Hello,

 

i am new to this site so please be nice to me , see i learn by other show me things as i cant figure out things on my own most of the time so that why i learn from asking questions sorry in advance

 

i have been trying to setup a (Data Protection + Storage Pooling) with 12 Drive of different sizes and 30TB total

4TB will be parity and in the future i can add one more 4TB or 5TB as parity drive 2 or Span it

 

Now out of my 30TB most drives are full and some have 200 GB left only but in total of data i have 23 TB of total data rest are empty space

the reason i am here is i was trying to setup FlexRAID but it seems that that software has no support and there fourm is dead so no one can help me and no one answer my questions so i found unRaid and wanted to give it a try.

 

I will add more drives to my system in the future

 

I dont know what software to get from unRaid and if there is step by step with screenshot or video on how to set it up

 

I am using windows 7 64bit enterprises on 2SSD on Raid 1 Hardware and now i want to create a data pool for all my data drives and then add  parity protections and then connect my pc to my off site back up system in the cloud with Crush plan so all my 30TB can be backed up in the cloud also

 

Once i have these setup completed then i can setup plex and mediabrowser3 so i can view my media and so on

 

Can someone advise here please

 

Thank you very much

Hi!

I'm also new to unRAID (4 months as a user), but maybe I can get you started. Then someone smart can takeover!

 

I also just run PLEX on a standalone unRAID box with seven hard drives. (5 data drives, 1 parity drive, and a 'cache' drive. ~18TB)

 

When I was first trying to understand unRAID, I began with the WIKI...especially this page:

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Best_of_the_Forums

BUT--the Wiki is OLD and not completely updated for the current unRAID 5.0.3 version.

 

You have a lot of data, so you don't want to lose anything, so go slowly, and ask questions. The forums here are very helpful.

---

To Start:

...the basic version of unRAID is free.  See Software on this page: http://lime-technology.com/products/

...you could set up a small unRAID (one or two hard drives plus one parity drive) just to see if its right for you.

Any old PC should work if it has network, SATA and USB.

Build a simple system, with PLEX, but no other add-ons or Plug-ins and see if you like it.

Once you're certain, you can buy the unRAID software that supports your 12 hard drives, and you can then build a big NAS box to hold all your drives.

 

---

In your message, you mention a few things:

1.  'parity drive 2 or Span it'. That doesn't work with unRAID..you only need one parity drive. (and Parity must be as large as the largest data drive.)

2.  'windows 7'.  An unRAID box is a standalone box, using a dedicated linux kernel. Your Windows machine will access it fine (using SAMBA), but it can't be the 'operating system'.  The unRAID kernel sits easily on a USB flash drive plugged into the unRAID server, and does not live on any of the server hard drives.

3.  '12 drives of different sizes'. unRAID works great with different sized drives. (The Parity drive MUST be as big as your largest data drive.)

4.  Warning: unRAID uses the ReiserFS file system, NOT a windows drive format.  Therefore, you'll need to move your data FROM your existing drives TO unRAID.

 

My strategy for doing this was: 

first build the unRAID box, put in it a large parity hard drive (3TB), and a new, clean hard drive (3TB). Then copy (using my PC) the files from one of my existing data drives (I'll call it 'drive ONE'). When the files are successfully transferred to unRAID, then  take 'drive ONE' and add it to unRAID box. unRAID WILL ERASE all data from drive ONE, format the drive, and make it available. Then I copy the files from 'drive TWO' to unRAID, etc.).

 

Another strategy is

to just buy new hard drives for the unRAID server, and keep the old drives as local backup.

 

5. Crashplan: unRAID servers are not normally connected directly to the internet--they are a local NAS device, and don't have the security needed for connecting to the big internet.  There are several forum threads discussing how to use Crashplan. I don't use Crashplan, but I believe the accepted wisdom is to use a different PC (such as your existing Windows 7 machine) to access unRAID and copy files out to Crashplan on the internet.

 

I hope this helps!

Hello

 

Mybe i got it all wrong i thought unraid can run on top of Windows 7 just like FliexRaid does not much linux guy wanted to use windows and then install Software and then configure it

Hello

 

Mybe i got it all wrong i thought unraid can run on top of Windows 7 just like FliexRaid does not much linux guy wanted to use windows and then install Software and then configure it

Nope, unRAID is a standalone linux based OS.  It runs from a USB flash drive of it's own and CAN NOT run on top of Windows.

Hello

 

Thank you very much and sorry guys if i wasted your time

airbender,

 

You do not need to be a linux guy to do this.  I knew nothing....less than nothing abut linux when I started.

airbender,

 

Don't give up just yet.  If you can understand Windows, you can certainly understand unRAID.  If you leave now, you will only continue your search for a solution and eventually come back here later.

 

You'll find it doesn't take very much at all to get up and running.  Then you can continue to learn slowly from there.

 

I've NEVER experienced an online community more friendly then this one.  There is a lot of help here for you.

There's a pretty good video series on YouTube done by Robbie Williams,

; you might want to also give those a look before giving up on unRAID. Although the videos are based on unRAID 4.7 it's still a good introduction to the unRAID world.

 

As others have said unRAID is easy to set up and learn as you go.

He's obviously looking for a "on top" solution like flexraid or snapraid.

 

He probably won't build a new unRAID server...

Yeah I looked at flexraid too....  Then I realize all the cool people used Unraid....