I just set up my unRAID rig last night and so far I am very impressed. I was able to install few plugins including Mysql which I use to sync my XBMC library and also Plex, which is totally new to me. My set up is 1TB Parity drive, 1TB + 4x750Gb drives for storage, and then I added a 160Gb laptop drive for cache. I am actually confused with the way the cache drive works. So...

 

Question 1: I had unclean shutdown and my parity re-check is going right now, showing estimated speed 22.3 MB/sec. I believe it was the same before I added the cache drive so I don't see any gains I think. Is that normal and what is the point of having the cache drive?

 

Question 2: Currently I have Mysql and Plex installed in /mnt/cache/unRAID_Apps/ folder. I am concerned because Plex has been scanning my library all day and its not even half-way done with it. Would that data that is currently on the cache drive be moved on one of the disks later, or I need to put the plugins to store on a disk, not the cache? I am trying to avoid going through that massive scan again and store the library in a permanent location.

 

Question 3: Should I install any plugins on the cache drive directly or put on one of the disks and set the share to use cache?

 

Question 4: Is there a way for unRAID to automatically stop Mysql, Plex and Dropbox before shutdown/reboot? Otherwise the system hangs and rarely shuts down the way it should.

 

Thanks a bunch for shedding some light to a newbie

Don't own a unraid rig yet, but, here's my replies based on VMWare, forums and wiki:-

 

1. Point of it is to:-

A. Have better write time to the disk

B. Ability to store files off the array, that, in of itself has a faster write time. Good for use as a scratch drive.

C. Gains will open happen when writing new data to the array (Which, aren't really gains but just the fact that you're copying to a drive that isn't also updating the parity drive)

 

2. If it's in a folder that starts with a period ('.') then it won't move the folder or anything inside of it, nor will it if the file is on the root of the drive.

 

3. This is up to you, I'd say cache drive because they're not really that important (Just really configuration files, everything else you can redownload) and you don't really want to be waiting around to add half-downloaded torrents to your parity drive.

 

4. No idea.