purko Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 The only benefit is to save money for people who would otherwise be paying for a upgrade. It will also benefit the company to maximize its profits it they have numerous price levels. Right now, it's like "Either pay up for the most expensive option, or go screw yourself!" It may help everyone if they rethink their pricing options. --- @Weebo: Well, you are kind of right. But I do feel that this is relevant to unRAID release. Purko Quote Link to comment
theprophe Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 nice way to hijack my post Quote Link to comment
purko Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 nice way to hijack my post Yep! I just can't resist one more thing... I just cannot see the reason for increasing the number of disks in the plus addition. The only benefit is to save money for people who would otherwise be paying for a upgrade. By that logic, you might as well want to remove the Plus option. Because -- by that same logic -- it's only benefit is to save money for people who would otherwise be paying for the Pro license. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 Lots of ways to argue, if it is an argument you are looking for. When I purchased my server there was a 12 disk version, and a 6 disk version. There was NO free version, you had to purchase a pre-loaded USB flash drive. (And the purchased USB drive was HUGE 128Meg in size). No download version existed. I purchased a 12 disk version (1 parity, 11 data disks). I actually purchased the entire assembled MD1200 server. At the time, the largest available disk was 500 gig. (at a cost of over $300.) I started with 2 of those 500Gig drives... With my version of unRAID, I could grow to a max of 5.5TB... Today, you can get most of the way there with the free version, and if the disk manufacturers make a 3TB drive in the next few years, you will be over my original max capacity, for free... Granted, file sizes with Blue-Ray rips are larger, but music is largely the same... so my old 5.5TB server can now hold a lot more data, as I can now use much larger disks. Tom has increased the "max" number of disks several times in what eventually became the "pro" version. it appeared as if he is considering increasing the limit from 20 to 24, or at least mentioned he made a 4.5.1 version with that capacity... I don't know what Tom is considering... He has not even mentioned the 4.5.1 version in the "Announcements" forum... so perhaps we will see more drives in the future... If not quick enough for you, then it is time to upgrade to all 2TB drives within the same physical drive limit, or assemble a second server. (It is what I'm going to eventually do) I agree, the current tiered pricing model is a bit out of date with available controllers and motherboards. Perhaps an more incremental licensing model would work. Ya want 7 drives... sure... $10 per... $70. (only an example...) I have no idea if it is possible, or practical.... but obviously, we have a lot of different hardware, and more options are desired than the current "free", "plus", and "pro." This "disk" discussion has little to do with the 4.5 announcement thread, other than Tom mentioning 4.5.1 and his experiment with allowing 24 drives in a version he created for a specific customer. Further discussion of licensing vs. number of disks belongs in a different thread. (I suggest the "Feature Request" forum) Joe L. Quote Link to comment
duff76 Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 >>> Added Areca driver. High density caching controllers. Yes it's a bit expensive, but this is the direction that is needed for very high density single slot controllers. If you look on newegg.com. Sometimes they have openbox specials and you can get them at cost effective pricing. I'm also quite interested in the Areca cards. The hot topic on the media server thread on AVSforums is an HP sas expander. This is a $200 or so 32 port expander. So you could hook this up to a cheap Areca 4 port card and be able to max out the drives for now and the forseeable future. It also works with the PCI-E supermicro card, but it doesn't look like this is going to work with unraid anytime soon. I'd love to have all my drives hooked up through one card, I figure it would give you some better parity check speeds also. Anybody got Areca card that can test out how it works. Here's the link to another thread on the HP sas expander. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1484614 Quote Link to comment
purko Posted February 11, 2010 Share Posted February 11, 2010 will probably soon produce a 4.5.1 "final" version that includes a linux kernel update. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.2 stable as of 2009-12-18. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.3 stable as of 2010-01-06. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.5 stable as of 2010-01-22. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.6 stable as of 2010-01-25 Linux Kernel 2.6.32.7 stable as of 2010-01-28. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.8 stable as of 2010-02-09. Heck they'll even have a 2.6.33 stable anytime now. I so wish we finally get this long promised update. Quote Link to comment
eek Posted February 11, 2010 Share Posted February 11, 2010 Linux Kernel 2.6.32.8 stable as of 2010-02-09. Heck they'll even have a 2.6.33 stable anytime now. I so wish we finally get this long promised update. 4.5.1 was released with a kernel update on Jan 30th. unRAID Server 4.5.1 Release Notes ================================= Changes from 4.5 to 4.5.1 ------------------------- Bug fixes: - Fix javascript bug checking valid settings on the Settings page. - Fix bug where a disk can appear 'Unformatted' immediately after array Start. - Increase unmount polling from 1 second to 5 seconds when Stopping the array when external extensions still have a disk or use share mounted. Other: - Updated linux kernel to version 2.6.31.12 - Updated Samba to version 3.4.5 - Added Areca driver. - Added Marvell legacy PATA support. - Added USB printer support. Quote Link to comment
purko Posted February 11, 2010 Share Posted February 11, 2010 4.5.1 was released with a kernel update on Jan 30th. See, Eek, 4.5.1 has the same 2.6.31 series kernel as 4.5.0 has. No big difference there. But the 2.6.32 kernel makes a huge difference due to the new kernel buffer flushing system! Especially on a setup like mine -- with a ULV CPU -- the difference is between night and day! Purko --- Strangely enough, that's the same Eek who wrote the following: Unraid is based on a linux kernel. This kernel is being constantly updated with both enhancements and bug fixes. However unraid seems to have fallen off the train. Even if nothing else was being done on Unraid I would at least expect that Unraid releases were keeping up with linux kernel releases Quote Link to comment
eek Posted February 11, 2010 Share Posted February 11, 2010 4.5.1 was released with a kernel update on Jan 30th. See, Eek, 4.5.1 has the same 2.6.31 series kernel as 4.5.0 has. No big difference there. But the 2.6.32 kernel makes a huge difference due to the new kernel buffer flushing system! Especially on a setup like mine -- with a ULV CPU -- the difference is between night and day! Purko --- Strangely enough, that's the same Eek who wrote the following: Unraid is based on a linux kernel. This kernel is being constantly updated with both enhancements and bug fixes. However unraid seems to have fallen off the train. Even if nothing else was being done on Unraid I would at least expect that Unraid releases were keeping up with linux kernel releases But that was when we had not heard from Tom in months. Personally the changes in 2.6.32 vindicates my comment then that Tom is needed to ensure that Kernel upgrades work as expected. I would imagine that 2.6.32 will be part of unraid 4.6 (which won't exist) or unraid 5 (which will) as it will have to be a beta test phase. As for when it appears I guess paying customers and backlogs take priority. Quote Link to comment
bubbaQ Posted February 11, 2010 Share Posted February 11, 2010 4.4 to 4.5 was a significant upgrade... it took time, as would be expected, for such an upgrade. unRAID does *not* compile on the 2.6.32 without changes to the source code. While I modified the source to get it to compile on my test machine, Tom can't just slap in some edits and ship it with a new kernel.... he has to do regression testing and other steps to ensure nothing is broken on a new kernel. I'm sure unRAID will move to the 2.6.32 kernel soon, but unRAID is all about reliability and stability, and you don't get that by being on the bleeding edge of the kernel tree. Quote Link to comment
LVLAaron Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Can you PRETTY FREAKING PLEASE add a 4.5 section to the forums? Come on already. Quote Link to comment
cj0r Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 As Tom stated previously, he's working on catching up on the server orders that have come in causing him to fall behind. We already have a reasonably well working version of UnRaid and I don't see the immediate need for further updates right now (I don't know of any critical issues that are affecting users on a large scale). I'd rather him catch up on his business side since we're talking about his livelihood here. We can wait a little bit for new kernels etc. since he has already given us so much already that is extremely stable and functional (not to mention the performance boost with 4.5 was great). As for the nonexistent 4.5 forum... you can still easily post your issues in the 4.4 and get reasonable/helpful responses. That's something else that isn't absolutely necessary right this moment. Let Tom do what he needs to do then he will be back to us. There are already plenty of extremely helpful individuals lurking around here that I don't see the need for Tom's full attention currently. Quote Link to comment
cwr Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 pretty much agree with everything drealit said 4.5 is working fine as is, let tom make some money so he can keep developing Quote Link to comment
BRiT Posted February 16, 2010 Share Posted February 16, 2010 Thought this might have an influence on future unRAID releases, so here it is. The Linux kernel developers indicated that 2.6.32 will be the "long maintained" versions of the kernel. What this means is it will be maintained for a 2 - 3 year duration. [ http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/939800 ] 2.6.31-stable Today the last 2.6.31-stable kernel was released, all users of this kernel series are strongly encouraged to switch to the 2.6.32 kernel series, as there will not be any more updates for this branch in the future. 2.6.32-stable I'd like to announce that the 2.6.32-stable tree is also going to be maintained as a "long-term" stable release, living for 2-3 years, like the 2.6.27 kernel is. This is because a number (i.e. more than 2) Linux distributions are basing their "enterprise" releases on this kernel version, and it will make their lives easier if I keep it alive. Quote Link to comment
BRiT Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 will probably soon produce a 4.5.1 "final" version that includes a linux kernel update. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.2 stable as of 2009-12-18. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.3 stable as of 2010-01-06. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.5 stable as of 2010-01-22. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.6 stable as of 2010-01-25 Linux Kernel 2.6.32.7 stable as of 2010-01-28. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.8 stable as of 2010-02-09. Heck they'll even have a 2.6.33 stable anytime now. I so wish we finally get this long promised update. Linux Kernel 2.6.32.9 stable as of 2010-02-23. Linux Kernel 2.6.33 stable as of 2010-02-24. (http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_33) The immediate standouts to me are: Reiserfs de-BKLification One of the biggest shortcomings of reiserfs v3 (and one of the reasons why most distros use Ext instead) is that its codebase handles concurrency using a single big lock - the BKL (Big Kernel Lock). This means that its SMP scalability is very poor. This release won't fix that issue, but it replaces the BKL with a reiserfs-specific solution. In this release, there are no more traces of the BKL inside reiserfs. It has been converted into a recursive mutex. This sounds dirty but plugging a traditional lock into reiserfs would involve a deeper rewrite as the reiserfs architecture is based on the ugly big kernel lock rules. Due to the subtle semantics of the locking changes, some workloads may have small performance regressions and other have improvements. Block Remove the anticipatory IO scheduler (replaced by the default io scheduler, CFQ) (commit) readahead: add blk_run_backing_dev on page_cache_async_readahead so readahead I/O is unpluged to improve throughput on especially RAID environment (commit) Block CFQ Merge cooperating cfq_queues. Performance of the read-test2 benchmark (which is written to emulate the dump( utility) went from 12MB/s to 90MB/s on a SATA disk. NFS servers with multiple nfsd threads also saw performance increases (commit) Reimplement priorities using different service trees (commit) Fairness for sync no-idle queues (commit) Quote Link to comment
bubbaQ Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 The BKL change won't have much effect on unRAID, but the scheduling changes may. The biggest impact will come from going to the 2.6.32 (or later) kernel for the buffering changes. Quote Link to comment
RoninTech Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 Does this new version allow us to use the 8 port PCI-E supermicro SATA card? I imagine when unraid does support it these cards will fly off the shelves based on their price, number of ports and PCI-E connectivity. I'll definitely be buying a couple which would allow me to use what unraid pro supports without breaking the bank. Quote Link to comment
jimwhite Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 The BKL change won't have much effect on unRAID, ... hmmmmm... might it not have something to do with the video streaming locks many of us are seeing? Quote Link to comment
bubbaQ Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 might it not have something to do with the video streaming locks many of us are seeing? No. Quote Link to comment
jimwhite Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 that's certainly final !!! Quote Link to comment
mark-hc Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 I've uprgaded from 4.3.3 to 4.5.1. My upload transfer rate went from 18 MB/s to 35 MB/s ! I can't believe my eyes! That was a 13GB Blu-ray file... Just wanted to share my success Quote Link to comment
Yorgo Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 Does this new version allow us to use the 8 port PCI-E supermicro SATA card? I imagine when unraid does support it these cards will fly off the shelves based on their price, number of ports and PCI-E connectivity. I'll definitely be buying a couple which would allow me to use what unraid pro supports without breaking the bank. Which card are you referencing? Can you provide info? Quote Link to comment
RoninTech Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 Which card are you referencing? Can you provide info? Here you go Yorgo: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SASLP-MV8.cfm http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3382.0 A forum search on "AOC-SASLP-MV8" will give lots more hits. To summarize its an 8 port PCI express SATA card that runs in the ~$100 USD range which is why many folks are interested in it. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 I've uprgaded from 4.3.3 to 4.5.1. My upload transfer rate went from 18 MB/s to 35 MB/s ! I can't believe my eyes! That was a 13GB Blu-ray file... Just wanted to share my success Is that with, or without a cache drive being written to? Quote Link to comment
Yorgo Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 Which card are you referencing? Can you provide info? Here you go Yorgo: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SASLP-MV8.cfm http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3382.0 A forum search on "AOC-SASLP-MV8" will give lots more hits. To summarize its an 8 port PCI express SATA card that runs in the ~$100 USD range which is why many folks are interested in it. Thanks much, RoninTech. Very cool! Quote Link to comment
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