[SOLVED] First Time Install & Link to HTPC

[viperdiver]

Hey all-

 

So I currently have an HTPC with a 3TB and 500GB drive, being backed up to a 4TB external.  Reached my storage limit and decided to join the unRaid world.

 

Here's what I bought for my unRAID box:

USB for unRaid: 8GB Sandisk Cruzer Fit (for the Plus version of unRaid--do you think I need Pro?)

CPU: Intel Pentium G3220

Mobo: Asus H87M-Plus CSM

RAM: 1 x 4GB Corsair Value Select

PSU: Corsair CX 430

HDD: 2TB WD Mainstream (Green)

Case: NZXT Source 220

 

So here is my thoughts: The 4TB external I can crack the shell and make it an internal - parity drive.  The 3TB and 500GB I want to leave as is with the current data on it.  The 2TB will be my new drive for more data.  Here's my questions to the world:

 

1 - Can I just hook all my disks up and will unRaid let me work with them as is?  Steps I see that need to happen - 4TB needs to be cleared/formatted before becoming the parity drive, the 3TB and 500GB drives I want to just be 'absorbed' into the array with the data currently on them, the 2TB drive is empty, can just be connected?  Do I need to do something before just hooking all the drives up and booting into unRAID?

 

2 - I currently have media browser linked to all my files - any experience out there?  I plan to keep my htpc box for internet access and media browser hooked up to my TV.  The unRAID box I want to hook into my router.  Can I link my media browser folders on my htpc box to the unRAID box?  Any special steps, or since unRAID saves all files to one disk, I can still just access the files directly?

 

3 - What else am I missing?  What should I know before I continue?

 

Thanks for any support - excited for first NAS build!

[garycase]

A few thoughts ...

 

I'd buy a 2nd 4GB memory module so your memory will run in dual channel mode.  Not a big deal, but it DOES double the bandwidth of memory transfers, so it helps a bit with performance.  [it doesn't double the overall memory speed, since wait states, etc. are still delays -- but once a transfer starts, it's twice as fast]

 

Hopefully the CX430 will work okay for you ... I advise staying aware from the low-end CX series Corsair units, as they're not fully spec compliant -- but if they work on your system they're fine.  I've simply seen quite a few systems that wouldn't boot with CX series units, but always work fine with the higher-end Corsair PSU's (TX or above -- I always use HX series units).

 

You can't just put your 3TB and 500GB drives in UnRAID.  They have to be formatted with the Reiser file system; and all current data will be lost when you do that.    Instead of using your current external unit, I'd keep it as a backup and buy a new 4TB (or larger) drive for parity -- if you can afford it, get a 6TB WD Red ... then you won't have any restrictions on the size for drives you want to add to the system later.      Then be CERTAIN your backups are up-to-date (I'd verify them as well) ... and then you can add the two smaller drives to your UnRAID server and, after they're formatted and ready-to-go copy all the data from your backup to the server.

 

 

[garycase]

As for accessing the individual drives -- you can either create a "user share" that will let UnRAID treat all of your drives as a single share (which you can map as a drive in your HTPC);  or you can access the drive shares independently, if you want to use a single disk for your media browser folders.

 

I'd use a share, as that is essentially a "disk" that you can grow to whatever size you may need.

 

[viperdiver]

Ok - thanks for those thoughts.  I am planning to buy another memory module when the deal rolls around.  As for the PSU, I've had luck with that one before, but if it craps out I will probably get a SeaSonic.  I have been warned   Thanks for the info on the drives - that's good to know.  So to verify I know what you are meaning:

 

-Currently 4TB backup of a 3TB and 500 GB data disk.  2TB empty disk.  Let's say I buy a 4TB WD Red (would also be empty).

-Step 1 - Make sure 4TB backup is up to date

-Step 2 - Make 4TB WD Red parity drive

-Step 3 - Wipe 3TB and 500GB drives and add them (with the 2TB drive) into the array

-Step 4 - Transfer the 4TB backup drive data into the array -- will this work splitting that 4TB drive onto the 3, 2, and .5 TB drives?  Or do I need another 4TB drive?

-Step 5 - add the 4TB backup drive into the array as a blank disk for future use.

 

I guess this adds a question - when I add files in the future, can I choose what disk it goes to?

[sgibbers17]

I also remember reading on this forum advising against 4tb external drives for unraid.  I think it had to do with a hidden partition.

[trurl]

I would question step 5 and I know garycase will.

 

unRAID is not a backup. You should have a backup of any important files. Personally, I don't backup all of the files on my array. I just choose to backup those things that I consider very important.

 

If you take your backup and wipe it for another array drive then you won't have a backup.

[viperdiver]

Thanks for the thoughts.  To be clear - this is purely to be a holder for the digital copies of my movies to tie to my htpc.  The 'backup' drive is currently holding all those files in backup, to save me the problem of going though all my movies again if a drive dies.  If my htpc dies, I don't care because it is only windows, internet, and media center/browser.  If my unRAID fails, I don't care because I have the disks if I need to get the movies off them again.

 

This is NOT for my actual computer, which has my real files, and 'lose-able' files like pictures.  That is a completely separate system with its own backup.

 

The main reason I am moving to unRAID is to have some sort of backup for all my movies (via single disk failure protection), as my 4TB drive isn't enough.  I don't like the idea of getting ANOTHER 4TB backup drive for another 4TB of data--I could just set up a RAID 1 for that, but I don't want to waste all the disks.

 

Hopefully that clears up my intended use and steers the discussion.  All these great thoughts bring up more questions - not related, but how does one of you with >6TB of storage in your unRAID box back that up?  Another whole unRAID box?  A bunch of 6TB drives?  Seems brutal, but I don't THINK I need to backup - if you think I am missing something please let me know.

[garycase]

I would question step 5 and I know garycase will.

 

Yes, I'll comment on that as well.

 

What you suggested WILL work just fine -- if you create a User Share and copy to that, your files will be spread across all your disks with no problem ... you don't have to worry about matching the size of the drive you're copying from.

 

... and after you're done, you can indeed pull the drive from the external case and add it to your UnRAID server to provide an additional 4TB of space.

 

HOWEVER, as trurl noted, that will wipe out your backup.  I'm a very strong believer in keeping backups of all of your data.  UnRAID is NOT a backup ... it's simply a fault-tolerant NAS.    Clearly a lot of folks don't bother with backups -- there are plenty of threads on this forum asking for help recovering data that's been lost (sometimes you can; sometimes you can't).    But my view is you should always have any data you don't want to lose backed up.

 

With regard to the comment about pulling external drives to use in UnRAID.    There have been some instances where an external drive had a "hidden" partition that caused the drive to be slightly smaller than a bare drive of the same size.    This is NOT a problem as long as you're not trying to use the drive as your parity drive.    For data use, it's fine (and the amount of "missing" space is trivial ... not worth the bother to restore it).

 

[garycase]

... how does one of you with >6TB of storage in your unRAID box back that up?  Another whole unRAID box?  A bunch of 6TB drives?

 

You can use another server; or a bunch of extra drives (they don't have to be 6TB).    I have nearly 40TB of "stuff" -- ALL backed up on either my backup server or a set of extra drives.

 

You can read my thoughts on backups here:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31020.0

 

 

... I don't THINK I need to backup - if you think I am missing something please let me know.

 

A LOT of folks don't think they need backups -- UNTIL they lose a bunch of their data 

Even data you think you can simply "reload from disks" can be a real PITA when you consider how much time is involved in re-ripping all the disks;  possibly re-compressing it to a different format;  cataloging it; etc.    I simply consider the cost of backups very reasonable insurance.    How much it really costs to keep backups depends on the rate at which you're adding data to your server, and whether you have older (smaller) drives that you can use for backups as you add newer, high capacity drives to your system.    If, for example, you're growing your collection at a rate of 300GB/month, that's still less than one 4TB drive a year ... only about $150/year to maintain backups (even less if you use re-purposed drives or buy 2nd hand ones on e-bay).

 

 

[trurl]

As for backing up our unRAIDs, there are going to be different answers for different people.

 

Personally, I don't backup movies or tv shows. They are just not that important to me and I don't have a large collection. I can re-rip, re-download, or just forget about them.

 

My wife's photography and our personal files live on the PC, with nightly backup to unRAID. I also have incremental image backups of that PC on unRAID to make it easier to restore it. Our large music collection lives on unRAID, some of this has backup in the form of physical CDs.

 

I take monthly backups of the music, photos, and personal files from unRAID to an external drive, and store it offsite. I have 2 of these that I rotate so one is always at another location. 2TB is currently enough space for one of these offsite backups, which is everything I consider important. When I outgrow the 2TB offsite backups, I will probably have some spare 3TBs from upsizing array drives, which is where these spare 2TBs originally came from.

[garycase]

Trurl's approach is fairly common.    He backs up everything he considers important ... and also ensures he has a copy off-site  (definitely a good idea ... a lot of folks use cloud backup services for this these days).

 

That's really all I would NEED to do ... but I'm a backup fanatic, and simply don't want to lose all the media I've built up over more than a decade of collecting; organizing; re-rendering; cataloging;  etc.  I have almost all the original source DVDs (I've sold some) ... but just the time to re-rip, re-compress, etc. is not something I ever want to contend with.    I could go through it all and categorize it as "don't want to lose";  "would prefer not to lose"; and "wouldn't really care if I lost it" groups -- and backup accordingly;  but it's simpler to just back it all up 

 

I suppose my view is that if you consider your data important enough to build a fault-tolerant server to hold it, it's probably important enough to back it up.    But the important thing is to be sure anything you'd be upset about losing is backed up.    The rest is clearly a matter of personal choice.

 

[viperdiver]

All great thoughts.  I will read your thoughts on backup, garycase, and think about the PITA of reloading all my disks vs. cost of creating a backup for the unRAID set.  Regardless, my old 4TB external is no longer a viable backup solution - it could be one of multiple backup disks at best.

 

Great to know that User Share will work moving data from a 4TB to multiple smaller drives.

 

Also, I will keep the external 4TB to parity drive concerns in mind, but it sounds like I will need a new drive regardless, so I will just buy an internal (WD red probably) and make that the parity drive.

 

I think my last questions now relate to the practical, how do I link the unRAID files in the NAS box to my HTPC box?  Does it appear as just another network drive?

 

I am using media browser, which points folders to certain drives.  For instance, say my 3TB drive is D:\ and 500 GB drive is E:\.  I may have the following:

 

D:\Kids_Movies

E:\Kids_Movies2

E:\Parents_Movies

 

In media browser, I have a hot link for kids movies, and it is linked to BOTH D:\Kids_Movies and E:\Kids_Movies2.  There is also a hot link for parent's movies linked to E:\Parents Movies.

 

Once I create the user share, and all the files are pulled into unRAID, is there still an equivalent "Kids_Movies" folder somewhere, and I can find it...how?  Does it show up under the network as just one drive with all these folders in it?

 

Hope that makes sense.

[bkastner]

All great thoughts.  I will read your thoughts on backup, garycase, and think about the PITA of reloading all my disks vs. cost of creating a backup for the unRAID set.  Regardless, my old 4TB external is no longer a viable backup solution - it could be one of multiple backup disks at best.

 

Great to know that User Share will work moving data from a 4TB to multiple smaller drives.

 

Also, I will keep the external 4TB to parity drive concerns in mind, but it sounds like I will need a new drive regardless, so I will just buy an internal (WD red probably) and make that the parity drive.

 

I think my last questions now relate to the practical, how do I link the unRAID files in the NAS box to my HTPC box?  Does it appear as just another network drive?

 

I am using media browser, which points folders to certain drives.  For instance, say my 3TB drive is D:\ and 500 GB drive is E:\.  I may have the following:

 

D:\Kids_Movies

E:\Kids_Movies2

E:\Parents_Movies

 

In media browser, I have a hot link for kids movies, and it is linked to BOTH D:\Kids_Movies and E:\Kids_Movies2.  There is also a hot link for parent's movies linked to E:\Parents Movies.

 

Once I create the user share, and all the files are pulled into unRAID, is there still an equivalent "Kids_Movies" folder somewhere, and I can find it...how?  Does it show up under the network as just one drive with all these folders in it?

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Your UnRAID server will sit out on the network and show the available shares (i.e. \\tower\movies, \\tower\tvshows etc). You can choose to share them as SMB (which Windows natively uses) or as NFS (which Linux natively uses). If your HTPC is a Windows box then SMB is likely sufficient. All you need to do is create the shares on UnRAID and on your HTPC box map each share to a drive (i.e. d: = \\tower\movies, etc) just like you normally would when mapping drives from one computer to another.

 

Because your shares can span multiple drives there is no need for a kids_movies and kids_movies2. You would just have kids_movies as a share and parent_movies.

 

Alternatively, depending on your HTPC software you can have a single movies share and use tags for kids movies. I have a daughter Natasha, and so any kids movies I include a tag "Natasha". I use XBMC and have a general movies category, and then I have created a playlist for any movies with the tag "Natasha". This way when I am looking to play something for my daughter I am only going through the 200 movies for her, rather than the 2500 total movies.

 

However... this is likely getting deeper than you necessarily care at the moment.

 

It's just cool what you can actually start to do once you scratch the surface.

[viperdiver]

Excellent!  That's great to know, and thanks for all the info.  I look forward to playing with it once I set up my box...now to find the last 4TB drive.  I'll post more questions here as I get them and am building, but for now this is solved.  Thanks for all the awesome support.

[garycase]

As I noted earlier, you may want to consider a 6TB WD Red for the parity drive -- then you won't have any restrictions in the future adding new drives to the system (at least not until drives get larger than 6TB).    It's an extra $100 or so now ... but "future proofs" the server nicely.

 

As for segregating your shares -- you could create one share called "Movies" and map that to a drive letter in Windows;  then just have subfolders named Kids Movies and Parents Movies;  or you could create shares called Kids Movies and Parents Movies; and map each of those to a different drive letter.    Whichever works best for your HTPC software is what I'd do.

 

But you no longer have to be concerned with the SIZE of your "drives" -- just map a drive letter to a user share; and you can add space to that share by just adding another drive to the UnRAID server.

 

If you use a 6TB parity; then the next time you need more space you can add 6TB with just one more drive 

[viperdiver]

Thanks again. I didn't blow off your advice about a 6tb parity drive, but with 12 bays and at 4tb the ability to multiply my current space 6 fold, by the time I would need the 6tb there will likely be something better out there. (I assume you meant parity drive, not cache drive).

 

As for the user share idea, I don't fully understand what you mean, but thats likely due to an unfamiliarity with the software.

 

Once I get it up and running I'll be able to play with it and your words will probably make a lot more sense to me.

 

Thanks again for the time and guidance.

[garycase]

Yes, I meant to say parity drive (I fixed the post).

 

I agree that by the time you run out of space using 4TB drives there will likely be even larger drives.  Only you know what rate you're acquiring data ... I was just noting that with 6TB drives it'll be 50% longer before that time when 12 bays won't be enough.

 

You'll definitely understand User Shares much better once you actually set up the system and create one 

 

[viperdiver]

Thanks!

[bkastner]

Yes, I meant to say parity drive (I fixed the post).

 

I agree that by the time you run out of space using 4TB drives there will likely be even larger drives.  Only you know what rate you're acquiring data ... I was just noting that with 6TB drives it'll be 50% longer before that time when 12 bays won't be enough.

 

You'll definitely understand User Shares much better once you actually set up the system and create one 

 

Also you extend the life of each UnRAID license (3 disks will give you 12TB usable instead of 8TB with 4TB disks, before you need to purchase an UnRAID Plus license. You then have 36TB usable vs 24TB before you need to buy the Pro license).

 

Not that this is a huge savings, and Tom and team may start adding features to the paid versions that will justify the upgrade cost as well.

 

[viperdiver]

That's a good point. Buying all new disks now though is more expensive than just buying the plus, but then it would let me go a ways before needing to go pro. Good thought!

[garycase]

Buying all new disks also lets you use your older disks for backups 

 

Note that with 6TB drives, you can build an UnRAID system with 12TB of capacity with the FREE version.

 

[viperdiver]

True... But my wife may kill me if I say I spent 750 for the three 6tb to save 60 on a licence!

[garycase]

True... But my wife may kill me if I say I spent 750 for the three 6tb to save 60 on a licence!

 

Unfortunately we can't help with that issue 

[garycase]

... although just to be clear, you'd only need to buy TWO of the 6TB drives to start -- that would give you 6TB of protected storage.

 

[viperdiver]

Good point...