v6.0 and RAM question


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Guys,

 

First question, version 6.x.  I'm on the latest stable 5.0.0 release, and have no desire to virtualize.  Unraid runs on bare metal for me, and that's all I have (no sab, no sickbeard, etc).  I run the Dynamix webgui, that's it.  Any benefit at this point upgrading to 6.x?  Is development continuing on 5.x or is the 5.0.5 the last? 

 

Second, RAM.  I've read a million RAM threads, and there always seems to be a few different schools of thought.  I know linux uses nearly 100% of available RAM for caching etc.  For v5.0.5, with no additional things running on the server, is there any benefit to running 8GB RAM over 4GB? 

 

Thanks.

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The current v5 is v5.0.6, which includes a few bug fixes over what you have.  It is not expected to be updated any further.  The v6 series is the update to v5.

 

For you, the upgrade to v6 would be very straightforward, since you aren't using plugins, and don't plan to use any virtualization features.  (See Upgrading to UnRAID v6.)

 

4GB is more than enough for v5 or v6, if you aren't planning to install a lot of other stuff.  In v5, 8GB will probably do nothing extra for you, over 4GB.  In v6, 8GB would give you more caching, when needed, but you might not notice any difference.

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Another note, on v6 unraid still runs on baremetal, it's not virtualized. What it does on v6 is provide a virtualization platform to run other things on unraid (KVM and Docker).

 

KVM is like vmware/xen, full blown hypervisor platform.. it can run other OS (windows, solaris, bsd, etc).

Docker is a linux partitioning thing, it still run things on the same kernel as unraid's, but everything in its userspace is partitioned off unraid's instance. So docker is very light on resource (compared to KVM).

 

I've just recently upgraded from v5.0.6 too, less than 2 weeks ago. Now I have 5 dockers setup and running (Plex, sabnzbd, observium, sickrage, tinymediamanager) and reviewing more... :)

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Guys,

 

First question, version 6.x.  I'm on the latest stable 5.0.0 release, and have no desire to virtualize.  Unraid runs on bare metal for me, and that's all I have (no sab, no sickbeard, etc).  I run the Dynamix webgui, that's it.  Any benefit at this point upgrading to 6.x?  Is development continuing on 5.x or is the 5.0.5 the last? 

 

Second, RAM.  I've read a million RAM threads, and there always seems to be a few different schools of thought.  I know linux uses nearly 100% of available RAM for caching etc.  For v5.0.5, with no additional things running on the server, is there any benefit to running 8GB RAM over 4GB? 

 

Thanks.

 

Simple fact is if your server is running well, there's no compelling reason to upgrade.    I have no plans to upgrade any of my 3 servers to v6, since I only use them as NAS units and they're all working flawlessly.

 

Having said that, when I build my next one, I'll use v6 for a couple of reasons:

 

=>  The basic NAS functionality that's been missing for years is FINALLY included in the core system -- UPS support and notifications [Easy enough to add via UnMenu in pre v6 versions, but definitely nicer to have this fully integrated].  Note that v6 also has the Dynamix GUI as the primary Web GUI ... it's no longer an add-on.

 

=>  While I have no problem with Reiser, I'll use a different file system for new disks in v6.    My media disks are all effectively static, so the slow writes in the last 5% or so of the disk space isn't an issue -- most of my disks are 99-100% full ... and for my more active shares I simply use disks that never get even close to full.    Reiser is a VERY stable and reliable file system ... the only real "flaws" in it are the slow writes when full and the fact that it won't support drives > 16TB  (Not YET an issue ... but clearly one that's coming).

 

=>  Clearly direct addressing capabilities for > 4GB RAM is a nice feature of the 64-bit OS, but for basic NAS functionality there's not all that much benefit.  And if you DO have > 4GB installed, the extra RAM works fine with PAE on the previous versions [2 of my 3 systems have 8GB installed].    For basic NAS functionality, I doubt you'd notice any difference at all between 4GB and 8GB.

 

 

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