Considering unRaid from Drobo

[Endda]

I hope this is the right forum for this. If it isn't then I apologize in advance.

 

I come from a Drobo and have purchased three in the last 5 or 6 years and it's gotten to the point where something stupid breaks(power supply/ethernet port) and then the whole box is busted. So I've started looking into building my own NAS box. I've built plenty of computers before but have rarely dabbled in raid setups.

 

So when I started looking into it, FreeNAS seemed like my first choice because that is what everyone talks about. FreeNAS isn't good for my usage as I have been spoiled by Drobo's ever expanding system where I can just take out a small drive and pop in a larger one to get more storage. After looking around, I found unRaid and it has really grabbed my attention.

 

unRaid seems perfect for my usage but as they say, if it's too good to be true then it probably is. I don't mind paying for a license(it's a one-time fee, right?) and I don't mind the alleged performance issues either. I've read that transfer speeds can be much slower on unRaid compared to FreeNAS. I just plan on using this NAS box as a maaaaaaassive storage build and I actually only plan to turn it on about once per month. I just don't need a NAS turned on all the time so unless I am copying to it or from it, then it stays off. Is that an issue with unRaid? Will the OS boot quickly and be accessible?

 

I'm also curious about the level of data protection/recovery. With the Drobo, I get told which drive is bad and I can just pull it out and put in a new one. With unRaid, will I be told which drive is bad so that I can turn off the box and swap out hard drives? Will I need to worry about any type of data corruption? I've been using a Drobo for years for storing media(videos) and have never come across data corruption issues. Ever.

 

I'm reading that FreeNAS's raidz2 allows for more parity since it can designate two drives for parity to offer better protection. Having two drives die at the same time seems rare but I understand that it could happen. Does unRaid let you pick two drives for parity or is it just one?

 

So if unRaid just uses one drive as my parity(which has to be my biggest drive for the best protection, right?) then what happens if that parity drive dies? Will I lose my data or will I just need to replace it?

 

How does unRaid stack up along side ZFS(in FreeNAS) in terms of the features like checksums, compression, snapshots, clones, bit rot correction, ARC, etc?

 

Also, this is the build that I will be going with(but with a 450W power supply instead of the 750W one that is listed)

 

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So if I could get some tips or pointers about what is wrong, what is needed, etc. I would definitely appreciate it.

 

[CHBMB]

As long as only one drive dies, you can replace it, that one drive could be an array drive or parity, if more than one drive dies then you will lose some data.

 

Yes Unraid tells you which drive is bad.

 

Turning it on once a month isn't a problem and Unraid is quick to boot as it boots from a USB drive and the whole OS is tiny (Less than 100MB)

 

The license fee is one time only.  I bought one four years ago and am still around, not had to buy another one since..

 

You should always worry about Data corruption, with a Drobo, Unraid, FreeNAS, Windows, search for something called bitrot.  Just because you've never come across issues, ever, is akin to saying I've never been hit by a car, doesn't mean you never will, just means it hasn't happened yet.

 

Unraid doesn't yet have dual parity, it may be added in the future and is an often discussed topic on the forums.

 

I don't know enough about FreeNAS I'm afraid so I'll leave that bit to someone else.

 

Your build will run Unraid just fine and dandy and you certainly won't need 8GB RAM for basic NAS functions once a month.

 

I would personally go with Unraid if you're only turning it on once a month, rather than a ZFS approach as that seems like a bit of overkill to me.

 

I think if I were you I would decide exactly which OS you're going to use then tailor the build for that.  Does FreeNAS require ECC?

[Squid]

As long as only one drive dies, you can replace it, that one drive could be an array drive or parity, if more than one drive dies then you will lose some data.

Just to expand on this, because unRaid does NOT stripe the data, you will only lose the files that are stored on the particular drive that failed if you exceed the fault tolerance (1 drive dead).  On other systems which stripe data, you will lose ALL of the files on all of the drives if you exceed their fault tolerance.

[c3]

Does FreeNAS require ECC?

 

No, FreeNAS does not require ECC. Memory errors are as likely as bitrot.  So if you are trying to protect data integrity, ECC is very high on the list. ZFS, available in FreeNAS, handles bitrot.

[CHBMB]

Forget about that FreeNAS business, ask us more about Unraid! Lol

 

Thanks I didn't know that about FreeNAS, makes sense.

[Endda]

As long as only one drive dies, you can replace it, that one drive could be an array drive or parity, if more than one drive dies then you will lose some data.

 

Yes Unraid tells you which drive is bad.

 

Turning it on once a month isn't a problem and Unraid is quick to boot as it boots from a USB drive and the whole OS is tiny (Less than 100MB)

 

The license fee is one time only.  I bought one four years ago and am still around, not had to buy another one since..

 

You should always worry about Data corruption, with a Drobo, Unraid, FreeNAS, Windows, search for something called bitrot.  Just because you've never come across issues, ever, is akin to saying I've never been hit by a car, doesn't mean you never will, just means it hasn't happened yet.

 

Unraid doesn't yet have dual parity, it may be added in the future and is an often discussed topic on the forums.

 

I don't know enough about FreeNAS I'm afraid so I'll leave that bit to someone else.

 

Your build will run Unraid just fine and dandy and you certainly won't need 8GB RAM for basic NAS functions once a month.

 

I would personally go with Unraid if you're only turning it on once a month, rather than a ZFS approach as that seems like a bit of overkill to me.

 

I think if I were you I would decide exactly which OS you're going to use then tailor the build for that.  Does FreeNAS require ECC?

 

Thanks a lot for the information. The main reason I had 8GB of RAM for that build was because I had planned to go with FreeNAS and the whole ZFS stuff seemed to work better with more RAM. I was told that the more RAM it had, the faster data rebuilds would be if a drive had failed. Is this not the case with unRaid?

 

I really close with biting the bullet and going with unRaid as it seems closest to what I have been comfortable with on a Drobo, and how I plan on expanding things in the future. I will likely drop the RAM down to 4GB if you don't think 8GB is needed

 

What do you, or anyone else here, suggest for dealing with data corruption/bitrot on a Drobo or an unRaid system?

 

Thank you again, and thank you c3/Squid for responding.

 

I also had a couple of questions about the number of drives needed. I currently have a 3TB drive and four 2TB drives in my Drobo. I had originally planned to start the NAS build with 2 or 3 drives and then copying data from the Drobo to it, removing a drive from the Drobo, copying more data from the Drobo to the NAS build. Rinse and repeat until all of the data was off the Drobo and there wasn't anymore drives in there.

 

I've read that unRaid uses the largest disk available for its parity drive. Will that largest drive have to be in the unRaid build from the start? If so, I was thinking about getting a 4TB drive with the build components and then starting it that way. Can I create an unRaid build with just a 4TB and 3TB drives? Then do the slow building/expanding, one drive at a time, as I mentioned earlier?

[tdallen]

4GB would be fine for basic file server duties.  unRAID is not anywhere near as sensitive to RAM as FreeNAS is.

 

The parity drive does need to be as large or larger than your other drives, but you can upgrade as you go along without too much effort (i.e., 3TB parity gets swapped out for a 4TB parity, and 3TB becomes a data drive).

 

One of the great things about unRAID is that you can start with just a couple of drives and add new ones seamlessly as you go along.  Your method of transferring data from the Drobo is spot on - that's how most folks do it.

[Endda]

4GB would be fine for basic file server duties.  unRAID is not anywhere near as sensitive to RAM as FreeNAS is.

 

The parity drive does need to be as large or larger than your other drives, but you can upgrade as you go along without too much effort (i.e., 3TB parity gets swapped out for a 4TB parity, and 3TB becomes a data drive).

 

One of the great things about unRAID is that you can start with just a couple of drives and add new ones seamlessly as you go along.  Your method of transferring data from the Drobo is spot on - that's how most folks do it.

 

That is awesome. Thank for the information. This is what I was hoping to be able to do with FreeNAS, again because I am used to that process with Drobo, but was severely let down when I found out that it didn't work that way.

 

I have a few bills to pay off at the end of the month and then I get to start building the new NAS box. I'm excited

[ysss]

@Endda: Maybe I've missed this part, but what sort of data, how much do you currently have and how fast do they grow? I think that affects greatly which technology to choose...

 

For example, most people seem to use unraid to collect and serve tv/movies/music content... which can be redownloaded/reripped if they're gone/corrupted. It doesn't mean that people don't care about their data nor that we see plenty of bitrot/reliability issues (unraid is very stable and bitrot is very very very rare), but most user probably wouldn't want to pay to build a mirror server to hold backup of this kind of data.

 

It would be different if we're talking about, say, (digital) family photos and videos.

 

TV/movies/music content tend to be used more often than your usecase of 'server will only be turned on about once per month'.. so I'm curious what sort of use you're planning

[Endda]

@Endda: Maybe I've missed this part, but what sort of data, how much do you currently have and how fast do they grow? I think that affects greatly which technology to choose...

 

For example, most people seem to use unraid to collect and serve tv/movies/music content... which can be redownloaded/reripped if they're gone/corrupted. It doesn't mean that people don't care about their data nor that we see plenty of bitrot/reliability issues (unraid is very stable and bitrot is very very very rare), but most user probably wouldn't want to pay to build a mirror server to hold backup of this kind of data.

 

It would be different if we're talking about, say, (digital) family photos and videos.

 

TV/movies/music content tend to be used more often than your usecase of 'server will only be turned on about once per month'.. so I'm curious what sort of use you're planning

 

It is video data and tends to grow at between 25GB and 100GB per month. I do keep some MP3s on there, I do keep some photos on there, I do keep some web hosting backups on there. I've had to rebuild my data collection in the past. It isn't the worst thing in the world but it can be a hassle.

 

The things like the web hosting file backups and photos are also kept on multiple hard drives that are not going to be in the unRaid NAS, as well as the unRaid NAS box.

 

I keep 1.5TB of space on my desktop. So when I want to watch some movies or TV shows, I just pull the whole season(or some movies) and then keep them on my desktop. Deleting them as I watch them(since the original is kept on the drobo/nas). I already have my desktop on all the time because I work online so having two boxes(Drobo before and soon the NAS box), I get paranoid about the electric bill. So I just keep it off most of the time.

 

After I collect up enough media for the month, I'll turn on the NAS box and then dump it on there to free up the space on the Desktop.

[trurl]

...

I keep 1.5TB of space on my desktop. So when I want to watch some movies or TV shows, I just pull the whole season(or some movies) and then keep them on my desktop. Deleting them as I watch them(since the original is kept on the drobo/nas). I already have my desktop on all the time because I work online so having two boxes(Drobo before and soon the NAS box), I get paranoid about the electric bill. So I just keep it off most of the time.

 

After I collect up enough media for the month, I'll turn on the NAS box and then dump it on there to free up the space on the Desktop.

With the VM capabilities in unRAID 6 some people are consolidating their desktop PC and their NAS into one box.

[Endda]

...

I keep 1.5TB of space on my desktop. So when I want to watch some movies or TV shows, I just pull the whole season(or some movies) and then keep them on my desktop. Deleting them as I watch them(since the original is kept on the drobo/nas). I already have my desktop on all the time because I work online so having two boxes(Drobo before and soon the NAS box), I get paranoid about the electric bill. So I just keep it off most of the time.

 

After I collect up enough media for the month, I'll turn on the NAS box and then dump it on there to free up the space on the Desktop.

With the VM capabilities in unRAID 6 some people are consolidating their desktop PC and their NAS into one box.

 

I read some things about that and it does sound interesting. I would consider doing something like that if I didn't think it would put unneeded wear and tear on the hard drives.

 

Has there been tests done with games being run on Windows through the VM? It's got to have an impact on the performance, no? I have 16GB of RAM on my current desktop so this is very tempting. Could it be set up on a preexisting install of windows? Like, boot unRaid from the USB drive, and then do a VM of a Windows install on my SSD?

[BRiT]

Yes they have done perf tests and all in all it has maybe a 3% performance impact.

[Endda]

Yes they have done perf tests and all in all it has maybe a 3% performance impact.

 

Wow, that's impressive. And it can boot a previously installed version of Windows in the VM?

 

If so, then I've got some serious debating to contemplating

[CHBMB]

Well, sounds like we're getting another disciple to the fold!

 

Yep SSD is how I do my VMs,

 

I have an array of drives with parity, a cache drive for my appdata share for dockers and I have a SSD that isn't part of the array that is purely for VMs and a 20GB docker image.  Haven't noticed any performance effect of basic Unraid duties, I pin CPU cores for the VMs I use, so for instance I have a quad core i5.  I pin two cores to a Windows VM and leave two cores for Unraid.  I have 32GB RAM (Probably Overkill, 16GB would be more than enough..) So now I have two machines in one box, each with 16GB RAM, 2 cores of an i5 processor each and accessing completely different drives... 

 

One thing I'd recommend is post a topic with your proposed build, budget and intended uses when you're ready and people can look it over for you, virtualization does require certain hardware and passing through PCIe devices to the guest OS requires even more hardware features, it can all be a bit confusing so get it checked before you start shelling out.

 

One big word of warning!  I started using Unraid 4 years ago as a pure NAS, as time went on I have used it more and more for multiple roles, so if you can afford it buy hardware with this is mind, in the past I have bought minimal hardware and ended up upgrading because I wanted more than it could do, what I thought would be cheaper ended up being way more expensive in the long run.

 

One other thing and you've probably worked it out for yourself, one of Unraid's biggest attractions for me, and one of it's often neglected strengths is the user community, I'm a member of many many forums, but none as good as this, people are tolerant, polite and more than willing to help, especially those new to the system and even more so if it's obvious you've even looked up the wiki at some point

 

So welcome, make yourself at home, and prepare to be amazed at what Unraid can do.