Hi,

 

Hoping someone can tell me if it's possible and include some basic directions. I've read that adding a swap drive is doable.

 

I'm running nzbget and would like to move that off my parity set. Hard drive doesn't have to be internal.

 

Thanks, db

 

 

I would like to know this as well.  Seems like it could be very useful.

Hi,

 

Hoping someone can tell me if it's possible and include some basic directions. I've read that adding a swap drive is doable.

 

I'm running nzbget and would like to move that off my parity set. Hard drive doesn't have to be internal.

 

Thanks, db

 

 

Are you looking for a single drive to hold both data and also a swap partition?  To do so will require two partitions on the disk.

 

Or, you can as easily have a swap file on the disk.  (Simpler since it does not require a partition)

 

Personally, unless you really know what you are doing, I'd not bother with a swap partition.  But your choice.

 

To most easily partition a drive you can use the preclear_disk.sh script to clear it.  Part of what it does is to create a partition exactly as unRAID likes to see.

For the purpose of the following examples, I'll use /dev/sdx as the device, the first partition would then be /dev/sdx1.  You MUST be accurate in the next few commands, or you will erase data on one of your data drives.  If you do not use the preclear script, create the first partition from sector 63 to the end of the disk using fdisk, or cfdisk.

Make absolutely certain the disk you are partitioning and creating a file-system on is NOT one already assigned to your array.  If you accidentally re-format a disk in your array it will be because you specified the wrong device in the mkreiserfs command.  If you do so, you will be very unhappy.  You have been warned.

 

Once a drive is partitioned, you can create a file-system on it by typing

mkreiserfs -q /dev/sdx1

Note, the file-system is created on the first partition, /dev/sdx1

this step only need to be done once.

 

Next, there needs to be an empty directory somewhere to use as a mount point. (you can name it as you please.. but no spaces in the name to keep it simple)

This step will create the directory:

mkdir /mnt/mydrive

This needs to be re-done every time you reboot.

 

Now you can mount the file-system on the mount point:

mount -t reiserfs -o acl,user_xattr,noatime,nodiratime /dev/sdx1 /mnt/mydrive

 

Now, your files are on /mnt/mydrive/

Joe L.

 

Thanks Joe..very helpfull. I do have a few more questions.

 

It might help to know some background. My additions to unRaid are Lighttp and nzbget via bubbaraid. I stream video and music over http. As I mentioned I would like to move the nzbget working files off the unRaid parity set. My thinking was why have the parity drive making all those changes, generating heat and noise while I'm downloading. I would like to add a single drive.

 

On to the questions-

 

Is there a real benefit to creating additional swap space on my system? Is there a way for me to test the usage on the swap space currently configured? I tried `swapon -s` but it came back with nothing. According to Phpsysinfo physical memory is 96% used from 4GB at rest. I think that's a bit high but I'm glad to see the server using all the ram.  Top came back with Swap:        0k total,        0k used,        0k free,  3632972k cached.

 

Once I have the drive formated I will need to add the proper mkdir and mount commands to which script? Normally it would be the go script but I would want the file system up for nzbget.  I figured I would need to add it in the bubbaraid startup script somewhere before nzbget starts.   

 

 

Thanks again, db

You might try asking your questions in the BubbaRAID thread, they look all related to that.  Most of us have not yet tried BubbaRAID.

It might help to know some background. My additions to unRaid are Lighttp and nzbget via bubbaraid. I stream video and music over http. As I mentioned I would like to move the nzbget working files off the unRaid parity set. My thinking was why have the parity drive making all those changes, generating heat and noise while I'm downloading. I would like to add a single drive.

 

The easiest way to do this is to just add a cache drive in unRAID itself.  It is outside the array, and it will still show up in the management interface.

 

Swap will not make anything on unRAID faster.... it can make things more stable .... and it WILL make the array safer because you will reduce the likelihood of some process consuming too much memory and causing emhttp to be killed.

Thanks Joe..very helpfull. I do have a few more questions.

 

It might help to know some background. My additions to unRaid are Lighttp and nzbget via bubbaraid. I stream video and music over http. As I mentioned I would like to move the nzbget working files off the unRaid parity set. My thinking was why have the parity drive making all those changes, generating heat and noise while I'm downloading. I would like to add a single drive.

 

On to the questions-

 

Is there a real benefit to creating additional swap space on my system? Is there a way for me to test the usage on the swap space currently configured? I tried `swapon -s` but it came back with nothing. According to Phpsysinfo physical memory is 96% used from 4GB at rest. I think that's a bit high but I'm glad to see the server using all the ram.  Top came back with Swap:        0k total,        0k used,        0k free,  3632972k cached.

 

Once I have the drive formated I will need to add the proper mkdir and mount commands to which script? Normally it would be the go script but I would want the file system up for nzbget.  I figured I would need to add it in the bubbaraid startup script somewhere before nzbget starts.   

 

 

Thanks again, db

I do not use bubbaRaid, therefore, I cannot guide you.

 

As far as "swap"  Currently, you have none.  The RAM on your server is all used as needed for processes running, and for disk buffering, that is why there is little free.  That is normal and nothing to be worried about.  If a process needs some of the memry previously used for cache, it will use the cache'd memory that has been idle the longest. 

 

If unRAID (Linux actually) runs out of memory for its in-memory file system, it will kill off processes trying to make space.  At this point swap space on disk would help, but probably not for long, as it too would fill eventually.  I'd say 99.99% of unRAID users have no swap space added.  (You would need to 1. have a need for it, and 2. have the expertise to configure and manage it. I've only got 512 Meg of ram, and I don't have a swap device or swap file.  Odds are, unless you are doing something very unusual, you will not need one either, especially with 4 Gig of RAM)

 

 

 

 

@bubbaQ  - Adding a cache is the easiest but it's not really what I hoped for. Writes are delayed using a cache I prefer not to write until I'm ready. Sometimes that's minutes sometimes its days.

 

@JoeL - Thanks for your direction, I was able to format and mount a drive. It was pretty easy once I got past the fear of messing things up. 

 

Since then I have added unMENU as a means to manage this process. When I started out I overlooked the drive would need to be shared out via SMB. I'm not to crazy about adding one more thing to my unRAID system but it is working to to large degree.

 

If anyone can enlighten me on how the samba portion is configured I may be able to script the whole bucket. A search here didn't give me much. One of the quirks I've noticed is whenever SMB is reconfigured using the unRAID interface my share is disconnected.

 

cheers,

db-