December 17, 201510 yr Please this is not a troll attempt. I am genuinely interested. My needs: 1) Secure my data (some folder duplication but that is easy), some parity, some offsite or cloud 2) Virtualisation - I want to be able to run separate VMs on 2 monitors (dual Windows gaming) (KVM seems better than ESXi as I have NVidia cards) 3) Server functions - downloading, web hosting etc (the sort of stuff Dockers do well!) 4) I have 25Tb of data on NTFS drives. If I can avoid having to copy it all off and back on that would be nice ;-) I looked at unRAID and since v6 added virtualisation it is grabbing my interest but I also looked at free Linux like Ubuntu. As I see it Ubuntu and free s/w does everything unRAID can do... and more... 1) SnapRAID - http://www.snapraid.it/compare - it even suggests unRAID ignores silent errors!?!? 2) KVM - same as unRAID but Ubuntu boots to its own desktop. But with unRAID I have to add a VM to get a desktop as it doesn't include a desktop? 3) Both support Docker. Tie 4) Ubuntu/SnapRAID - I can keep all my existing drives in NTFS and have new drives and parity on EXT4. UnRAID doesn't allow this? And I have to move all my data off, reformat (slow) and copy back on? I'm genuinely not seeing a plus to paying all that money.... what am I missing? Please, this ISNT a troll....
December 17, 201510 yr Both solutions will work. If you go Ubuntu/SnapRAID route you will be configuring/maintaining the entire system to your needs. unRAID is aiming at making the NAS/Virtualization/Docker solution as user friendly and stable as possible. I have tried both solutions. I personally did not want to have to maintain my own system and prefer just to let unRAID handle this for me. I also did not like the fact as my storage increased SnapRAID required more ram. Very basic answer to your question and there are alot of technical differences between the two systems. I would recommend reviewing the differences between both. My wanted level of engagement with my server and current hardware fit UnRaid nicely.
December 17, 201510 yr Both solutions will work. If you go Ubuntu/SnapRAID route you will be configuring/maintaining the entire system to your needs. unRAID is aiming at making the NAS/Virtualization/Docker solution as user friendly and stable as possible. I have tried both solutions. I personally did not want to have to maintain my own system and prefer just to let unRAID handle this for me. I also did not like the fact as my storage increased SnapRAID required more ram. Very basic answer to your question and there are alot of technical differences between the two systems. I would recommend reviewing the differences between both. My wanted level of engagement with my server and current hardware fit UnRaid nicely. Not to mention that snapraid is a snapshot system vs realtime. So, if a drive goes down before the next snapshot is created, then you've lost all of the files that were created in between snapshots (or worse still, some of your files may REVERT to a previous version because of the snapshot). When a drive goes down, all of the files are unavailable that were on that drive until the drive is rebuilt. unRaid doesn't have that limitation. A number of users (myself included, various members of linuxserver.io and others) have all started with unRaid, switched over to snapRaid, and came running back.
December 18, 201510 yr Author Thanks, I guess I am most concerned about these from the "comparison" [1] - unRAID doesn't have any kind of checksum, and it just ignores silent errors. Even worse, if a parity error is detected as result of a silent error in the data, the parity is automatically recomputed, making impossible to recover the silent error, even manually. (just don't understand what this means other than that it sounds bad!) [4] - unRAID allows to use filled disks but only if they are already formatted with the ReiserFS, XFS or Btrfs filesystems. But not ext4 or NTFS. (this just seems bonkers... I mean unRAID is Linux based, so why can't it read or even work with NTFS or Ext4. Most Linux OS's can these days) I guess this is a question for Limetech? BUT....If I did run UnRAID, I'd have to run a VM for a desktop... so question is can I pass through an Intel HD4600 IGP or do I need a dedicated card? I have 3 monitors and want to game on the left and right but leave the centre for non-graphically intensive so IGP is enough.
December 22, 201510 yr [1] It means that the information contained in that 'bit' is lost forever. So yes, bad. If a large video file you probably won't notice but if it's a JPG, well look at these examples... http://openpreservation.org/system/files/Bit%20Rot_OPF_0.pdf [4] It's worth noting as well that unRAID requires you to format the drives using unRAID itself. I fell foul of this and unraid gobbled 6 XFS drives from me. I'm an experienced user and this still bit me, so watch out. === My personal recommendation is if you know enough to be asking these questions then you probably know enough to adminster your own server from the command line and not be penned in by all the limitations that 'simplicity' gives you. Not to knock unRAID as it's a decent enough product but it's not free or open source and the same (or better arguably) functionality can be had elsewhere for free. I use SnapRAID myself with mergerfs and am very happy.
December 22, 201510 yr Because very rarely in life do you come across something that is cheap and very good at the same time.
December 22, 201510 yr Because very rarely in life do you come across something that is cheap and very good at the same time. I dunno, reckon there's an ex-gf or two....
December 22, 201510 yr Because very rarely in life do you come across something that is cheap and very good at the same time. I dunno, reckon there's an ex-gf or two.... [emoji6] Hehehe.....
December 22, 201510 yr Community Expert [1] - unRAID doesn't have any kind of checksum, and it just ignores silent errors. Even worse, if a parity error is detected as result of a silent error in the data, the parity is automatically recomputed, making impossible to recover the silent error, even manually. Since Squid hasn't chimed in about this, I will just make a plug here for his Checksum Suite plugin.
December 22, 201510 yr Author Unraid has an amazing set of community devs... that is true.. but why aren't these necessary features included in a premium product? And the sheer bonkers refusal to allow pre-populated drives (bar some freaky circumstances) IS MADNESS (this is spartaaaaa!!...)
December 22, 201510 yr Maybe its the same reason I can't buy that Brand New Chevy with a Ford Engine. I can only guess it wants a fresh start with no unknowns and to build from that onward. It "was" honestly a downfall for me as well, but I just simply dropped in one drive and copied data to it and eventually had 7 drives with data on it. The process was slow, but in the end I ended up finding out 2 of the 7 drives was dieing and unRAID caught them on the transition. As for why aren't some features automatically included in a premium product? unRAID has grown leaps and bounds in the several years. The interface, the Dockers, the plug-ins and the community have really stepped up. Things are constantly being added. Not to plug a certain Phone maker, but......... The community comes up with a good idea "Hack"/Plugin and then unRAID barrows from it with the cooperation of the dev. Next thing you know its a standard feature. What you will really find here is the Community is Second to none in support. If that isn't a reason to stay here I don't know what is.
December 22, 201510 yr Personally, I'm a fan of XOR style parity (as opposed to mirroring and striping). I think from a pure mathmatics standpoint this allows you to have a much better Storage-to-Parity ratio (or Storage-to-Wasted Space) then traditional RAID systems. I also like the use of the User shares... and ability to increase write speed with a cache drive. But the other key factor is that I was willing to gladly trade money for personal time, which I could spend figuring out how to implement these features on my own, and keeping it running, or doing something else.... When it comes down to it that should be the number one factor... how much is your time worth?
December 22, 201510 yr Author Yes, I agree...to an extent. I can't be doing with the unRAID import process. I have say 25Tb to import. I have insufficient empty drives to do it so would have to import it one drive at a time. Thats a LOT of hassle/time. IF unRAID was a little more FLEXible then it would be worth spending that money (if you get me!!) And it does defeat the idea (of spending money to save time) somewhat if you have to spend time setting up lots of community addons to do what it *needs* to be doing (ie secure your data properly) by default. I am impressed by the improvements in features in v6 and hence the serious consideration but I guess if I am gonna have to spend lots of time on the import and "patching" of UnRAID compared to the spending of lots of time on setup (but no import hassles) of say a FREE Linux/KVM/SnapRAID setup then it's not really encouraging for unRAID
December 22, 201510 yr Yes, I agree...to an extent. I can't be doing with the unRAID import process. I have say 25Tb to import. I have insufficient empty drives to do it so would have to import it one drive at a time. Thats a LOT of hassle/time. IF unRAID was a little more FLEXible then it would be worth spending that money (if you get me!!) And it does defeat the idea (of spending money to save time) somewhat if you have to spend time setting up lots of community addons to do what it *needs* to be doing (ie secure your data properly) by default. I am impressed by the improvements in features in v6 and hence the serious consideration but I guess if I am gonna have to spend lots of time on the import and "patching" of UnRAID compared to the spending of lots of time on setup (but no import hassles) of say a FREE Linux/KVM/SnapRAID setup then it's not really encouraging for unRAID "patching" of unraid is done through a webui, so time is find plugin, paste link in to the plugin page, click install. reboot if necessary.... i wish they could make that so much easier.......
December 22, 201510 yr "patching" of unraid is done through a webui, so time is find plugin, paste link in to the plugin page, click install. reboot if necessary.... i wish they could make that so much easier....... Actually "patching" is pretty much install Community Applications, select plugin, click install nowadays....
December 22, 201510 yr "patching" of unraid is done through a webui, so time is find plugin, paste link in to the plugin page, click install. reboot if necessary.... i wish they could make that so much easier....... Actually "patching" is pretty much install Community Applications, select plugin, click install nowadays.... OH EM GEE , they made it easier, specifically to make me look like an idiot with my old fashioned doing it the long way comment. *shakes a fist at squid*
December 22, 201510 yr "patching" of unraid is done through a webui, so time is find plugin, paste link in to the plugin page, click install. reboot if necessary.... i wish they could make that so much easier....... Actually "patching" is pretty much install Community Applications, select plugin, click install nowadays.... OH EM GEE , they made it easier, specifically to make me look like an idiot with my old fashioned doing it the long way comment. *shakes a fist at squid* Not Squid's fault that the occasional grumpy old git is set in his ways....
December 22, 201510 yr "patching" of unraid is done through a webui, so time is find plugin, paste link in to the plugin page, click install. reboot if necessary.... i wish they could make that so much easier....... Actually "patching" is pretty much install Community Applications, select plugin, click install nowadays.... Plugins are all actually categorized. So it's really a matter a matter of finding which of the 300+ apps you want and hit install.
December 22, 201510 yr Community Expert When I was first making this decision a few years ago, I browsed the forums for other solutions, and chose this one as having the best support.
December 22, 201510 yr "patching" of unraid is done through a webui, so time is find plugin, paste link in to the plugin page, click install. reboot if necessary.... i wish they could make that so much easier....... Actually "patching" is pretty much install Community Applications, select plugin, click install nowadays.... Plugins are all actually categorized. So it's really a matter a matter of finding which of the 300+ apps you want and hit install. STOP MAKING THINGS EASIER, GUT DEM IT
December 22, 201510 yr "patching" of unraid is done through a webui, so time is find plugin, paste link in to the plugin page, click install. reboot if necessary.... i wish they could make that so much easier....... Actually "patching" is pretty much install Community Applications, select plugin, click install nowadays.... Plugins are all actually categorized. So it's really a matter a matter of finding which of the 300+ apps you want and hit install. STOP MAKING THINGS EASIER, GUT DEM IT Ok... Admittedly you have to first find and install CA
December 22, 201510 yr "patching" of unraid is done through a webui, so time is find plugin, paste link in to the plugin page, click install. reboot if necessary.... i wish they could make that so much easier....... Actually "patching" is pretty much install Community Applications, select plugin, click install nowadays.... Plugins are all actually categorized. So it's really a matter a matter of finding which of the 300+ apps you want and hit install. STOP MAKING THINGS EASIER, GUT DEM IT Ok... Admittedly you have to first find and install CA sounds like too much hassle to me, can you make it easier ?
December 22, 201510 yr When I started the only thing that mattered between unraid and its competitors was the ability to easily increase storage space and that you don't need matched hard drives
December 22, 201510 yr Community Expert When I started the only thing that mattered between unraid and its competitors was the ability to easily increase storage space and that you don't need matched hard drives That ability was critical and made it pretty easy to disqualify some solutions. The forum clinched the deal.
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