[DEPRECATED] How to partition, format ext4, and mount an SSD outside the array

[datruedave]

I appreciate the help that people have given me, but I still can't get everything on my appdisk working again.  At this point, I'm planning on starting over by replacing my little SSD with a bigger hybrid disk.  At the same time, I want to make sure I'm updating everything I can to the latest and greatest.  I've never used an SSHD.  Would I still follow the instructions here?

 

I see that I'm going to want to move over to the Phaze plugins:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=33341.0  Will this still work with an appdisk?

 

I'm not sure how to update the actual Unraid software.  Is there an easy way to do that?  Anything I need to watch out for?

 

Geesh, I realize how off topic some of these questions are, but they're all kinda related to my being unable to get stuff on my appdisk working correctly again.  Please ignore and accept my apologies if this is way off base.

[jumperalex]

meh, not OT in my book.

 

In general the process of getting a non-array drive mounted is the same.  The biggest difference, being a hybrid, is that you probably don't need, or want, trim enabled.  IIRC hybrids take care of that internally.  But you'll have to research that to be sure.  Some hybrids are really just two drives packed in one and not a coherent package working together.

[datruedave]

So, would I be able to copy my Plex library to another drive and then copy it back after installing the new disk?  Or should I just start from scratch?  Is there anything else I need to be aware of?

[jumperalex]

so long as plex is not running when you make the copies, yes you should have no trouble doing that.  I have done it a few times myself.  And of course it would be silly not to just try it vice defaulting to starting from scratch.

 

Some food for thought: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201370363-Move-an-Install-to-Another-System ... not quite exactly step by step for our system, but it gives the basics that you need.

 

PS use a copy / rsycn operation, not move.  that way if you make a mistake and corrupt your copy you have the original to start from again.

 

PSS: pay close attention to the permissions.  That is usually the first thing that goes wrong on a copy because they change from plex:plex and their perms get jacked.  not difficult to fix so long as you know to do it.

 

PSSS: hahaha if you have problems please search the forums first and then post a new thread to keep this thread on-topic.

[Sean M.]

But you are able to see and access the drive from the /mnt directory?  If so, then you have a samba problem (and maybe a permissions problem).  Look to Nezil's posts in this thread.  He has added a lot of good info that I need to incorporate into the guide.

 

I've got some down time this weekend so figured I would try and figure this out since I still can't view it all on my desktop.

 

Here's my go script:

 

#!/bin/bash
# Start the Management Utility
/usr/local/sbin/emhttp &
#Mount SSD as appdisk
mkdir /mnt/appdisk
mount -rw -o noatime,nodiratime,discard -t ext4 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-Crucial_CT120M500SSD1_14090C04DFC2-part1 /mnt/appdisk

 

Here's my samba:

 

[global]
  security = USER
  guest account = nobody
  public = yes
  guest ok = yes
  map to guest = bad user

[Appshare]
     path = /mnt/appdisk
     comment = Application SSD
     browseable = yes
     public = yes
     writable = yes

 

Here's my output from using the 'mount' command:

 

root@Tower:~# mount
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
tmpfs on /var/log type tmpfs (rw,size=128m)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type vfat (rw,noatime,nodiratime,umask=0,shortname=mixed)
/dev/sdb1 on /mnt/appdisk type ext4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,discard)
/dev/md1 on /mnt/disk1 type reiserfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime,user_xattr,acl)
/dev/md2 on /mnt/disk2 type reiserfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime,user_xattr,acl)
shfs on /mnt/user type fuse.shfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,allow_other)

 

Here's my output from the 'ls /mnt -l' command:

 

root@Tower:~# ls /mnt -l
total 4
drwxrwxrwx 9 nobody users 4096 2014-04-27 04:38 appdisk/
drwxrwxrwx 7 nobody users  152 2014-07-04 19:21 disk1/
drwxrwxrwx 4 nobody users   80 2014-07-01 03:49 disk2/
drwxrwxrwx 1 nobody users  152 2014-07-04 19:21 user/

 

Thoughts?  I reviewed Nezil's post but was unable to replicate anything to make the appdisk view-able in the file explorer.

[jumperalex]

This thread is deprecated as of 2014 09 09.  See OP

[archedraft]

Just curious but why install an extra SNAP plugin to mount your SSD instead of just manually following these steps?

[jumperalex]

Anyone is of course welcome to, hence why I would never delete it.  But Generally speaking LT wants to keep us out of the GO file and that is just good practice.  It is also much easier and less accident prone to use SNAP.  And of course SNAP does offer other features, though I know not everyone will use it.

 

The only reason I can think of to prefer the GO file is to "survive" safe mode if you need your appdisk while in safe mode.  For me, that is why I just commended out the lines in my GO script so I can revert easily later.  I also modified them to use /mnt/disk/appdisk so I don't have to worry about all my references.

 

tl;dr you answered your own question "install plugin" vs "manually"  ;-)

[archedraft]

Far enough, I wasn't really thinking about the GO file and how we should avoid using it. I do think the extra feature would be nice to have as well.

[datruedave]

OK, so I have an appdisk set up the way it was outlined in this thread.  I've upgraded from unRAID v5.0.4 to v6beta12.

 

Is there any reason to switch to SNAP?  I can't figure out how to make the Docker work.  Will Docker work with this type of appdisk?

 

If there is a reason to switch to SNAP, how would I do it?

 

If you would rather answer in another thread, I've started one here:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=37432.0

 

 

Sigh...  The more I read, the more questions I have.  I just read this thread about automatically backing up a cache drive apps directory:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31246.0    Now that I read that, I wonder why I would even want a separate app drive outside the array?  I think it was originally for TRIM support, but with v6, I can have that on the cache drive, right?

[trurl]

...  The more I read, the more questions I have.  I just read this thread about automatically backing up a cache drive apps directory:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31246.0    Now that I read that, I wonder why I would even want a separate app drive outside the array?  I think it was originally for TRIM support, but with v6, I can have that on the cache drive, right?

Well, technically the cache drive is also outside the array. Another reason people install apps on cache or another non-array drive is because apps are often constantly reading/writing to their "working storage" (plex library scans, etc) and having that "working storage" on an array drive will keep that drive spun up (if reading) and possibly also the parity drive spun up (if writing).

 

[datruedave]

Yeah, I'm remembering now why I made the decision to have an appdisk. I wanted a drive the size of my parity drive as cache drive (serving double duty as emergency backup), and a, relatively, small SSD as appdisk.

 

So is there any reason to try to switch to the SNAP plugin for my appdisk?

[jumperalex]

It gets you out of the Go file and custom one-off tweaks. SNAP works well and works from the webgui.

[datruedave]

It gets you out of the Go file and custom one-off tweaks. SNAP works well and works from the webgui.

 

I don't suppose you'd care to explain how to switch over to SNAP?  I see you mention "commenting out" lines in your Go file.  What else would I have to do?

[jumperalex]

comment out the lines in the go file that currently mount your app drive. Reboot. Then install snap and follow snap's instructions for mounting and sharing the drive. Then, because of the snap's naming you might have to change any application references to the drive such as plex; so like from /mnt/appdisk/.../plex to /mnt/disk/.../plex or something like that. I can't remember for sure and I can't check because I moved away from a separate app disk to a large SSD as the cache (xmas gift to myself). But you get the gist.

[datruedave]

That seems pretty simple.

 

I may have known this at one time, and feel like it's definitely wiki material, but to "comment out" the lines in the go file, do you just add something to the beginning of each line?

 

Thanks for all your help on this.  If it weren't for you and others like you, unRAID would be completely unusable for my purposes.

 

Thank you.

[jumperalex]

# This is commented out

 

[aptalca]

Hey, I know this is deprecated and all, but I tried out SNAP, and it was not very intuitive and even after I mounted and shared, I still couldn't see any shares. The main thread focused on flash drives and automounting and little info on how to mount a hard drive (No offense to the developers of SNAP, I only gave it a few minutes, perhaps Ext4 was the problem, although the thread said Ext4 was supported in 6betas and that's what I'm on)

 

I came back to this. This is easy, simple and it just works. Couple lines in the go file and another few in the samba conf and I got a super fast SSD hosting the docker image and the apps. Thanks again.