Hi all,

 

I've just decided to build an Unraid Nas for all my media collection. Coming from freeNas, i must say i do have concern regarding of license.

 

I read FAQ on the front page and found no answers to my concern so i guess this forum is the right place to post.

 

How big is the current release of Unraid? I'm wondering it will be over 128mb any time soon?

 

Is unRaid built optimized for embedded system? thus very limited write access to the USB drive to prevent premature failure of the drive? Once the unRaid is loaded it doesnt do any swap or caching on the drive, does it?

 

In the case of the USB drive failure, i'm losing my license? This is the most uncomfortable concern. I happen to notice the USB drive failure rate (or flash memory in general) has increased recently. I'm guessing due to the cheaper cost producing in China which lead to the poor QA. Is there a solution to this dilemma?

 

 

I can't comment on the rest of your questions, but I can tell you that if your flash drive were to fail, all you have to do is email LimeTech, explain the situation, give them the GUID of your replacement flash drive, and they will help you.  It isn't a common problem, but it does happen from time to time, and various people have commented on LimeTech's quick response.  If you simply cannot live without your server for a few hours or a few days, then consider buying the license 2-pack, so you will always have a backup ready to go.

buy a quality USB stick

 

Also if you absolutely MUST have your data you can buy 2 licenses cheaply in case of flash drive failure.

 

As for size my install is 61mb at the moment.

Very good answers indeed. However telling someone to buy two licenses to cover for a hardware failure which will happen eventually could come across wrong.

 

The deal price on two licenses is specifically for this reason and Tom is quick to reply with GUID changes thats for sure but I agree with your concerns. What if Tom is on holiday? What if Limetech goes out of business? Thankfully real life has never seen any issues here.

 

unRAID runs from ram after boot and makes very little use of the USB key and I can say that we get surprisingly few people reporting breakages here.

 

 

Hi all,

 

I've just decided to build an Unraid Nas for all my media collection. Coming from freeNas, i must say i do have concern regarding of license.

 

I read FAQ on the front page and found no answers to my concern so i guess this forum is the right place to post.

 

How big is the current release of Unraid?

Current release is just over 60 meg...

I'm wondering it will be over 128mb any time soon?

Unlikely, but it is going to have a major change in its GUI API in release 5.  Very unlikely to go over 128meg, but you always want room for at least two versions... that way you can just rename the two files that make up the bulk of the release and boot on either an older or newer version.

 

Besides, can you even buy a 128meg USB flash drive any more?  A 1Gig USB flash drive is a good size for almost anybody...

 

 

Is unRaid built optimized for embedded system? thus very limited write access to the USB drive to prevent premature failure of the drive?

Yes, once booted from it, there are basically no writes until you change a config option, or stop the array.  The whole OS runs from a in-memory ram-file system.

Once the unRaid is loaded it doesnt do any swap or caching on the drive, does it?

Nope...  The superblock for the unRAID array is on the USB drive, but it is not written to unless you stop/start or do some maintenance operation.  The flash drive must stay plugged in, as it is a mounted file-system... but even there, it is mounted in a way to not track file-access times. (options noatime,nodiratime are set)  It should last a very long time if not physically abused, or poor quality to start with.

In the case of the USB drive failure, i'm losing my license? This is the most uncomfortable concern. I happen to notice the USB drive failure rate (or flash memory in general) has increased recently. I'm guessing due to the cheaper cost producing in China which lead to the poor QA. Is there a solution to this dilemma?

Already answered by previous post.

 

Now, you can add on your own software and abuse the flash drive by constantly writing to it, but the stock unRAID software does not.

 

Joe L.

Very good to hear positive feedback from the users.

 

So i'm confident about unRaid as its built as embedded appliance os.

 

As for the quality of USB drive, i really dont trust "brand name" any more. Its very hard to tell whos their OEM supplier.

 

I'm asking about the size because i still have few 128mb (unused ) USB 'sticks. I was told by a friend (whos in the industry of making thin appliance) that those first batch of usb/flash drives were built in Taiwan. So they're supposedly a better quality than the current China batches.

 

I also thought of a suggestion to handle usb drive failure. If a usb drive failed, it can be sent to Tom to retrieve a new license. Ofcourse this would mean downtime for shipping. (unless Tom can make a temp license)

 

Anyway, i'm setting the nas tonight after work. I will sure come to this forum for help if i need any.

 

Thank you so much for your time.

 

ps. how does a third party software work in unRaid? does it also have to follow the rule of ...limited write access (and no caching) ? I'm planning to use torrent and sabnzbd.

 

ps2. is it just me or the forum's "forever" login option doesnt work?

ps2. is it just me or the forum's "forever" login option doesnt work?

 

I think it might be you. Which browser are you using? Do you have cookies turned on?

 

I haven't had to log in in ages so I know that feature does work..

ps2. is it just me or the forum's "forever" login option doesnt work?

 

I think it might be you. Which browser are you using? Do you have cookies turned on?

 

I haven't had to log in in ages so I know that feature does work..

 

I use firefox 3.5 on Vista business. Cookies are turned on. I dont have problem with other forums so i dont know why. It doest keep me logged in if i turn off the page (closing the tab) then open it again.

ps2. is it just me or the forum's "forever" login option doesnt work?

 

I think it might be you. Which browser are you using? Do you have cookies turned on?

 

I haven't had to log in in ages so I know that feature does work..

 

I use firefox 3.5 on Vista business. Cookies are turned on. I dont have problem with other forums so i dont know why. It doest keep me logged in if i turn off the page (closing the tab) then open it again.

It is doing the same to me...  (Firefox 3.5.2 on Vista Business)

I'm running FireFox 3.5.2 on Windows 7 RTM (MSDN universal subscription) and I'm having no issues with login cookies.

I'm kinda behind the times..

 

I'm just using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Win XP SP3. Too lazy to use anything else I guess.

 

Guess I am getting old.. I remember the XT days. 

Didn't want to create a new post so I thought I'll just ride on this one.

 

I understand that unRAID is optimized for booting from flash drive such that there are minimal writes.

 

I intend to install unRAID on a full Slackware distro but running from a 8G flash drive.

In this case, would my flash drive die prematurely? (Assuming I don't run anything else that writes constantly to disk)

 

I am aware that there are some Linux distros that are optimized for flash drives.

Grateful if some advice can be provided on how I can continue to run unRAID + full Slackware from a flash drive.

 

Thanks guys! 

 

Didn't want to create a new post so I thought I'll just ride on this one.

 

I understand that unRAID is optimized for booting from flash drive such that there are minimal writes.

 

I intend to install unRAID on a full Slackware distro but running from a 8G flash drive.

In this case, would my flash drive die prematurely? (Assuming I don't run anything else that writes constantly to disk)

 

I am aware that there are some Linux distros that are optimized for flash drives.

Grateful if some advice can be provided on how I can continue to run unRAID + full Slackware from a flash drive.

 

Thanks guys! 

 

Just be sure to mount the flash drive with the "noatime" and "nodiratime" options.   

or... if running a version of unRAID that does not set those options, set them yourself in the "go" script with a line like this:

mount -o remount,noatime,nodiratime /boot

If you do not set those options then any "read" of the flash drive by your programs will also attempt to "write" the last access time of the files and directories involved. 

 

You can check to see if they are set by typing "mount" as shown here:

mount

fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)

usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)

/dev/sdc1 on /boot type vfat (rw,noatime,nodiratime,umask=0,shortname=mixed)

shfs on /mnt/user type fuse.shfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other)

/dev/md1 on /mnt/disk1 type reiserfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime)

/dev/md2 on /mnt/disk2 type reiserfs (rw,noatime,nodiratime)

 

These options were added to the mount of /boot in unRAID 4.5beta3 as more and more of the (add-on) processes are reading from the flash drive continuously. Therefore, if you are running the latest beta, you'll be fine.  If running an older release, you'll want to add the command I gave above to remount the file-system with the options set.

 

Joe L.

Thanks Joe! Will give it a try this weekend.

 

I am just wondering if it will be easier for me experiment with the install on a spare hdd first. Once everything is working, I will then dd everything onto the flash drive. To clarify, I am actually going to run it on a 8G CF card in an IDE adaptor connected to my mobo's IDE port.