Hey guys, new to all this so i was wondering, can i have one main boot up drive (SSD) and then multiple unRaid drives ? how many drives do i need for the basic unRaid, 5 ?

 

And how do i add another driver later on or if i want more expansion to just add 5 more ? I'm use to just adding drives as i go

Hey guys, new to all this so i was wondering, can i have one main boot up drive (SSD) and then multiple unRaid drives ? how many drives do i need for the basic unRaid, 5 ?

 

And how do i add another driver later on or if i want more expansion to just add 5 more ? I'm use to just adding drives as i go

 

You boot unRAID from a USB stick.

 

For the Basic / Free version of unRAID, you can have up to 3 drives (2 data drives & 1 parity drive).

 

Check out the FAQ at http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ. Your above questions & lots of other useful info can be found there.

Got a link error

ok, but if im building a server from scratch with all new parts, im guessing i don't install Windows and just boot from the USB.

unRAID is an operating system. Windows is an operating system. If you are using unRAID, you do not install Windows.

 

unRAID runs from a USB stick.

 

The FAQ link above is working fine for me.

ok perfect, so no main drive that carries your OS then the others slave as drives just drives that boot from the flash drive.. ? if so thats gnarly.

 

So how many drives do unRaids usually have 3 than a parity drive, can there be only one parity drive for all my raid drives ?

BTW, i keep getting the following error when viewing the link

Minimum System Requirements?

 

    Intel compatible computer

    Motherboard and components compatible with unRAID software (based on Slackware), and Linux kernel 2.6.*

    512MB of RAM (recommend 1GB or more depending on usage)

    USB flash drive

    can operate without video, monitor, or keyboard; does not use mouse

    see Hardware Compatibility for extensive hardware and compatibility information

 

If you plan on running lots of addons, the amount of RAM you need will increase.

 

How is unRAID licensed?

 

The unRAID Server software is available under 3 different licenses:

 

    unRAID Server Basic - FREE! - 3 drives (2 data, 1 parity)

    unRAID Server Plus - $69/$99(for 2 keys) - 6 drives (5 data, 1 parity, 1 cache)

    unRAID Server Pro - $119/$149(for 2 keys) - 22 drives (20 data, 1 parity, 1 cache)

 

They can be purchased here. Plus key(s) can be upgraded to Pro key(s) for $59. Licenses include all future upgrades, see unRAID Licensing Questions Answered.

 

The license is controlled by a key file for the Plus and Pro versions, which is tied to a unique GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) associated with your unRAID flash drive. The unRAID software is identical with each license, only the features and drives are limited with the Plus and Basic versions. See the next question for a table of the differences.

 

The free Basic version is both a fully working 3 drive system, and a freely available demonstration version, that can easily be set up by downloading the latest software (downloads), and preparing a bootable USB flash drive (USB Flash Drive Preparation). There is no registration necessary. If you decide later to purchase a Plus or Pro license, just copy the license file to your unRAID flash drive and reboot, and the full capabilities and drives of the purchased license will then be available. Apart from the limit on the maximum number of drives, the array is the same under all licenses. No conversion of data or software is necessary.

 

What is the difference between the unRAID licenses?

 

Here is a comparison table of the 3 unRAID licenses

 

Basic Plus Pro

Total Drives Possible*** 3 7* 22*

Parity Drive (optional) ? ? ?

Data Drives 2 5 20*

Cache Drive (optional)** ? ?

License fee (1 key) Free $69 $119

License fee (2 keys) Free $99 $149

User Shares ? ? ?

Disk Shares ? ? ?

Simple Security ? ? ?

User Level Security ? ?

Active Directory Security ?

 

* Pro license: As of unRAID v4.5.6, the maximum number of drives for a Pro license has been raised to 22 (1 parity, 20 data, and 1 cache disk). If using previous versions of unRAID, then the maximum is 16 (plus Cache drive). In even earlier versions (which?), the maximum was 14, and before that was 12.

 

Plus license: As of unRAID v4.5.6, the maximum number of drives for a Plus license has been raised to 7 (1 parity, 5 data, and 1 cache disk).

 

** As of unRAID v4.5-beta8, the Plus license now supports the use of a Cache drive. In versions prior to that, only the Pro version supports the use of a Cache drive.

 

*** Your system can have additional unprotected drives outside of the unRAID array, and they can be independently mounted. They are not counted against the maximum number of drives within your unRAID protected array.

The comparison table does not paste well, but should be enough to get an idea...

Not sure this is the issue, but noticed your username has special characters. That may be causing a problem with the database while it is trying to log you into the wiki to view the FAQ.

 

You should be able to view the FAQ as a guest. To test if the special characters in your username are the issue, try logging out of Lime Tech then opening the FAQ link.

 

It is a nice long page with good info... much more than I have reposted here.

Sounds good, ill look into it., another question without posting a new topic:

 

I'm building a server aside from my everyday computer, now would i be able to connect the new server to the main cpu with using a CAT5 or is there another faster way of doing that via wired lines, thanks.

Ideally you would use Cat 5e or Cat6 to connect both machines to your router.  For fast transfers you need to be able to support a gigabit connection, so check the speed rating of the ports on your router (many are OK, but there are plenty of routers with slower 100Mbit ports).

 

And as lainie suggested - try accessing the wiki while you are logged out from the forum (as a guest).  If that works you'll need to create another login without any special characters (though underscore is not that special).  You will need to be able to look around and find stuff with having to ask every single question on the forum.

Thanks for the info but like i said my login didn't let me view the content to the link and I'm leaving on Saturday so i wanted to get this server set up, hints the every single question. I do look around, YouTube but cant get an answer to some questions like if i set up 3hardrives with the free version of unRaid can i expand those after i buy the license and if i can will i have to rewrite everything from the 2 hard drives to expand them to 4 ?

 

That info i have to ask

The beauty of unraid is that you can add drives to an existing array at any time.  You purchase a plus

or pro license. Tom will send your license file. You drop license.txt on your UNRAID flash dirve and reboot the server. You can then add and assign more drives, as needed.

I see, thats awesome. So the current drives on there say they have 10MB of song and its split between 2 drives and the parity, when i add the other 2 drives (4 totoal) will it take those 10Mb that are on 2 drives and split them up between 4 ?

 

Thanks!

No, it won't split them up. The current data stays where it it. The newly added drives can hold new data.

...And as lainie suggested - try accessing the wiki while you are logged out from the forum (as a guest).  If that works you'll need to create another login without any special characters (though underscore is not that special).  You will need to be able to look around and find stuff with having to ask every single question on the forum.

 

It may even be that having an underscore as the first character is the problem. I've seen some systems not like having anything other than a letter as the first character. There may be something else going on, but the best way to check would be to log out & try to view it as a guest.

...And as lainie suggested - try accessing the wiki while you are logged out from the forum (as a guest).  If that works you'll need to create another login without any special characters (though underscore is not that special).  You will need to be able to look around and find stuff with having to ask every single question on the forum.

 

It may even be that having an underscore as the first character is the problem. I've seen some systems not like having anything other than a letter as the first character. There may be something else going on, but the best way to check would be to log out & try to view it as a guest.

 

Sweet, thanks for the info.

ok, so i this is what I'm gathering from the wiki.

 

1) I can have 6 drives but one has to be bigger then the rest as a parity drive

 

2) boots from a flash drive as the OS.

 

OK, so i read about the cache drive, now I'm doing 3TB drives and the unRaid 5 is designed for 2TB >,

 

3) does the cache drive have to just as big as the others (like the parity drives)

 

4) does the cache drive get set up in the system settings as different than the  parity drive ?

 

5) can i have one parity drive for 12 or > drives ?

 

 

1) I can have 6 drives but one has to be bigger then the rest as a parity drive

As big as you largest data drive.

 

) 2boots from a flash drive as the OS.

Correct, boots, then runs in memory.

 

 

3) does the cache drive have to just as big as the others (like the parity drives)

Nope, the cache drive an be of any size. Search the forum for cache drive. There is a detailed post on the benefits of using one.

 

4

) does the cache drive get set up in the system settings as different than the  parity drive ?

 

There is a special slot reserved for cache drive on the main page when setting up. You can have one parity, one parity and up to 20 data drives. (not sure about 24, twenty+) you will need sata connection for all the drives of course. Running one of the V5 beta....there stable.

 

5) can i have one parity drive for 12 or > drives ?

Yes see #4. Partiy protects you against single drive failure on any drive in your array. If god dont like you and you lose two drive at once, you lose the data on those two drives, but the other drives data would remain intact.

 

Unraid 4.7 does not support drive bigger than 2tb. 5 betas do. The lasted beta relase is probably the way to go.

Unraid only supports 1 parity drive. (It's possible more will be supported eventually). That drive needs to be the same size as your biggest data drive. Of for instance you had 2x2TB drives and only a 1 TB parity drive, you would only have 2TB of useable space. (As only 1 TB of each drive would be used).

 

There is no such thing as unraid5, you are thinking of RAID 5 which is not what unraid does. The beauty of unraid is you can add many different sized drives to the same array and get full use of their capacity (again assuming your parity drive is the same size or bigger then the rest). You are also able to add new drives to the array at any time (up to the limits already mentioned) and there is no need to rewrite data over each drive)

 

With unraid you are protected from the loss of one drive (as there is one parity) but unlike other RAID configs if you lose more then one drive, you only lose the data that was on the drives you lost (whereas with most other RAID configs you would lose the lot). This comes at a cost of speed (as you write to one drive at a time rather then multiple drives as in most RAID configs. That's where a cache drive comes in.

 

If you set up a cache drive in an unraid system all data is originally sent to that cache drive first, which temporarily stores it until a script is (automatically) run and the data is moved to the array, and parity calculations can be done.

 

Please note that your data is NOT protected with parity while on a cache drive. The cache drive isn't necessary, but if you decide to have one try to use a fast drive (such as a Black drive or an SSD) as transfers are limited by the speed of this drive. Also make sure your cache drive is large enough to hold approx 1 days worth of data (as the script by default moves your data once a day at 3am).

 

That's my understanding after having an Unraid server for 2 years. Please correct me if I made a mistake somewhere

 

ok, so i this is what I'm gathering from the wiki.

 

1) I can have 6 drives but one has to be bigger then the rest as a parity drive

Here is the maximum amount of drives that can be used per license:

- Basic (free) version, 2 data drives, 1 parity drive, no cache drive.

- Plus licensed version, 5 data drives, 1 parity drive, 1 cache drive.

- Pro licensed version, 20 data drives, 1 parity drive, 1 cache drive.

 

Yes, whichever disk is parity has to be the same size or larger than your largest data drive. Here is a link to a thread about what size parity needs to be: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2611.0

 

2) boots from a flash drive as the OS.

Yes, all versions of unRAID boot from a flash drive.

 

OK, so i read about the cache drive, now I'm doing 3TB drives and the unRaid 5 is designed for 2TB >,

unRAID version 4.7 only supports up to 2TB drives.

unRAID version 5 supports 3TB drives.

 

3) does the cache drive have to just as big as the others (like the parity drives)

Often the smallest drive is used for a cache drive. My cache drive is 750GB which is close to my smallest drive (I have a 500GB drive). More details on my system can be found in my sig. If you would like to see some other systems, check out the forums under "Compulsive Design".

 

4) does the cache drive get set up in the system settings as different than the  parity drive ?

You assign the cache drive, data drives & parity drive via the unRAID configuration web page. You select which drive is which from a dropdown menu.

 

5) can i have one parity drive for 12 or > drives ?

Yes, with unRAID one drive is all that is needed to protect all the data drives. If you want a detailed explanation of parity, check out this thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2005.msg14572#msg14572

 

 

so if i have the data on the cache driver awaiting transfer at 3:40AM...i can still access it ?

 

And on the wikie i picked up this:

 

Disadvantages of a cache disk

 

'Wasted' HDD and HDD slot

One of your hard drives and SATA/PATA slots is dedicated to your cache drive, instead of long-term data storage

Yes the data is accessible and in the same place within your directory structure.

 

 

Any by wasted space they are referring to to a physical HDD slot on your computer case and a slot taken up on your motherboard. Obviously if you are using a drive as your cache drive you can't use it as part of your data array

so if i have the data on the cache driver awaiting transfer at 3:40AM...i can still access it ?

 

And on the wikie i picked up this:

 

Disadvantages of a cache disk

 

'Wasted' HDD and HDD slot

One of your hard drives and SATA/PATA slots is dedicated to your cache drive, instead of long-term data storage

 

Your data disks are protected by the parity disk. If something happens to one of the data drives, you can replace it with a new drive & have parity rebuild the data. When you write something to a data drive, your parity drive is also written to... having to write to a data drive & a parity drive is slower than writing to just one disk... because of this slowness, a cache drive can be used. Your cache drive is accessible just like your data drives... the cache drive is not protected by parity; so when writing to the cache drive, you are just writing to the cache drive (making writes faster).

 

You do not have to use a cache drive, it just makes writes faster. Until the mover script moves data off the cache drive to a data drive, the data is not parity protected.

 

I use a small drive as my cache drive so that my larger drives are part of my parity protected array. Some people will use a larger drive as a cache drive so they can have a warm spare. It is personal preference. Here is a link with pros & cons of the cache drive http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5754.0

Unraid only supports 1 parity drive. (It's possible more will be supported eventually). That drive needs to be the same size as your biggest data drive. Of for instance you had 2x2TB drives and only a 1 TB parity drive, you would only have 2TB of useable space. (As only 1 TB of each drive would be used).

 

No. Given 2 x 2T + 1 x 1T available, 1 x 2T must be parity. You can put 1 x 2T as data and 1 x 1T as data, giving 3T of storage space available. You could also use either the 1T or the 2T as a cache drive, leaving the other for use as a data drive.