New to UnRaid. Have a few options.


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Hi,

 

I want to have a mess around with UnRaid with the intention to set something up that I will use for storage and also utilizing UnRaid's features.

 

My main reason for making this post is to find out if it is strongly discouraged not to use gaming class gear.

I have some mother boards and processors that are from old builds and I'd like to put them to use with this UnRaid build if it is not going to be a bad decision?

 

OPTION 1:

Motherboard: Asus Maximus 4 Extreme.

https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/MAXIMUS_IV_EXTREME/

CPU: Intel 2600k

RAM: Mushkin Redline Enhanced 2 x 8GB (7-8-7-24) (non-ecc)

(rest of system not decided yet)

 

OPTION 2:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2958#ov

CPU: Intel i7-920

RAM: OCZ OCZ3G1600LV6GK 3 x 2GB (8-8-8) (non-ecc)

(rest of system not decided yet)

 

OPTION 3:

Motherboard: Asus P5Q Deluxe

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5Q_Deluxe/

CPU: Q6600

RAM: Corsair Dominator CM2X1024-8500C5D 4 x 1GB (5-5-5-15) (non-ecc)

(rest of system not decided yet)

 

I think that out of any of them OPTION 1 would be best as it have the better power for CPU score. But I'm unsure about the rest of the motherboard support wise?

 

Any advise appreciated.

 

thanks

 

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I think it really depends on what you want to use UnRaid for, any of these choices should work just fine, but is your build solely just for storage or are you thinking about doing some virtualization (if so check to see that your CPU's support IOMMU, I know the k series don't) or are you going to run some dockers maybe?

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I think it really depends on what you want to use UnRaid for, any of these choices should work just fine, but is your build solely just for storage or are you thinking about doing some virtualization (if so check to see that your CPU's support IOMMU, I know the k series don't) or are you going to run some dockers maybe?

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

So if the CPU does not suppose IOMMU virtualization is not possible at all?

 

This is the same as VT-d on Intel right?

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VT-D is for hardware passthrough, which is the same as IOMMU, yes, but you can still do virtualization (I believe), just not passthrough anything like a video card.

 

OK, thanks.. so I'm just weighing up the pros and cons.

I have a 4770 (non k) CPU in another rig that is sat doing nothing at the moment.

 

If I went ITX mobo... is there a "good choice" board out there at the moment that people are going for to pair up with UnRaid to get the most from what UnRaid offers?

 

And am I correct that ECC ram is the way to go?

 

 

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I am not a huge fan of ECC for home builds, but that just my opinion, others will swear by it. For corporate, hands down its the way to go, but I just feel its a lot of money to pay for home use to guard against something I have never seen, memory errors. Not that's not to say they won't/can't happen, they can, so in a way ECC is like insurance. What would help us is if you tell us what you want to get out of UnRaid, what do you want to use it for. Do you want to have a few VM's? Run some dockers, use it as NAS storage, maybe as a HTPC? If we have an idea what you plan to use it for we can help steer you towards hardware that may be more suitable.

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Hi,

 

To be honest apart from actually running out of resource.. like RAM for multiple VM I don't really want to add in a limitation to start with.

 

But here is what I can see myself using it for.

 

Storage ...

to start with 4 x 3 or 4 tb drives (need to look at deals)

VMs and VT-D sounds good. windows 7 and a Linux VM.

docking apps like sabnzb, plex, torrent app, cloud app, drop box. There will be a few more I cannot think of.

 

I will run an ssd for cache too.

is 120 ssd enough in a normal situation?

 

thanks

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VMs and VT-D sounds good. windows 7 and a Linux VM.

docking apps like sabnzb, plex, torrent app, cloud app, drop box. There will be a few more I cannot think of.

 

I will run an ssd for cache too.

is 120 ssd enough in a normal situation?

Might be a little tight for 2VM's plus plex, etc. I would consider 240 a minimum, and if you can swing a 480 or better, I'd consider it. Keep in mind that SSD's like free space to be able to manage internal write speed and wear leveling algorithms.
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VMs and VT-D sounds good. windows 7 and a Linux VM.

docking apps like sabnzb, plex, torrent app, cloud app, drop box. There will be a few more I cannot think of.

 

I will run an ssd for cache too.

is 120 ssd enough in a normal situation?

Might be a little tight for 2VM's plus plex, etc. I would consider 240 a minimum, and if you can swing a 480 or better, I'd consider it. Keep in mind that SSD's like free space to be able to manage internal write speed and wear leveling algorithms.

 

Thanks for your post :)

 

So the SSD would not be just a cache drive?

Is there another option?

I'd only be adding the one SSD drive, certainly for now and the immediate future.

 

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VMs and VT-D sounds good. windows 7 and a Linux VM.

docking apps like sabnzb, plex, torrent app, cloud app, drop box. There will be a few more I cannot think of.

 

I will run an ssd for cache too.

is 120 ssd enough in a normal situation?

Might be a little tight for 2VM's plus plex, etc. I would consider 240 a minimum, and if you can swing a 480 or better, I'd consider it. Keep in mind that SSD's like free space to be able to manage internal write speed and wear leveling algorithms.

 

Thanks for your post :)

 

So the SSD would not be just a cache drive?

Is there another option?

I'd only be adding the one SSD drive, certainly for now and the immediate future.

The typical unraid setup uses the cache drive to also house the docker image which holds all the containers, the appdata share which is used for all the configuration and metadata for your dockers, and also the vdisk image files that are the boot disks for your VM's. The array drives hold all your media.
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VMs and VT-D sounds good. windows 7 and a Linux VM.

docking apps like sabnzb, plex, torrent app, cloud app, drop box. There will be a few more I cannot think of.

 

I will run an ssd for cache too.

is 120 ssd enough in a normal situation?

Might be a little tight for 2VM's plus plex, etc. I would consider 240 a minimum, and if you can swing a 480 or better, I'd consider it. Keep in mind that SSD's like free space to be able to manage internal write speed and wear leveling algorithms.

 

Thanks for your post :)

 

So the SSD would not be just a cache drive?

Is there another option?

I'd only be adding the one SSD drive, certainly for now and the immediate future.

The typical unraid setup uses the cache drive to also house the docker image which holds all the containers, the appdata share which is used for all the configuration and metadata for your dockers, and also the vdisk image files that are the boot disks for your VM's. The array drives hold all your media.

 

Oh right. Is the SSD data backed up on the parity disk?

What happens if the SSD fails as far as getting back up and running, what are the options?

 

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VMs and VT-D sounds good. windows 7 and a Linux VM.

docking apps like sabnzb, plex, torrent app, cloud app, drop box. There will be a few more I cannot think of.

 

I will run an ssd for cache too.

is 120 ssd enough in a normal situation?

Might be a little tight for 2VM's plus plex, etc. I would consider 240 a minimum, and if you can swing a 480 or better, I'd consider it. Keep in mind that SSD's like free space to be able to manage internal write speed and wear leveling algorithms.

 

Thanks for your post :)

 

So the SSD would not be just a cache drive?

Is there another option?

I'd only be adding the one SSD drive, certainly for now and the immediate future.

The typical unraid setup uses the cache drive to also house the docker image which holds all the containers, the appdata share which is used for all the configuration and metadata for your dockers, and also the vdisk image files that are the boot disks for your VM's. The array drives hold all your media.

 

Oh right. Is the SSD data backed up on the parity disk?

What happens if the SSD fails as far as getting back up and running, what are the options?

 

No, the cache pool does not participate in the parity protection of the array, it is used as a temporary landing spot for incoming user share data so writes are not slowed down to parity write speeds. The mover script then transfers the data to the parity protected array when it is scheduled. Dockers and VM's aren't very pleasant to use speed wise when they are hosted on the parity protected portion, so they are typically set to permanently stay on the cache drive in cache only user shares.

 

If a single member cache pool fails, then anything not backed up is lost. If that is a concern to you, unraid allows you to set up a RAID cache pool using BTRFS. If you have a RAID1 cache pool and one of the member SSD's dies, you would replace it and allow unraid to rebalance the BTRFS volume, but no data would be lost. This requires full duplication of protected size, so to get 250GB of cache pool protected space, you would need 2 250GB cache drives, or some other combination that allows full duplication. BTRFS RAID is flexible, so if you had 2 120GB and 1 250GB, you would end up with 240GB of protected space. There is a BTRFS RAID calculator online that allows you try various size combinations to see how much space you will end up having with any particular combination of drive sizes.

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VMs and VT-D sounds good. windows 7 and a Linux VM.

docking apps like sabnzb, plex, torrent app, cloud app, drop box. There will be a few more I cannot think of.

 

I will run an ssd for cache too.

is 120 ssd enough in a normal situation?

Might be a little tight for 2VM's plus plex, etc. I would consider 240 a minimum, and if you can swing a 480 or better, I'd consider it. Keep in mind that SSD's like free space to be able to manage internal write speed and wear leveling algorithms.

 

Thanks for your post :)

 

So the SSD would not be just a cache drive?

Is there another option?

I'd only be adding the one SSD drive, certainly for now and the immediate future.

The typical unraid setup uses the cache drive to also house the docker image which holds all the containers, the appdata share which is used for all the configuration and metadata for your dockers, and also the vdisk image files that are the boot disks for your VM's. The array drives hold all your media.

 

Oh right. Is the SSD data backed up on the parity disk?

What happens if the SSD fails as far as getting back up and running, what are the options?

 

No, the cache pool does not participate in the parity protection of the array, it is used as a temporary landing spot for incoming user share data so writes are not slowed down to parity write speeds. The mover script then transfers the data to the parity protected array when it is scheduled. Dockers and VM's aren't very pleasant to use speed wise when they are hosted on the parity protected portion, so they are typically set to permanently stay on the cache drive in cache only user shares.

 

If a single member cache pool fails, then anything not backed up is lost. If that is a concern to you, unraid allows you to set up a RAID cache pool using BTRFS. If you have a RAID1 cache pool and one of the member SSD's dies, you would replace it and allow unraid to rebalance the BTRFS volume, but no data would be lost. This requires full duplication of protected size, so to get 250GB of cache pool protected space, you would need 2 250GB cache drives, or some other combination that allows full duplication. BTRFS RAID is flexible, so if you had 2 120GB and 1 250GB, you would end up with 240GB of protected space. There is a BTRFS RAID calculator online that allows you try various size combinations to see how much space you will end up having with any particular combination of drive sizes.

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for explaining. I think I get the gist of that. So if I understand this right

 

Q1: So with one SSD config. Any apps installed if that SSD failed would surely be lost leaving the setup of Unraid somewhat messy if there was apps running?

If this was to happen and the SSD was replaced. Is the only option with a single SSD config to reinstall apps and set it all back up again.... e.g Plex and any VMs?

 

Q2: If I do 2 x 240gb SSD. I can have one live and one backup?

 

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Q1: So with one SSD config. Any apps installed if that SSD failed would surely be lost leaving the setup of Unraid somewhat messy if there was apps running?

If this was to happen and the SSD was replaced. Is the only option with a single SSD config to reinstall apps and set it all back up again.... e.g Plex and any VMs?

 

Q2: If I do 2 x 240gb SSD. I can have one live and one backup?

1. Yes, you would need to reinstall and set up your apps again, or restore a recent appdata backup that you made. You would also need to restore your VM's from your backups.

 

2. BTRFS RAID doesn't have a concept of live vs backup. All member disks are full equal participants.

 

If you choose not to set up a redundant cache pool, you can set up a periodic backup script that copies the cache only content of the cache drive to an array location for backup purposes. As of right now, it's a manual command line setup to start with, but after it's scheduled it backs up without manual intervention. There are multiple posts in this forum dealing with rsync scripts that work for this.

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Q1: So with one SSD config. Any apps installed if that SSD failed would surely be lost leaving the setup of Unraid somewhat messy if there was apps running?

If this was to happen and the SSD was replaced. Is the only option with a single SSD config to reinstall apps and set it all back up again.... e.g Plex and any VMs?

 

Q2: If I do 2 x 240gb SSD. I can have one live and one backup?

1. Yes, you would need to reinstall and set up your apps again, or restore a recent appdata backup that you made. You would also need to restore your VM's from your backups.

 

2. BTRFS RAID doesn't have a concept of live vs backup. All member disks are full equal participants.

 

If you choose not to set up a redundant cache pool, you can set up a periodic backup script that copies the cache only content of the cache drive to an array location for backup purposes. As of right now, it's a manual command line setup to start with, but after it's scheduled it backs up without manual intervention. There are multiple posts in this forum dealing with rsync scripts that work for this.

 

OK thanks :)

 

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