March 31, 200917 yr Yes, I have read the various installation guides, and it seems like I saw this, but I've been looking again for quite a while and can't find it. At the initial setup, how many new, or blank, drives are required? I have many drives to copy over, then integrate into the system, but not sure how to proceed initially. Do I just need one drive, aside from the parity drive, onto which I could copy my first drive, then integrate that one, copy to it, and so on? I also read to initially not install the parity drive if you have a lot of data to copy over. I didn't completely get that, do I leave sata1 open while I install everything else (I'll be using a 4 port nvidia controller on mainboard, plus a 4 port Promise sata controller)? When you do install the parity how do you tell the server that it is the parity drive, or is it determined by the port that it's on? Is that generally accepted as the best way to configure the server? Re: expansion- I will eventually be adding a 2nd sata controller for more drives, do I have to install the controller up front, even though there won't be any drives attached at first? I know I can add drives incrementally, but didn't know if that applied to controllers also. thanks for any help, rlr
March 31, 200917 yr On the devices page you map disks to "slots". There is no relationship between physical port numbers (i.e., sata1) and slots (i.e., disk1). You can assign any drive to any slot. There are multiple ways to load your array. I suggest the following ... 1. Arramge your data in its current home (e.g., Windows workstation) to empty as many drives as possible 2. Install all of your empty drives (and any new drives) into the unRAID server. 3. (optional) Run the preclear script to burn in any new disks - see User Customization section for the preclear script 4. Boot the server, go to the devices page, assign the drives to slots (but do not assign the parity disk to the parity slot) 5. Start the array, format the disks (quick), and then copy data from whereever it currently lives, over the network, to the disks in the array. The speed should be close to 45 MB/sec. 6. When the disks in the server are full, if you plan to remove disks from their existing computers and move them into the unRAID server, first install parity so that you are protected from a disk failure: . a. Stop the array . b. Go to the devices page . c. Assign the parity disk to the parity slot . d. Go back to the main page . e. Start the array . f. (Parity will build - it will take a while) . g. After parity builds, manually click [Check] to start a parity check (it will also take a while) . h. If the parity check completes and there are no sync errors, you are protected 7. Power down and install the disks (that contain data already copied to the array) into the array 8. Start the server 9. (optional) Run the preclear script on the disks (you can run multiple drives at once) - see the User Customizations section for the preclear script 10. Stop the array if it starts automatically 11. Go to the devices page and assign your newly added disks to slots 12. Go back to the main page and start the array 13. If you ran the preclear scripts, unRAID will incorporate the drives into the array instantly, if you didn't then unRAID will clear the disks (takes a while) 14. Format the disks 15. Copy more data to the array over your network (speed will be ~14 MB/sec) copying to the protected array 16. Once, done, if you now have another round of disks to move to the array, go back to step 7 Its not hard but is time consuming. Good luck!
April 1, 200917 yr On the devices page you map disks to "slots". There is no relationship between physical port numbers (i.e., sata1) and slots (i.e., disk1). You can assign any drive to any slot. There are multiple ways to load your array. I suggest the following ... 1. Arramge your data in its current home (e.g., Windows workstation) to empty as many drives as possible 2. Install all of your empty drives (and any new drives) into the unRAID server. 3. (optional) Run the preclear script to burn in any new disks - see User Customization section for the preclear script 4. Boot the server, go to the devices page, assign the drives to slots (but do not assign the parity disk to the parity slot) 5. Start the array, format the disks (quick), and then copy data from whereever it currently lives, over the network, to the disks in the array. The speed should be close to 45 MB/sec. 6. When the disks in the server are full, if you plan to remove disks from their existing computers and move them into the unRAID server, first install parity so that you are protected from a disk failure: . a. Stop the array . b. Go to the devices page . c. Assign the parity disk to the parity slot . d. Go back to the main page . e. Start the array . f. (Parity will build - it will take a while) . g. After parity builds, manually kick [Check] to start a parity check (it was also take a while) . h. If the parity check completes and there are no sync errors, you are protected 7. Power down and install the disks (that contain data already copied to the array) into the array 8. Start the server 9. (optional) Run the preclear script on the disks (you can run multiple drives at once) - see the User Customizations section for the preclear script 10. Stop the array if it starts automatically 11. Go to the devices page and assign your newly added disks to slots 12. Go back to the main page and start the array 13. If you ran the preclear scripts, unRAID will incorporate the drives into the array instantly, if you didn't then unRAID will clear the disks (takes a while) 14. Format the disks 15. Copy more data to the array over your network (speed will be ~14 MB/sec) copying to the protected array 16. Once, done, if you now have another round of disks to move to the array, go back to step 7 Its not hard but is time consuming. Good luck! It's responses like this that make this such an amazing community. Honestly, I have found such few forums where people will take the time to write up such a detailed response that is coherent and easy to follow. There are a few Hero members on this board that deserve a huge Thank You from novice members such as myself and from Lime-Technology. If it were not for these members, I most likely would not have purchased an Unraid license. I understand Tom is hard at work in the background improving things and does not have time to respond to all posts, but when he does it is very much appreciated. In the end though, it is the active and knowledgeable forum members that are driving sales for this product. Please, keep up the great work!
April 1, 200917 yr Added to the FAQ (link back only), "Is there a guide to moving all of my existing data to my new unRAID server?". Feel free to edit.
April 1, 200917 yr Author On the devices page you map disks to "slots". There is no relationship between physical port numbers (i.e., sata1) and slots (i.e., disk1). You can assign any drive to any slot. There are multiple ways to load your array. I suggest the following ... 1. Arramge your data in its current home (e.g., Windows workstation) to empty as many drives as possible 2. Install all of your empty drives (and any new drives) into the unRAID server. 3. (optional) Run the preclear script to burn in any new disks - see User Customization section for the preclear script 4. Boot the server, go to the devices page, assign the drives to slots (but do not assign the parity disk to the parity slot) 5. Start the array, format the disks (quick), and then copy data from whereever it currently lives, over the network, to the disks in the array. The speed should be close to 45 MB/sec. 6. When the disks in the server are full, if you plan to remove disks from their existing computers and move them into the unRAID server, first install parity so that you are protected from a disk failure: . a. Stop the array . b. Go to the devices page . c. Assign the parity disk to the parity slot . d. Go back to the main page . e. Start the array . f. (Parity will build - it will take a while) . g. After parity builds, manually kick [Check] to start a parity check (it was also take a while) . h. If the parity check completes and there are no sync errors, you are protected 7. Power down and install the disks (that contain data already copied to the array) into the array 8. Start the server 9. (optional) Run the preclear script on the disks (you can run multiple drives at once) - see the User Customizations section for the preclear script 10. Stop the array if it starts automatically 11. Go to the devices page and assign your newly added disks to slots 12. Go back to the main page and start the array 13. If you ran the preclear scripts, unRAID will incorporate the drives into the array instantly, if you didn't then unRAID will clear the disks (takes a while) 14. Format the disks 15. Copy more data to the array over your network (speed will be ~14 MB/sec) copying to the protected array 16. Once, done, if you now have another round of disks to move to the array, go back to step 7 Its not hard but is time consuming. Good luck! that's great, thanks a lot, It seems like I really want to have as many drives as possible to start out with, so I can copy as much data as possible before I start the parity, I didn't realize how much that slowed things down. Isn't the read speed faster than that though? thx, rlr
April 1, 200917 yr that's great, thanks a lot, It seems like I really want to have as many drives as possible to start out with, so I can copy as much data as possible before I start the parity, I didn't realize how much that slowed things down. Isn't the read speed faster than that though? thx, rlr The read speed will be normal and much faster then the write speeds when there is a parity drive attached. The Pro version of unRAID offers the cache drive and that fixes the slower write speeds.
April 2, 200917 yr that's great, thanks a lot, You're welcome. It seems like I really want to have as many drives as possible to start out with, so I can copy as much data as possible before I start the parity, I didn't realize how much that slowed things down. Bingo. Isn't the read speed faster than that though? The good news is that reads do not go through any sort of parity verification, so they operate at full speed. The bad news is that means that parity can be completely screwed up and your array will act totally normally. Moral of the story - run your monthly parity checks to ensure that your recoverability is intact. Enjoy your array!
April 2, 200917 yr Author that's great, thanks a lot, It seems like I really want to have as many drives as possible to start out with, so I can copy as much data as possible before I start the parity, I didn't realize how much that slowed things down. Isn't the read speed faster than that though? thx, rlr The read speed will be normal and much faster then the write speeds when there is a parity drive attached. The Pro version of unRAID offers the cache drive and that fixes the slower write speeds. Is that an additional drive I'd need to add? thanks, rlr
April 2, 200917 yr Is that an additional drive I'd need to add? thanks, rlr If you take a look at the FAQ you will see a lot of information in there. There is a section for the Cache Drive that might help to explain it a little more.
April 5, 200917 yr Author Is that an additional drive I'd need to add? thanks, rlr If you take a look at the FAQ you will see a lot of information in there. There is a section for the Cache Drive that might help to explain it a little more. Hmmm, def looks like something I'd want to have, it does seem a bit involved though, wouldn't a second parity improve the speed almost as much? I wasn't sure if it deleted data automatically, they talk a lot about the manual functions it does. If you just want it to move data once a day, for example, can you "set it and forget it", for the most part anyways, and it will just move and delete data at specified time? I also didn't see anything about any required size, so it doesn't seem like you need same size as parity? not that I'd want it too much smaller, but could be convenient use for my 750GB. I have a 2 port controller I could set it to raid 1 for the cache, won't have a lot of extra drive space in the case I'm starting out with though. It will hold 9 drives after I buy an extra drive cage for it. Once it's full I'm planning on moving it to prob one of those Norco cases. Are any of you guys using raid 1(in you're UnRaid server, LOL) for the cache disk? Thanks, rlr
April 7, 200917 yr ... wouldn't a second parity improve the speed almost as much? Parity is a data redundancy feature and does NOT improve performance, it slows it down! The current single parity disk slows things down by a factor of 3. A second parity disk would slow things down even further. And there is no 2nd parity disk feature at least not at this time. The cache drive is an unprotected disk that temporarily stores data destined for the array. It "feels" fast because the slow writes to the protected array are deferred until overnight. Perhaps you were suggesting a RAID-0 or RAID-1 parity - logically ONE parity disk but physically TWO disks. Experiments with these have not yielded nearly the significant performance boost of the cache disk. See this post.
April 10, 200917 yr Author ... wouldn't a second parity improve the speed almost as much? Parity is a data redundancy feature and does NOT improve performance, it slows it down! The current single parity disk slows things down by a factor of 3. A second parity disk would slow things down even further. And there is no 2nd parity disk feature at least not at this time. The cache drive is an unprotected disk that temporarily stores data destined for the array. It "feels" fast because the slow writes to the protected array are deferred until overnight. Perhaps you were suggesting a RAID-0 or RAID-1 parity - logically ONE parity disk but physically TWO disks. Experiments with these have not yielded nearly the significant performance boost of the cache disk. See this post. Is the size of the parity disk important (aside from being big enough for the data I might need to load in a day)? Are people using RAID1 with the cache drive as is mentioned in guide? Does it only run at specified time, or can you unload it anytime you want (while keeping the automatic function)? Thanks, rlr
April 10, 200917 yr ... wouldn't a second parity improve the speed almost as much? Parity is a data redundancy feature and does NOT improve performance, it slows it down! The current single parity disk slows things down by a factor of 3. A second parity disk would slow things down even further. And there is no 2nd parity disk feature at least not at this time. The cache drive is an unprotected disk that temporarily stores data destined for the array. It "feels" fast because the slow writes to the protected array are deferred until overnight. Perhaps you were suggesting a RAID-0 or RAID-1 parity - logically ONE parity disk but physically TWO disks. Experiments with these have not yielded nearly the significant performance boost of the cache disk. See this post. Is the size of the parity disk important (aside from being big enough for the data I might need to load in a day)? I'm assuming you intended to write "Is the size of the CACHE drive important...?" No, it can be any size you desire. (The PARITY drive in unRAID must be as big, or bigger than the biggest of your data drives. That aspect of unRAID will never change) Are people using RAID1 with the cache drive as is mentioned in guide? As far as I know, no. I doubt it is possible unless you use an eSATA enclosure that does its own RAID1 in hardware and pretends to be a single disk to unRAID. Does it only run at specified time, or can you unload it anytime you want (while keeping the automatic function)? The script that moves data from the cache drive to the other data drives is run either on demand or (by default) a daily entry in cron (in the middle of the night). You can change the cron schedule to invoke the "mover" script at any time you desire. The "mover" script will not move files that are in the process of being read or written (open files are not moved until they are "closed"). Thanks, rlr You are welcome. Personally, I do not use a cache drive. I've never been in that much of a rush to copy data to my server that I can't just copy it directly to the data drives. Now, I do no real-time data capture, so this might not work if you are writing data in "real-time" and need every bit of write speed possible to the array. unRAID, without a cache drive, is plenty fast enough for me if all I am doing is ripping a DVD image, or backing up another PC on my LAN. The cache drive is not involved at all when playing media (unless the file has not yet been moved to the data drive and it is still on the cache drive) Joe L.
April 10, 200917 yr I'm assuming you intended to write "Is the size of the CACHE drive important...?" No, it can be any size you desire. It should be big enough to hold a "heavy" day's worth of new data to be added to the array. If you plan on storing other (more permanent) data on the cache, take that into consideration. Personally, I do not use a cache drive. I've never been in that much of a rush to copy data to my server that I can't just copy it directly to the data drives. Now, I do no real-time data capture, so this might not work if you are writing data in "real-time" and need every bit of write speed possible to the array. unRAID, without a cache drive, is plenty fast enough for me if all I am doing is ripping a DVD image, or backing up another PC on my LAN. I DO use a cache disk but in an unconventional way. I copy new data to the cache and manually move it to the array using a program I wrote. I disable the mover script. It allows me to quickly copy data from my workstation to the unRAID server (44 MB/sec vs 14 MB/sec is a huge difference.), and not have to keep my workstation powered up all night in order to copy files.
April 21, 200917 yr Author OK, I got my pre-configured usb from lime-tech, and have everything i need to get started. i'm going to try and go with the a8n32-sli deluxe, i noticed that the premium version of same board was well received, and the main components, i believe, are essentially the same, so hopefully will be ok. i just went with the plus version, whichever the 6 drive one is, that will work for quite a while for me, as i upgrade drives, and then i can update to pro later, it's only 10 bucks difference doing it that way, and it'll help now. so that's 6 aside from parity, right? question on shares- i just read all about them on wiki, a little confused between 1 and 2, and on set up. am i to understand that once i have the array running and i want to move data to it, i can pre-configure a "share" which is like a folder basically, but spans discs, and then later i add data to whichever place i feel it should go. it does not automatically distribute the data to what share it feels is most appropriate, right? they kind of made it sound that way in wiki article. allocation 1- the only part i get is that it doesn't separate your movie files, they mention VOB, i assume it does it for m2ts also, onto different discs. aside from that it seems that it will span the movies themselves across different discs, but then it mentioned a directory and files being moved to it, and that they were allocation 2- which they used as an example being better for cataloging by genre, why idk, why is that different from 1? oh also- i got one of those pre-config usb drives w/ os on it, it seemed like way less of a hassle than getting all that info and sending it in, and registering, and so on. so all i need to do is boot up, right, they have all my serials, or whatever already setup? sadly the only thing i need to put this together is some arctic silver 5, i ran out and forgot, and just re-ordered some, idk if i want to wait that long though, i have some plain silicon stuff, i could just go with that, i don't think i'm looking for high performance here exactly, not sure how much the processor is used actually, or if it gets heated up at all, but either way could just replace with as5 when i get that, kind of impatient i guess, plus i have all my data crammed as tightly as possible onto remaining hard drives, almost there.... thanks, rlr
February 25, 201016 yr On the devices page you map disks to "slots". There is no relationship between physical port numbers (i.e., sata1) and slots (i.e., disk1). You can assign any drive to any slot. There are multiple ways to load your array. I suggest the following ... 1. Arramge your data in its current home (e.g., Windows workstation) to empty as many drives as possible 2. Install all of your empty drives (and any new drives) into the unRAID server. 3. (optional) Run the preclear script to burn in any new disks - see User Customization section for the preclear script 4. Boot the server, go to the devices page, assign the drives to slots (but do not assign the parity disk to the parity slot) 5. Start the array, format the disks (quick), and then copy data from whereever it currently lives, over the network, to the disks in the array. The speed should be close to 45 MB/sec. 6. When the disks in the server are full, if you plan to remove disks from their existing computers and move them into the unRAID server, first install parity so that you are protected from a disk failure: . a. Stop the array . b. Go to the devices page . c. Assign the parity disk to the parity slot . d. Go back to the main page . e. Start the array . f. (Parity will build - it will take a while) . g. After parity builds, manually click [Check] to start a parity check (it will also take a while) . h. If the parity check completes and there are no sync errors, you are protected 7. Power down and install the disks (that contain data already copied to the array) into the array 8. Start the server 9. (optional) Run the preclear script on the disks (you can run multiple drives at once) - see the User Customizations section for the preclear script 10. Stop the array if it starts automatically 11. Go to the devices page and assign your newly added disks to slots 12. Go back to the main page and start the array 13. If you ran the preclear scripts, unRAID will incorporate the drives into the array instantly, if you didn't then unRAID will clear the disks (takes a while) 14. Format the disks 15. Copy more data to the array over your network (speed will be ~14 MB/sec) copying to the protected array 16. Once, done, if you now have another round of disks to move to the array, go back to step 7 Its not hard but is time consuming. Good luck! This is exactly the type of information I was looking for. Question though: I currently have 14tb of data on 11 disks, all unprotected. At best I'll only be able to clear one drive to start + a new parity drive. I'd rather not take the performance hit from adding parity so soon in the process. Could I delay the parity till done transfering all drives, or at least nearly done. Would I be any more at risk doing that than I am today running all these disks unprotected?
February 26, 201016 yr It's responses like this that make this such an amazing community. Honestly, I have found such few forums where people will take the time to write up such a detailed response that is coherent and easy to follow. There are a few Hero members on this board that deserve a huge Thank You from novice members such as myself and from Lime-Technology. If it were not for these members, I most likely would not have purchased an Unraid license. I understand Tom is hard at work in the background improving things and does not have time to respond to all posts, but when he does it is very much appreciated. In the end though, it is the active and knowledgeable forum members that are driving sales for this product. Please, keep up the great work! I couldn't agree more, that was also the reason for me to buy this product. This community is unique. Thank you all!
February 26, 201016 yr I would not recommend deleting data off of its current home until your array data is protected. Remember that even a protected array is not a backup, so if the data is important, you also need a backup. Is storing the data on the unprotected array more dangerous than your current setup? I'd say "yes". Not because of unRaid but because it is new and untested. A lose or marginal cable is much more likely in a new installation. Getting a clean parity check is the minimum I require before trusting the data on the array. That being said, there is obviously no technical reason you could not. Has to do with your tolerance for pain Glad you found the instructions helpful. Let me know if you have other questions.
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