Well, i have an old configuration :

 

MB : ECS K7VTA

CPU : AMD athlon 1200Mhz

Mem : 512 Mb

Video : SYS32

HD : 3Xsata WD 500Gb (they're new) plug into 2 sata-raid pci cards

 

unRAID works perfectly with it : 40-45 Mb with a 10/100 ethernet card

HD not hot (30-35 °C)

Making parity check AND streaming to my media center work without suttering.

 

 

But that's not the BIG issue.

 

With this configuration, the boot takes almost 14 minutes ! YES, you read correctly : 14 minutes.

I try with other hardware and unRAID boots in less then a minute. So it is not the USB key.

I find out that loading bzimage and bzroot from the Gparted live cd took only 15 seconds.

I also try out freenas (before unRAID) and as it boot from a CD, it takes less than 1 minute to boot.

 

So, I think that that non-speed is comming from the USB boot.

 

Before bying another hardware configuration, i'd like to know if it would be possible to boot from the USB, with the licence and all the config files, but load bzimage and bzroot into the ram from the CD-rom. For that, I think I would have to modify syslinux.cfg but I do not know how (I have no skills into linux).

 

Any ideas and/or comments are welcome except "buy this or buy that" because it is not the purpose of this post.

Even a very slow USB drive is faster than a CD drive.  It must be hanging up somewhere, and we should be able to tell where by looking at the syslog.  Please capture it and attach, see the Troubleshooting link in my sig.

well, here's the syslog :

 

but it doesn't show the loading time since it took only 2 minutes froms strat to end.

The problem is when the PC start : bzimage and bzroot take 14 minutes to finish loading (displaying dot after dot very slowly).

 

I find a "how to" that makes unraid booting from hard drive (still need the stick for the licence,...). I try it, even i don't have any linux skills, and it took less than 40 seconds to boot and be ready to use. But i can't give up a 200-300 Gb HD just to boot unraid. So any help would be great or another booting methode (cd).

 

Thanks.

But i can't give up a 200-300 Gb HD just to boot unraid. So any help would be great or another booting methode (cd).

 

You do not have to give up a hard drive.

Create a boot folder on your disk1 as /mnt/disk1/boot.

 

mkdir /mnt/disk1/boot

 

Do an

rsync -avP /boot /mnt/disk1/

 

From there you can install and use grub installed on the hard drive, A CD or a grub boot floppy.

I have a grub4dos boot floppy which should work, I'll test and post it.

I find this post very helpfull

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=244.msg21554#msg21554

Now, it only takes 1 minutes 50 to boot.

That's less than windows !!!

 

Could this be a USB driver problem ?

 

Anyway, I'm happy for now.

 

Thanx to all

That was a very interesting syslog!  Numerous issues and new drivers and chipsets I have never seen before.  The CPU could not be identified.  If this board works, I would not be surprised if you have occasional issues, such as the long boot time, because you will be on the very edge of compatibility.

 

Your board does not support USB 2.0, which is about 40 times faster.  So 14 minutes corresponds to 21 seconds with USB 2.0, which makes your boot time about right.  I'm surprised your board supports booting from USB.  Most people don't care how long it takes to boot, because they rarely reboot or power off.  A file server system like unRAID often runs for months, before someone decides to upgrade, or shut down for lightning, etc.

That was a very interesting syslog!  Numerous issues and new drivers and chipsets I have never seen before.  The CPU could not be identified.  If this board works, I would not be surprised if you have occasional issues, such as the long boot time, because you will be on the very edge of compatibility.

MB : ECS K7VTA (1999 or 2000 i'm not sure)

CPU : AMD athlon 1200Mhz

Mem : 512 Mb

Your board does not support USB 2.0, which is about 40 times faster.  So 14 minutes corresponds to 21 seconds with USB 2.0, which makes your boot time about right.  I'm surprised your board supports booting from USB.

You're right, my board doesn't support booting from a usb key but it does from a usb cdrom, hdd, floppy or zip.

Anyway that did not work with the key : it was recognise but refused to boot whatever usb booting device I choose..

I manage to boot from a floppy with "bootmanager 50 rc 16" and choose USB.

But it takes 14 minutes to load bzroot and bzimage in ram.

Loading with the Panosonic Version of the Kicker Floppy takes about 1 min. So I think it is not usb 1.0 or 2.0 related but more about the driver use by the kicker floppy V/s the driver provide by the bios of my board.

This could be a solution for old and very old board and/or very very very old board since the board, the cpu and the size of RAM are not the issue.

Most people don't care how long it takes to boot, because they rarely reboot or power off.  A file server system like unRAID often runs for months, before someone decides to upgrade, or shut down for lightning, etc.

So do I but since i was testing unRAID before buying it, i was concern with that very very long booting (loading) time. Starting, stoping, re-starting, re-stoping,... 10 -20 times in a row just for testing took me all day.