March 27, 200917 yr All those things can be done now, albeit by folks experiences in Linux, but that is about to change Tom has announced that Version 5.x of unRAID will have a web server and php, an open API, and this will open a world new era in development of add ins and applications to run on top of unRAID. Give us a bit of time, and in a few months, you will be able to add torrents, media server, automatic backups, and many other features to uRAID with just a couple of clicks. Wow! You will certainly win over alot of windows users then. Add antivirus and spyware removers to the list. I love the fact the unraid is built on linux, if I download straight to linux (using a non privileged account would be better), and then have a daily antivirus linux based scan the files before playing with them in windows (I will always have at least 1 windows box in the house to play command and conquer!), that would be amazing! VMWARE Server or ESXi addon...even better! Media server (if it can serve xbxox and ps3 all files including mkv files on the fly, then wow!) SSH addon The PC backups you already mentioned... I look forward to this.
March 27, 200917 yr NZBGet rTorrent Apache 2.x consolewd for weather VirtualBox for VM where I do transcoding, and Encase indexing. Home automation and security I rolled my own. Same for media server, but it is largely based on Open ShowCenter.
October 20, 201015 yr Tom has announced that Version 5.x of unRAID will have a web server and php, an open API, and this will open a world new era in development of add ins and applications to run on top of unRAID. Give us a bit of time, and in a few months, you will be able to add torrents, media server, automatic backups, and many other features to uRAID with just a couple of clicks. I've been running unRaid for almost a year now and it works fine for safe place to dump files, but I'm looking for more and WHS has some of those things such as automatic backups. That is a big one, I need a simple backup system that just works. Like a "Time Machine" equivalent for windows. I know there are some programs out there that are like Time Machine such as Genie Time line. Back to the point, unRaid is a good product and if you want a 20TB file storage it is a good fit, but I want an Windows friendly sever that holds 2 to 4TB with some level of protection. The extra things that WHS can do with out understand what a script is appeals to me. I'm not a sysadmin, I'm not accustom to telnet-ting into a computer and typing in commands in order to install a add-in. The point of my post is to ask one last time what is so much better about unRaid than WHS. The only thing that stands out to me is the waste of disk space using Raid1. The cost of disks is so low I can live with that. BubbuQ - you mentioned that unRaid 5.0 will do most of the things I'm looking to do. Its been several months and still at Beta2 (which is more like an alpha considering all of the missing features). It seems like the development of unRaid is really really slow and as someone else mentioned the UI is really lacking (like high school html project). So my main unRaid cons are: -Slow Development -lack of features - automated backup -hard to install add-ins - unless you good with the Linux command line -lack of good/official documentation - unless you are really good a reading lots forums Main WHS pros: -Automated backup for any windows computer on the lan -remote desktop support -internet accessibility of content -ability to fully restore a windows computer from a backup -Grown set of add-ins Is there something about WHS that is going to come back to bit me?
October 20, 201015 yr Is there something about WHS that is going to come back to bit me? I don't think so, as long as you're happy with it being Windows based and having to sacrifice 1:1 space for shares you want to protect. WHS, in my opinion, is a bit more fuss in terms of how it handles the OS boot drive and you will be placing a lot of trust in its procedures to rebuild tombstone / indexes should your OS disk fail but then you would need faith in unraid as well. If I wasn't running unraid I'd be running WHS and the only reason I'm not is the 1:1 raid-1-esque space requirements for protecting data. I'd rather spend my money on usable storage space and unraid, at present, gives me the best ratio balanced with protection despite the products issues. If you do switch to WHS do post back and let us know how you get on.
October 20, 201015 yr If you do switch to WHS do post back and let us know how you get on. I have enough hardware to test out the 30 eval of WHS, so I'm going to give it a try and if it does what I'm hoping I'm going to switch over. Even if it goes well I think I might wait until the next release WHS code name Vail which is due out before year end.
October 20, 201015 yr Crewsr3, allow me to expand on your comparison a bit: (note: I've never personally used WHS, just read about it) unRAID pros: -efficient use of space (single parity drive, rest are data, hence unRAID is cheaper per GB of storage) -huge list of add-ons (such as Crashplan, which offers automated backups) -the best and most active support community that I've seen anywhere (granted, I don't get out much ) -free upgrades for life -ability to have an external drive for offsite backup, though this must be configured manually (via SNAP) unRaid cons: -Slow Development -lack of built in features (many features must be configured manually) -hard to install some add-ons (though unMenu makes installing many add-ons just a series of clicks) -lack of good/official documentation - unless you are really good a reading lots forums (and a wiki) -use of somewhat obscure file system (which could make data recovery more difficult) -lack of pretty interface (though unRAID 5.0 beta looks quite nice) WHS pros: -Automated backup for any windows computer on the lan -remote desktop support -internet accessibility of content -ability to fully restore a windows computer from a backup -Grown set of add-ons -Built-in ability to have a removable drive for offsite backup WHS cons: -inefficient use of space (RAID 1, hence more expensive per GB of storage) -support avenues are through the OEM or through Microsoft, far less community support -forced to use other Windows software, such as Windows Media Center (is this true? will WHS work with XBMC? I'm not sure) -lack of journaled file system (meaning data is more at risk of corruption) -no free upgrades In summary I think that both systems have their place. WHS is more appropriate for a network of all Windows computers that need to be backed up, but where the storage requirements aren't too high. unRAID is more appropriate for a network of mixed OS computers that need to be backed up, and/or where the storage requirements are high. Both will work as a media server, though I believe that unRAID is a bit more configurable and compatible with more HTPC systems (especially custom ones). WHS comes at a higher cost for storage (and the more storage you have, the higher the cost will be), but offers more built-in features and easier add-ons. unRAID is the budget option that offers more add-ons, expandability, and customization options, though at the cost of higher complexity.
October 20, 201015 yr WHS cons: -inefficient use of space (RAID 1, hence more expensive per GB of storage) -support avenues are through the OEM or through Microsoft, far less community support -forced to use other Windows software, such as Windows Media Center (is this true? will WHS work with XBMC? I'm not sure) -lack of journaled file system (meaning data is more at risk of corruption) -no free upgrades In summary I think that both systems have their place. WHS is more appropriate for a network of all Windows computers that need to be backed up, but where the storage requirements aren't too high. unRAID is more appropriate for a network of mixed OS computers that need to be backed up, and/or where the storage requirements are high. Both will work as a media server, though I believe that unRAID is a bit more configurable and compatible with more HTPC systems (especially custom ones). WHS comes at a higher cost for storage (and the more storage you have, the higher the cost will be), but offers more built-in features and easier add-ons. unRAID is the budget option that offers more add-ons, expandability, and customization options, though at the cost of higher complexity. - You only have to raid-1 / protect data at the *share* level. So inefficiency is only true if you look at protecting everything. If you choose to only protect a subset of critically important data then you could end up with more useable space than unraid. Though you could count unraid having a huge plus that all data is protected equally all the time (excepting of course disks outside the array but lets not go there ). Depends on how you look at it and how much data you really want or need to protect at the end of the day. There will be many people on the WHS side of the fence who would not want to 'waste' space protecting *all* their data and would be happy to only protect a few gigs of it rather than having to give over an entire 2TB disk to the job. - I'd disagree with the community support aspect. I think it's as good, probably better than unraid (certainly bigger). And would support through an OEM or Microsoft be worse than the official support through limetech? Hard to say... - WHS just exposes a network share in the same way unraid does (except, obviously 'natively' given it's a microsoft protocol) so will work equally well with XBMC. It will also integrate in some fashion with Windows Media Center (I believe this is getting better / tighter in the forthcoming release). If you mean natively then there is also the windows version of XBMC which, whilst I'm not familiar with it, I believe isn't really any different than the linux version (excepting perhaps variations of hardware acceleration supported) - NTFS is a journalled file system. I don't agree unraid is suited for higher storage requirements, there are some *very* big WHS installs out there and I don't believe there is a cap on number of disks WHS will support (outwith any inherent windows server limit). I also don't think unraid is better for a mixed network of computers, you can run (I think) any backup software available on unraid in windows and often many more besides. Including crashplan which you cited as a plus for unraid. It would be easier to get crashplan running under WHS than it is under unraid. I also don't think unraid is a budget option - at least in terms of software, WHS is unarguably more hardware heavyweight in terms of requiring a GUI but that could be balanced by the lack of any parity calculations required. Either way memory is the key difference and, realistically, if you look to be running lots of addsons on unraid *or* WHS you'll be stuffing in lots of ram anyway. I think the pro license of unraid compares more or less on the same level as a WHS license (certainly in £). I also don't think there are more addons available for unraid, if anything less, given WHS is effectively windows and you can natively install any windows application at all on it. All the pros you list in the unraid column equally apply to WHS *except* the usage of space / method of protection which, alongside the different native platform, is really the key differentiator. *If* WHS implemented a parity disk-esque option for data protection in the same way to unraid (which is very unlikely given microsofts general aversion to decent software raid / parity stacks) then we would be having a *very* different conversation. Some brave souls layer flexraid on top of WHS to get the best of both worlds but I don't have the grit to keep that all playing nicely. I don't mean to be argumentative, I'm a firm believer in best tool for the job - just highlighting where I think your info may be incorrect. edited to add WHS had some fairly hairy data protection issues / scares early on which will have knocked alot of trust in it. It's much better these days but reputation is hard to gain, easily lost.
October 20, 201015 yr Thanks for the detailed response, boof. You've definitely cleared up some of the areas where I'm fuzzy about WHS. - You only have to raid-1 / protect data at the *share* level. So inefficiency is only true if you look at protecting everything. If you choose to only protect a subset of critically important data then you could end up with more useable space than unraid. Though you could count unraid having a huge plus that all data is protected equally all the time (excepting of course disks outside the array but lets not go there ). Depends on how you look at it and how much data you really want or need to protect at the end of the day. There will be many people on the WHS side of the fence who would not want to 'waste' space protecting *all* their data and would be happy to only protect a few gigs of it rather than having to give over an entire 2TB disk to the job. That is true, and an argument I've heard in WHS's favor before. I agree that most people are fine with having most of their data unprotected, and thus WHS isn't as inefficient as I've made it out to be. However, I feel that to make the comparison fair we would have to compare WHS with all shares duplicated against unRAID (which inherently parity protects every data disk). As you've said, drives could be mounted outside the unRAID array, which would be similar to shares without duplication in WHS. - I'd disagree with the community support aspect. I think it's as good, probably better than unraid (certainly bigger). And would support through an OEM or Microsoft be worse than the official support through limetech? Hard to say... This is a tricky point, and I suppose it really comes down to personal preference. In my experience, I would MUCH rather get help from the unRAID support community than official support from a large company like Microsoft. In this community you actually get customized, helpful, and generally quick support. With a large company, you have to go through a script of all the things that you likely have already tried if you are a techy type (reboot, clear cache, etc) before you finally get to someone who can offer you some customized support. Since WHS is Microsoft software, I would expect the official support to be lousy (again, this is based on past experience). I feel that Microsoft hardware support is much better (Xbox support, for example). On these forums, the people who come to your rescue generally know what they are talking about. With official support from large corporations, the people who attempt to help you are generally just following a script, and don't have any real knowledge of the procedures involved. I've had far too many experiences in which I had to explain to some tech support guy/gal how their own product worked, and why we could skip steps A, B, and C because I've already ruled out X, Y, and Z before I called them. Then they make me go through the steps anyway Perhaps the WHS forums are just as active and friendly as the unRAID forums, I don't know. I hope they are. Granted, the official avenue of support for unRAID is quite lacking, as it is just one man. However, I've only ever seen a few issues that the community wasn't able to resolve themselves. It seems to me that the only time LimeTech is forced to get involved is when a new driver needs to be bundled in with unRAID, or something like that. - WHS just exposes a network share in the same way unraid does (except, obviously 'natively' given it's a microsoft protocol) so will work equally well with XBMC. It will also integrate in some fashion with Windows Media Center (I believe this is getting better / tighter in the forthcoming release). If you mean natively then there is also the windows version of XBMC which, whilst I'm not familiar with it, I believe isn't really any different than the linux version (excepting perhaps variations of hardware acceleration supported) Good to know, thanks. - NTFS is a journalled file system. So it is. Thanks, learned something new. I don't agree unraid is suited for higher storage requirements, there are some *very* big WHS installs out there and I don't believe there is a cap on number of disks WHS will support (outwith any inherent windows server limit). I also don't think unraid is better for a mixed network of computers, you can run (I think) any backup software available on unraid in windows and often many more besides. Including crashplan which you cited as a plus for unraid. It would be easier to get crashplan running under WHS than it is under unraid. Good points. I also don't think unraid is a budget option - at least in terms of software, WHS is unarguably more hardware heavyweight in terms of requiring a GUI but that could be balanced by the lack of any parity calculations required. Either way memory is the key difference and, realistically, if you look to be running lots of addsons on unraid *or* WHS you'll be stuffing in lots of ram anyway. The hardware req's seem pretty similar to me. For example, unRAID would definitely run on hardware with these same specs. I called unRAID the budget option because of the lower cost per GB of protected storage, and also the fact that you may be able to reuse your old hardware. Maybe you can do that with WHS too, not sure. I think the pro license of unraid compares more or less on the same level as a WHS license (certainly in £). Agreed. It compares pretty close in $ as well. I also don't think there are more addons available for unraid, if anything less, given WHS is effectively windows and you can natively install any windows application at all on it. I don't think this is true. The WHS website specifically says that you cannot install standard windows apps on WHS, but only pre-configured add-ons. If you know what you are doing you may be able to convert a Windows app to be a WHS add-on, but I certainly don't have that kind of know-how. All the pros you list in the unraid column equally apply to WHS *except* the usage of space / method of protection which, alongside the different native platform, is really the key differentiator. WHS has free upgrades for life? I thought Microsoft always makes you pay for new versions of their OSs? *If* WHS implemented a parity disk-esque option for data protection in the same way to unraid (which is very unlikely given microsofts general aversion to decent software raid / parity stacks) then we would be having a *very* different conversation. Some brave souls layer flexraid on top of WHS to get the best of both worlds but I don't have the grit to keep that all playing nicely. Agreed, and that would be very interesting to see. I don't mean to be argumentative, I'm a firm believer in best tool for the job - just highlighting where I think your info may be incorrect. I didn't take it that way at all, and I fully agree with using the best tool for the job. Thanks to your explanation, I think I understand why I might recommend WHS to certain people over unRAID. edited to add WHS had some fairly hairy data protection issues / scares early on which will have knocked alot of trust in it. It's much better these days but reputation is hard to gain, easily lost. Well, unRAID has some reputation issues as well, such as the 4.5.3 unformatted bug that caused some data loss. Granted, unRAID isn't in the limelight as much as WHS, so it probably doesn't have as much of a reputation to be tainted...
October 20, 201015 yr I don't think this is true. The WHS website specifically says that you cannot install standard windows apps on WHS, but only pre-configured add-ons. If you know what you are doing you may be able to convert a Windows app to be a WHS add-on, but I certainly don't have that kind of know-how. Ah fair point. WHS has an 'admin panel' which is where everything is controlled from. You need to jump through specific hoops to add items to this. However all this just sits on top of slightly tinkered windows server install. Once you go there you're welcome to do anything you like. Not quite as daunting as moving away from unraid web interface to having to ssh in, but it is still a few hoops to jump through which might scare some people away. WHS has free upgrades for life? I thought Microsoft always makes you pay for new versions of their OSs? *cough* except that one, sorry I blanked that one out for some reason
October 20, 201015 yr I believe that WHS has a 32 drive cap. With 2 TB drives that would give you 64 TB's of storage.
October 20, 201015 yr I believe that WHS has a 32 drive cap. With 2 TB drives that would give you 64 TB's of storage. If you used no duplication (hence no protection), 64 TB is correct. If you used full duplication, it would give you 32 TB of protected storage. At roughly $100 per 2TB drive, either configuration would cost $3,200. If you go for full duplication, you are getting 10 GB of protected storage for every dollar that you spend on hard drives. By comparison, unRAID's current cap of 20 data drives + 1 parity drive allows you to have up to 40 TB of protected storage. At $100 per 2TB drive, that configuration would cost you $2,100. This means you are getting about 19 GB of protected storage for every dollar that you spend on hard drives. Granted, these aren't very realistic comparisons. I don't think anyone actually has an unRAID array this large, do they? Likewise, does anyone have a 32 drive WHS? Still, it does point out the potential price difference if someone were to max out the two systems.
October 21, 201015 yr You would get 32 TB of protection. 16 drives times 2 TB. The other 16 drives would be for duplication. I only posted because boof wasn't sure if there was a drive cap in WHS. P.S. I'm not a fanboy of either software. They each have their place. I am running both & yes I do have a Pro license.
October 21, 201015 yr I really appreciate everyone comments and input, this is what I was looking for (to learn more about my options). The real gem that makes unRaid so great (other than how it handles parity) is the community. Hats off to everyone! Unfortunately for me, I'm not that good with forums. I just have a hard time reading/searching long threads to find that one bit of information I need to do what ever it is I'm looking for. Add to that I'm not that good with linux. I love the idea of unRaid and I wish Tom the best, but I think WHS works better for me at this time. <ramble alert> Funny thing is I live in the same area as Tom (Fort Collins, CO) and I even offered to help him catch up on orders back in January when he posted this: http://www.lime-technology.com/company/news/99-getting-caught-up-with-server-orders on the main page. I figured he could use an extra hand wiring up some boxes. The fact that its still there nearly 11 months later added to the idea of slow development along with the "limited time" $10 off that is not so limited. It makes me think that unRaid is Toms hobby and he makes some extra cash on the side with it. I think he could go big time with this. He already has an amazing community supporting him. Why not kick unRaid into high gear. All he needs is to put some extra time into the development to get 5.0 out the door with some of the features that most people have been asking for (AFP, UPNP, Automatic backup, etc). I think he might need to hire someone to build a high-end GUI, he seems to be a technical guy not a designer. Hire some of the forum hero's to develop some quality documentation that is user friendly. Then build out the website to look more professional. With these key things I think Tom could really build some market share. Who knows, then maybe he could quit his day job turn unRaid some real money and get bought out by some big storage company and live the American Dream. </ramble alert> Thanks again for the great feedback
October 21, 201015 yr I am not sure WHS vs unRAID is a valid comparison really... I have WHS, I like WHS its great at what it does, but I never considered it a valid "Mass Storage" solution... it doesn't have or support (without extra work) any sort of RAID type redundancy, I really like the idea of being able to recover from a single drive failure... at least when talking about "Mass Storage"... WHS folder duplication just isn't the same... as for my WHS, I have maybe 2T in the 'pool', it is used mostly as a backup for my desktop... but not really the WHS autobackup because that really doesn't work so well when you have a 64 bit OS on your desktop... especially an odd one like win XP x64 unRAID seems, at least so far to be much better at the "Mass Storage" side of things... as for the comment earlier about having to jump through hopes or some such to get to the win2k3 server console, um what hoops? I just connect a monitor and I am there? (or RDP) how is that hoops?
October 21, 201015 yr as for the comment earlier about having to jump through hopes or some such to get to the win2k3 server console, um what hoops? I just connect a monitor and I am there? (or RDP) how is that hoops? WHS is sold as an appliance, like unraid. It's a hoop in that many WHS users would give you a blank look if you mention RDP, in the same way an unraid user might if you tell them to use telnet or ssh. You need knowledge that it exists, how to use it and also what benefits it would bring. You can happily get by on WHS without ever touching it. (as unraid with telnet / ssh) Some WHS users will also not be aware that it's a fully functional windows install underneath as well, which has already been demonstrated by some initial WHS impressions earlier in the thread. For me, and you, it's second nature to know we could RDP in and tinker with the windows install 'underneath' in the same way we know we can ssh into the unraid linux backend and do whatever we would usually do with any other linux box, but that's a definite 'power user' function in both and it's a knowledge bridge we crossed at some point ourselves.
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