Converting to Windows

[Netbug]

After about a year of thinking about it, I've decided to leave unRAID and go to a Windows 10 system with Storage Spaces. I've given it a lot of thought, and I'm not really looking for excuses to stay with unRAID at the moment (it has served me well for a few years).

 

I've got about 12TB of data right now and I was wondering if anyone would be able to recommend the best way to go about switching over to Windows.

 

My tiny brain is thinking the following:

 

1. Update my unRAID from v5 to v6

2. Get an SSD and install Windows

3. Buy three hard drives and set up a storage space

4. Figure out a way to read the data from the unRAID drives and move it over, one disk at a time, to the storage space

5. After copying the data to the storage space on Windows, add the source drive to the storage space

6. Repeat 5 until all data has been copied and the drives are now integrated into Windows Storage Spaces

 

Would this be the most logical way to do it? Is there a more efficient method (without buying an entirely new system)?

 

Thanks.

[CHBMB]

I'd upgrade to V6 and then re-evaluate your decision. 

[ashman70]

I agree, with V6 you could build a windows 10 VM easily. UnRaid offer far more than Windows 10 and storage spaces IMO.

[Netbug]

Am I able to plug in a USB drive and drag and drop with 6.0? Because going through the network sucks.

[NotYetRated]

I would say upgrade to v6, and reevaluate your decision to move to Windows 10.

 

I can attest, you would be far happier on v6 with a Windows VM. Or two. Or three.

[gundamguy]

Am I able to plug in a USB drive and drag and drop with 6.0? Because going through the network sucks.

 

 

No, but the unassigned devices plugin allows you to do that.

 

Figure out a way to read the data from the unRAID drives and move it over, one disk at a time, to the storage space

 

This is where you are going to start having issues... can Windows natively support RSF? (Windows would not see the disk as formatted if it doesn't support RFS) I am pretty sure the answer is no, which means the steps to do this are a bit harder and involve running two machines (one Linux, one Windows) and a network connection of some sort. 

 

I'm also not sure how expansion of storage spaces works... if you can just add in one disk at a time, or if it's more like ZFS, or standard RAID configurations. 

 

Edit3:

 

I guess what I am really saying here is that before you go down this path, which is a bit more work then I think you realize right now... but might be the right path... make sure your issues aren't addressed in the latest version or aren't easy fixes. That's just my opinion, you are welcome to do what you want, but I know it won't be as simple as taking currently formatted disks and pugging them into an Windows Machine.

[Netbug]

Am I able to plug in a USB drive and drag and drop with 6.0? Because going through the network sucks.

 

 

No, but the unassigned devices plugin allows you to do that.

 

Figure out a way to read the data from the unRAID drives and move it over, one disk at a time, to the storage space

 

This is where you are going to start having issues... can Windows natively support RSF? (Windows would not see the disk as formatted if it doesn't support RFS) I am pretty sure the answer is no, which means the steps to do this are a bit harder and involve running two machines (one Linux, one Windows) and a network connection of some sort. 

 

I'm also not sure how expansion of storage spaces works... if you can just add in one disk at a time, or if it's more like ZFS, or standard RAID configurations. 

 

Edit3:

 

I guess what I am really saying here is that before you go down this path, which is a bit more work then I think you realize right now... but might be the right path... make sure your issues aren't addressed in the latest version or aren't easy fixes. That's just my opinion, you are welcome to do what you want, but I know it won't be as simple as taking currently formatted disks and pugging them into an Windows Machine.

 

Yeah, my main concern is the reading of the data as I move it. i was under the impression that there were plugins for windows now that allowed you to read that the file type that unRAID uses. I'll try v6 as you all suggest first, but I really like the gui and familiarity I have with Windows (plus the three emby servers I've built for people in the last year have performed spectacularly with storage spaces).

 

And yeah, you can just add additional disks to storage spaces as you get them; it's quite nice.

[smashingtool]

Just wait till you experience Docker. It's made unRaid a whole new OS

 

I waited till the release candidates were available for 6.0 to update, and after updating, I was kicking myself for waiting so long.

[ljm42]

I'm a little confused, if you are *sure* you want to move away from unRAID, why do you need to upgrade to v6 first?

[SSD]

There are tools that enable you to read you rfs (reiserfs) drives from Windows and copy the data as described in your original post. I agree with the sentiment that unRaid is a better storage platform, but Windows migration is certainly possible.

[Netbug]

I'm a little confused, if you are *sure* you want to move away from unRAID, why do you need to upgrade to v6 first?

 

For some reason I have it in my mind that i need to get to 6 before I can convert the FS to something readable by Windows. Is this not the case?

[JonathanM]

I'm a little confused, if you are *sure* you want to move away from unRAID, why do you need to upgrade to v6 first?

 

For some reason I have it in my mind that i need to get to 6 before I can convert the FS to something readable by Windows. Is this not the case?

Unraid does not have file system conversion. Period. The only way to change file system types is to reformat the drives, which erases them. V5 only supported ReiserFS, which is readable in windows by third party add on programs. V6 added support for XFS, which to my knowledge does not have a windows reader readily available, and BTRFS, which I believe does have windows readers available.

 

In any case, if you value your files, your best move is probably going to be sourcing more storage so you can keep backups. This much moving of data from one system to another is risky on multiple levels, hardware, software, human error all converge and conspire to make you lose data.

[ljm42]

I don't know anything about storage spaces, but it seems like something like this would work.  Of course, I'm not offering any warranty

* shut down unraid and remove the flash drive

* add the ssd, boot back up, install windows on the ssd

* install the drivers that allow windows to read reiserfs drives (see Google)

* reformat your unraid parity drive as your first storage space device

* copy the data off the first unraid drive onto your first ss drive

* reformat the first unraid data drive into the second ss drive

* copy the data off the second unraid drive onto the second ss drive

* etc.

 

But this is risky because there is only ever one copy of your data.  Ideally you would have enough hard drives to copy data into storage spaces without compromising your unraid array.

[garycase]

... I've given it a lot of thought, and I'm not really looking for excuses to stay with unRAID at the moment ...

 

Although several folks have suggested exactly that, it seems you've already decided that path you want to take -- and it's really quite simple ...

 

 

... thinking the following:

 

1. Update my unRAID from v5 to v6

2. Get an SSD and install Windows

3. Buy three hard drives and set up a storage space

4. Figure out a way to read the data from the unRAID drives and move it over, one disk at a time, to the storage space

5. After copying the data to the storage space on Windows, add the source drive to the storage space

6. Repeat 5 until all data has been copied and the drives are now integrated into Windows Storage Spaces

 

Would this be the most logical way to do it? Is there a more efficient method (without buying an entirely new system)?

 

What you've outlined is fundamentally right, but there's no need to update to v6.    In fact, that would simply be a waste of time, since your goal is to move everything to Windows, so you're not even going to be booting to UnRAID anymore.

 

Here's what I'd suggest:

 

1.  Get an SSD and install Windows  [Clearly it doesn't HAVE to be an SSD, but if you're buying a new disk just for Wndows, that's definitely the best choice for performance]

 

2.  Buy three hard drives and set up a storage space

 

3.  Install the free LinuxReader [ http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/ ]  ... and you can then simply copy data from your UnRAID disks to the storage spaces

 

4.  As you empty a disk, you can then delete the current partition(s) and add it to your storage spaces; and then simply continue copying from your UnRAID disks until all the data is transferred.

 

[garycase]

...  the three emby servers I've built for people in the last year have performed spectacularly with storage spaces).

 

A bit off topic, but which mode did you set your storage spaces to [simple, parity, or mirrored]?  And what kind of read/write speeds did you get to/from the storage space?

 

[Netbug]

...  the three emby servers I've built for people in the last year have performed spectacularly with storage spaces).

 

A bit off topic, but which mode did you set your storage spaces to [simple, parity, or mirrored]?  And what kind of read/write speeds did you get to/from the storage space?

 

Using parity. I'm honestly not sure how to test it (I'm not super-techy). When I try to use Parkdale on it, it seems to give some artificially low number (like 5MBps) which I know is not correct just from the speeds of transferring files.

[garycase]

Just copy a big file from your C: drive in Windows to the Storage Spaces "drive" and see what speed it shows [Windows Explorer will show the speed if you click on "More Details"

 

[Netbug]

Just copy a big file from your C: drive in Windows to the Storage Spaces "drive" and see what speed it shows [Windows Explorer will show the speed if you click on "More Details"

 

Looks to be averaging between 23 and 25 MBps (so about 200mbps I guess) for writing. About 250MBps for reading (transfer from that to the C: SSD).

[mifronte]

Are you planning to be running a workstation or server version of Windows?  If you plan on using your machine as a server and is only running the workstation version, then one day you may hit a limit on the number of server/client sessions.  At least this was the case prior to Windows 10.  I have not kept up with the latest Windows server products, but this is why Microsoft has a server and workstation license.

[Netbug]

Are you planning to be running a workstation or server version of Windows?  If you plan on using your machine as a server and is only running the workstation version, then one day you may hit a limit on the number of server/client sessions.  At least this was the case prior to Windows 10.  I have not kept up with the latest Windows server products, but this is why Microsoft has a server and workstation license.

 

All it's going to be doing is the following:

 

Emby Server

CouchPotato

Sonarr

SabNZBd

uTorrent

Plex (maybe)

 

So I don't foresee any issue with client limits.

 

Let me ask a question for you fine folks though... one of the biggest issues I had with unRAID 5, has been that I can't plug a USB drive in and move data on to it when I need to take large quantities elsewhere; I have to run it through the network.

 

Does version 6 allow the use of USB to do this?

[gubbgnutten]

Let me ask a question for you fine folks though... one of the biggest issues I had with unRAID 5, has been that I can't plug a USB drive in and move data on to it when I need to take large quantities elsewhere; I have to run it through the network.

 

Does version 6 allow the use of USB to do this?

 

Have a look at the Unassigned Devices plugin.

 

Edit: Sorry. Disregard.

[theone]

Let me ask a question for you fine folks though... one of the biggest issues I had with unRAID 5, has been that I can't plug a USB drive in and move data on to it when I need to take large quantities elsewhere; I have to run it through the network.

 

Does version 6 allow the use of USB to do this?

 

Have a look at the Unassigned Devices plugin.

 

How does solve his drag-and-drop issue?

 

[gubbgnutten]

Let me ask a question for you fine folks though... one of the biggest issues I had with unRAID 5, has been that I can't plug a USB drive in and move data on to it when I need to take large quantities elsewhere; I have to run it through the network.

 

Does version 6 allow the use of USB to do this?

 

Have a look at the Unassigned Devices plugin.

 

How does solve his drag-and-drop issue?

 

Sorry, my bad. I'm usually better at looking through the full thread, I promise! 

 

Still, it got me to read up on the state of Server-Side Copy and SMB2 FSCTL_SRV_COPYCHUNK, interesting. Will do some experiments later.

[kenshinx34]

I'm making the move as well to Windows 10. Since v6.1.* I've had nothing but problems, docker won't stay alive for more a day, and I can't even copy large files off without unraid dying (I suspect a kernel issue but no one has replied to my forum post). I've used unraid for years and years and really like it, but I can't deal with the instability.

[aptalca]

Let me ask a question for you fine folks though... one of the biggest issues I had with unRAID 5, has been that I can't plug a USB drive in and move data on to it when I need to take large quantities elsewhere; I have to run it through the network.

 

Does version 6 allow the use of USB to do this?

 

Have a look at the Unassigned Devices plugin.

 

How does solve his drag-and-drop issue?

 

Sorry, my bad. I'm usually better at looking through the full thread, I promise! 

 

Still, it got me to read up on the state of Server-Side Copy and SMB2 FSCTL_SRV_COPYCHUNK, interesting. Will do some experiments later.

Unassigned devices will auto mount usb devices.

 

For copying, there are a plethora of options: console, mc (midnight commander), and several dockers with in browser GUIs like dolphin and krusader (they are like using file explorer in a web browser). The dockers can mount both the array and the unassigned devices so you're copying directly, not through the network

 

Unassigned devices plugin also allows for custom and device specific scripts to run when usb devices are plugged in. So if you're copying photos from an sd card to the array, or if you're backing up certain folders from the array onto the usb disk, that can all be automated so you don't even need to drag and drop, just plug in and wait.

 

I shudder at the thought of using Windows as a server, don't get me wrong, I love win 10 and use it on all my laptops and desktops, but not as a server