I am thinking about moving from Freenas to UnRaid, and after spending about 10 hours searching the forums, I just have a few more questions before I make the switch.  As mentioned, I am currenlty using Freenas .7 using ZFS (file system)

 

 

1. In case of an OS drive faliure, how easy is it to recover the array?  In ZFS, all I need to do reinstall the OS, and type "zfs import".  Does UnRaid have a similar process?

 

2. Is seems like the only native protocol used in UnRaid is SMB.  Is this still the case?  This was my main reason for originally going with Freenas.  I would love to use FTP and UPnP (Xbox 360).  I know there are addons, but I am unsure if I have the technical knowledge to install these.  I am able to move around fine in a Unix type system, but I have no idea how to make changes to the boot settings of the OS in order for 3rd party modules to boot up and have access to the file system.  Also I hate recompiling kernels, and is the main reason I have never switched to Linux (it scares the crap out of me)

 

3. I have read a couple of threads over at the AVS forum that says each disk in my array will show up as a network share.  Is this the case? (that just does not make any sense)  I would perfer to have an array, and then create folders (SMB shares) which would then show up on my network.

 

For example:

ad02, ad04, ad06, ad08  are members of array  "Tank"

Tank shows up as my logical drive, and then I create two folders "movies" and "music"

I then enable SAMBA sharing on "movies" and "music"

On my windows systems, movies and music appear as shares on my network.

 

4. How does mixing disks affect performace in the array.  I will be using 2 (1.5 TB) + 4 (500GB) + 1 (300GB) + 1 (120GB)

I understand that one of the 1.5 TB will be my parity, and I would then use the 120GB as my Cache drive.  I understand that the cache drive should mitigate any of the overhead of the array, but I just wanted to make sure my thinking was correct. 

 

 

Thanks for any insight.  I have been wanting to move to UnRaid since day one, but have always been put off by a few minor issues.

I am thinking about moving from Freenas to UnRaid, and after spending about 10 hours searching the forums, I just have a few more questions before I make the switch.  As mentioned, I am currenlty using Freenas .7 using ZFS (file system)

 

 

1. In case of an OS drive faliure, how easy is it to recover the array?  In ZFS, all I need to do reinstall the OS, and type "zfs import".  Does UnRaid have a similar process?

 

2. Is seems like the only native protocol used in UnRaid is SMB.  Is this still the case?  This was my main reason for originally going with Freenas.  I would love to use FTP and UPnP (Xbox 360).  I know there are addons, but I am unsure if I have the technical knowledge to install these.  I am able to move around fine in a Unix type system, but I have no idea how to make changes to the boot settings of the OS in order for 3rd party modules to boot up and have access to the file system.  Also I hate recompiling kernels, and is the main reason I have never switched to Linux (it scares the crap out of me)

 

3. I have read a couple of threads over at the AVS forum that says each disk in my array will show up as a network share.  Is this the case? (that just does not make any sense)  I would perfer to have an array, and then create folders (SMB shares) which would then show up on my network.

 

For example:

ad02, ad04, ad06, ad08  are members of array  "Tank"

Tank shows up as my logical drive, and then I create two folders "movies" and "music"

I then enable SAMBA sharing on "movies" and "music"

On my windows systems, movies and music appear as shares on my network.

 

4. How does mixing disks affect performace in the array.  I will be using 2 (1.5 TB) + 4 (500GB) + 1 (300GB) + 1 (120GB)

I understand that one of the 1.5 TB will be my parity, and I would then use the 120GB as my Cache drive.  I understand that the cache drive should mitigate any of the overhead of the array, but I just wanted to make sure my thinking was correct. 

 

 

Thanks for any insight.  I have been wanting to move to UnRaid since day one, but have always been put off by a few minor issues.

1. The OS drive is a USB key chain that is never part of the array.  they are fairly cheap to replace if you lose the drive and you can get another key from Tom to tie to your new drive.  If you back up the configuration files on the keychain to your desktop computer, then it is easy to just recopy those files to a newly formatted flash drive and you are off again.

 

2.  FTP is avaialbe but requires that you set it up for your own purposes. I'm not sure about any more, i have not needed anything aside from smb thus far.  Others might be able to help here.

 

3.  Disk can be exported as individual shares (or not if you don't want, it's a setting) and there is also a "user share" system that will span multiple drives.  if disk1 and disk3 have a folder called movies both will some files in it.  by accessing the user share "movies" you will see the contents of both movies folders on the two different drives merged into the single share.

 

//Tower/disk1/movies/movie A

//Tower/disk1/movies/movie B

//Tower/disk1/movies/movie C

and

//Tower/disk2/movies/movie D

//Tower/disk2/movies/movie E

//Tower/disk2/movies/movie F

 

will be accessible as

 

//Tower/movies/movie A

//Tower/movies/movie B

//Tower/movies/movie C

//Tower/movies/movie D

//Tower/movies/movie E

//Tower/movies/movie F

 

in the user share system.

 

4.  Your logic seems correct in terms of assigning drives.  The array performance will depend more on what types of drives (ide/sata) and where/how many are connected (mobo, pci card, pcie card).  You will notice in your parity checking that it will go slower at first (as it deals with ALL the drives) but then start to increase after it gets past the physical size of the smaller drives.  In terms of actual everyday read and write.. That will depend on your network, use of a cache drive and other parameters but as far as I know the size of the drive is not important to performance, instead it is specifications of the individual drive and the conditions of your set-up which will effect performance the most.

 

Cheers,

Matt

 

EDIT: clarification

I am thinking about moving from Freenas to UnRaid, and after spending about 10 hours searching the forums, I just have a few more questions before I make the switch.  As mentioned, I am currenlty using Freenas .7 using ZFS (file system)

 

 

1. In case of an OS drive faliure, how easy is it to recover the array?  In ZFS, all I need to do reinstall the OS, and type "zfs import".  Does UnRaid have a similar process?

The OS resides on a USB flash drive.  To recover, load a new flash drive with the latest release, if you have a copy of the "config" folder, copy it into place on the flash drive, boot up, and you are done.

If you do not have a copy of the config folder, go to the devices page and re-assign your drives to their slots in the array, then boot up, and you are nearly done. (You might need to re-define specific users and permissions)

 

If you are running the "Plus" or "Pro" versions of unRAID, send an e-mail with the details of your flash drive failure to lime-technology along with the GUID of the replacement flash drive, and you will get a replacement "key-file" to re-enable the additional drives and/or features.

2. Is seems like the only native protocol used in UnRaid is SMB.  Is this still the case?  This was my main reason for originally going with Freenas.  I would love to use FTP and UPnP (Xbox 360).  I know there are addons, but I am unsure if I have the technical knowledge to install these.  I am able to move around fine in a Unix type system, but I have no idea how to make changes to the boot settings of the OS in order for 3rd party modules to boot up and have access to the file system.  Also I hate recompiling kernels, and is the main reason I have never switched to Linux (it scares the crap out of me)

No need to ever compile anything.  unRAID supports both SMB and NFS file sharing, as you said, others can be added if you wish to set up a compile environment.

 

FTP is also supported (vsftpd is included), but you will need to configure it for your specific needs.

3. I have read a couple of threads over at the AVS forum that says each disk in my array will show up as a network share.  Is this the case? (that just does not make any sense)  I would perfer to have an array, and then create folders (SMB shares) which would then show up on my network.

Those are probably very old threads.  You can have multiple physical disks, each with their own "Music" and "Movies" folders, all presented as a single "Music" and "Movies" share on the LAN.

You can also have direct access to each physical disk if you desire, or you can elect to keep then as "hidden" shares, or not share them at all.  The "Virtual" (User-Shares) have separate permissions than the disk shares.

4. How does mixing disks affect performance in the array.  I will be using 2 (1.5 TB) + 4 (500GB) + 1 (300GB) + 1 (120GB)

I understand that one of the 1.5 TB will be my parity, and I would then use the 120GB as my Cache drive.  I understand that the cache drive should mitigate any of the overhead of the array, but I just wanted to make sure my thinking was correct. 

Cache drive only helps when writing to the array, it is not involved at all in reading, unless the file has not yet been moved from the cache drive to another in the array during the nightly processing.

 

The mixed drives has very little to do with performance, the BUS they are on will, as PCI-Express will be faster than PCI, and SATA will be faster than IDE, but for the most part, you are limited by BUS IO more than anything else.   When reading drives (playing movies, music, only the one drive with the media is involved.  When writing, two drives, the parity drive and the data are involved, and both need to be read and then written (4 I/O operations vs. 1 when reading)  The parity drive being an SATA drive on a PCI-Express controller will give you best performance.  It is best if the network interface does not share the same bus as the disk controllers.. (some motherboards cut costs and put them on the same bus, limiting throughput when doing a full parity check of the entire array while also serving files)

Thanks for any insight.  I have been wanting to move to UnRaid since day one, but have always been put off by a few minor issues.

What are the minor issues?   unRAID has evolved a lot in the past few years since those original threads were created on AVS.  I suggest you start with the unRAID wiki, and look there for more information about performance and features.

 

The best place for many answers to the type of questions you might ask is in the User-Contributed Documentation of the wiki.

 

Joe L.

Thanks guys, those are both excellent posts.  I will probably pick up a pro key this weekend, after I get enough drives together to migrate everything from my freenas server.

 

 

 

What are the minor issues?   unRAID has evolved a lot in the past few years since those original threads were created on AVS.  I suggest you start with the unRAID wiki, and look there for more information about performance and features.

 

The best place for many answers to the type of questions you might ask is in the User-Contributed Documentation of the wiki.

 

Joe L.

 

About a year ago, FTP and UPnP support was a must.  Both still are, but I think I can live without a UPnP server as UnRaid allows me to grow my array with very little limitations.

 

Being able to use ZFS, FTP, and UPnP are what caused me to use Freenas.  Now that I have hit the limitation of my ZRaid (Raid 5), I need to move to a setup which will allow me to grow in the near future.  (BlueRay rips and such) 

 

I did search the wiki quite a lot, and came across stuff like this: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1497  Since I am coming from a "Free" WebGui system which basically lets me enable/disable FTP at a push of a button, you can see how this was originally a major turn off for me.  I was hoping things have since changed, as I saw a number of change logs which mentioned FTP. 

 

EDIT: I saw you mentioned vsftpd is included.