Is unRAID a good fit for me?

[jimmysticky]

I am wondering if unRAID is appropriate for me. I want a nas that just does network shares. I don't want parity, apps, or transcoding.  I want as low power usage as possible. I share my bd/dvd rips to streamers throughout my house. I have been doing this on my pc for a while but i don't want waste all that electricity, firing up the pc 24/7.

 

I am using old pc parts in my NAS box.  Trying to keep the $ down.  Currently using:

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3-zero onboard video

AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W

4GB DDR2

80+ Bronze 430watt corsair PSU

 

I am currently using freeNAS.  The learning curve seems steeper than unRAID.  I also don't like that I cannot add drives to the array without it needing to rebuild the whole array.  Also, since the data is striped, all drives power up.  I am also not getting any of the error-checking/self-healing benefits of freeNAS' ZFS file system since I don't use parity and I don't have ECC memory.  It's too expensive for my board.

 

1. I like how unRAID only spins up the disk that is in use rather than spinning up the entire array. Lower power consumption I assume?

 

2. Need to be able to create some shares with password protection.

 

3. The easier the better    I'm new to the server world.

 

4. Was thinking of replacing my Kuma cpu with this one-> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888.  It's half the power consumption.  Is this a good idea considering I'm only doing network shares?  If I decide to do parity, is this cpu a bad idea?

 

5. FreeNAS requires a lot of RAM and server-grade equipment.  Is unRAID that demanding?  Any special hardware requirements needed?

 

 

What do you guys think?  Are ther any limiting factors to consider with unRAID?  I really appreciate it.

[MortenSchmidt]

Question for you. Have you ever had a harddrive fail on you? And are you sure you don't want parity?

 

Unraid is very lean with no apps. See minimum requirements.

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ#Minimum_System_Requirements.3F

 

Speed will depend on your drives not your CPU. Single-core and 1GB will do fine if you don't run any addons, regardless of whether you use parity drive or not (and it would be stupid not to...)

[althoralthor]

Agree with Morten.  Parity is a nice thing to have.  And it really doesn't cost that much (the cost of the largest capacity drive in your data array).

 

Speaking as someone that HAS lost a harddrive, rebuilding that data was pretty cool (and it meant i didn't have to rip any of those blu rays again).

 

[MortenSchmidt]

I have a currently 14-drive (+ parity and cache) system ranging from 1TB to 4TB, and in 2 or 3 years have had 3 x 2TB WD greens and one 4TB Seagate fail. I'm guessing that is pretty average. Plus the countless pre-unraid drive failures. All hard drives WILL fail, it is only a matter of time. I keep a spare pre-cleared 4TB on hand so I can rebuild immediately when a drive fails without running off to the store and paying overprice for a new one. Small price to pay.

 

[vl1969]

well you are certainly in the right place.

with the exception of Parity (which unraid does)

and I am not sure about password protect some shares and not others (I never needed that so don't know if it can be done)

unraid will do everything else you need and do it quiet well.

 

#1. you can use pretty much any hardware you wish for your setup.

#2. you can try before you buy too. the basic license is free.

      supports 3 drives, 2 DATA + 1 PARITY.

#3. you do not need a system drive as unRaid runs from USB flash disk

 

unraid is truly set it and forget it kind of server.

I had my first unraid setup and running in 20 min after the hardware was assembled. it have been running over 2 years now going down only for power failure.

 

in fact  4GB ram for simple NAS setup is an overkill if I see one. (except if you go with new version 6 which is 64 bit. but even than if you not planing to run any extra apps you will not need it )

 

like I said the basic 3 drive setup is free

the plus license holds 6 or 7 drives and is about 80$

the pro is 24 drives and is around 110$-120$ last time I check but the current  pricing is on the main page.

 

the best part of unraid is that you can always build new rig transfer the drives into it, plug in the usb flash and boot into your setup. except for drives unraid is mostly hardware agnostic.

also to get a license you need to make sure that your flash disk is valid (MUST have unique GUID) so either buy directly from limetech, they sell licenses with the flash already or verify which company and models are good by searching the forum here.

 

 

 

[jimmysticky]

I Knew I was gonna get heat from that!    Forgot to mention, I run an identical HDD setup on Probox connected to my PC.  The data is synced, it's a 1:1 backup.  It's crazy expensive, but I am most comfy in this setup.

 

eventually, I will do a parity setup along with the 1:1 backup.

 

Anyway, thanks for all the input guys.  Anyone else?  I thought I read here that the free version won't do password protected shares but the paid version will.  I would like to have some shares be open and other be PW protected.

 

I'm guessing that Sempron CPU would be a good idea? 

[rwickra]

To chime in, I am a firm believer of unraid. I've used it for 3+ years, and never given me a glitch that I couldn't post here and get fixed. I've upgraded my system at least 5 times. The first time around, like you, I used recycled parts from an old PC (watchout, though some of those Gigabyte boards have HPA which do not work with unraid), and the server worked great. Since then, I've accumulated various motherboards, PSUs and cases. Nearly 4 years later, I have a 22 TB array in a Norco 4220 case with capacity for 20 hard drives.

 

What I love most about unraid is its scalability and easy expandability and parity protection. Don't let anyone fool you -- about how important this feature is!

 

Read this post : http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=32425.msg296650#msg296650

 

This describes my heart ache when I lost all my data by frying my hard drives because of an error I made as I was building my server in a new case. I ended up salvaging all my hard drives but one. Under any other condition, had I had a striped array, for example, that would have been the end of the array. But thanks to unraid it was as simple as replacing a drive in place of the defective drive and asking unraid to rebuild the entire array!

 

I'm now a believer, and I cannot ever imagine migrating to any other platform.

[jimmysticky]

I do my own backups, so I'm not interested in parity right now.  Forgot to post that in the first post.

 

Also bitrot.  Seems like a scary thing.  The ZFS filesystem was designed to combat this.  I guess this is what the ECC memory is for and the auto-healing aspect with freeNAS.

 

apart from the fact that I don't want to use parity (for now),  I'm open to other opinions......

[vl1969]

I Knew I was gonna get heat from that!    Forgot to mention, I run an identical HDD setup on Probox connected to my PC.  The data is synced, it's a 1:1 backup.  It's crazy expensive, but I am most comfy in this setup.

 

eventually, I will do a parity setup along with the 1:1 backup.

 

Anyway, thanks for all the input guys.  Anyone else?  I thought I read here that the free version won't do password protected shares but the paid version will.  I would like to have some shares be open and other be PW protected.

 

I'm guessing that Sempron CPU would be a good idea?

 

it's all nice but  with unraid parity gives you something else in addition to data safety, it gives you uptime.

 

you see without parity if a hard drive kinks out on you all the data  on that harddrive becomes unavailable until you put the new one in and copy it back.

 

with proper parity protected setup your data will be accessible, maybe a bit slower as it have to be simulated from parity but still accessible. 

[jimmysticky]

I will eventually set up parity, I am not against it.  I just can't shell out any more $ on HDDs right now and need all that I have, since I am about 95% full on my 5TB.

 

 

[althoralthor]

I believe you CAN setup user shares with security on the paid version.  I'm still running the free version, so I have not used, but see here:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7047.msg68278%23msg68278

[trurl]

The Plus license allows use of the unRAID Share Security Model.