believe he is referring to a bug when rebuilding a drive and writing new data to the same drive can result in corruption.  There was suppose to be a 4.7.1 release to fix it but it never happened.  Assuming my memory is correct.  For me that bug is just an inconvenience because I never write to my array during a drive rebuild, parity rebuild or even a parity check if I can help it.  I don't have any automatic transfers and unless SageTV updates a property file on an unRAID drive because I'm accessing the associated file I should only be reading from unRAID 99% of the time.  Once in a while I will transfer 1-10TB over the course of a week or so.  That is why I removed my cache drive.  No need for one if you don't write much and don't have applications running that need some place to be installed besides your thumb drive.
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I'm STILL reluctant to trust my data to a beta release.

 

I find this a peculiar stance to take, when all 4.x releases are known to contain potentially destructive bugs which have been fixed during the 5.0 development.  There's nothing magical about the words 'beta' and 'final'!

 

What bugs?

The second bug in 4.7 occurs if you lose your config/super.dat file (as when your flash drive dies) or when you attempt to migrate to an entirely new flash drive and start fresh with your existing data drives.

 

Apparently, if config/super.dat does not exist, newly assigned to the array will have their MBRs re-written with the current "MBR-allignment" setting.  That has resulted in some disks showing as un-formatted, when in reality, the partitioning was wrong.  The fix is easy, if you know what to look for and do not format the disk....  but some users have lost data when they formatted their existing disks...  (The fix is to correct the partition in the MBR with a simple script you can download. It will then appear formatted as usual.)

 

Joe L.

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The second bug in 4.7 occurs if you lose your config/super.dat file (as when your flash drive dies) or when you attempt to migrate to an entirely new flash drive and start fresh with your existing data drives.

 

A third bug is the failure to remove an old file when an application uses a write temporary file, followed by a rename of temporary file name to permanent file name. This operation creates a duplicate file.  It will be the old file which is read, potentially losing data from previous writes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm

Its fantastic that we have an update. Well done all :)

 

But lets not belittle the legitimate concerns of users please.

 

I am concerned that the relatively slow progress is going to cause issues with growing the community and we really want the community to grow.  I don't think that Tom has a lot of options at this juncture:  our diverse install base (there are 40+ motherboards on the tested list) means that it takes time to work through compatibility issues.  If Tom decided to support only one motherboard and only one raid card then progress would move quite quickly.  But at this point, it's whatever old hardware you have lying around.

 

I've looked at the other types of systems (from Drobos through ZFS) and the thing that keeps bringing me back to unraid is that if it all goes pear shaped, I can pull the disks out of the array and I still have my data in a format that can be read in another machine.  Lose your parity and another data drive at the same time?  You've only lost what was on that data drive.  Replace them and you can rebuild your array.  Motherboard failure?  You can port to another motherboard and retain your array.  Controller failure?  Go buy a new one and you're good to go.

 

These options don't exist with most other raid solutions so I come back to unraid time and time again.

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