Is unRAID for me?

[superderpbro]

Hey guys, I am thinking about building a new PC.

 

Currently i have an i3-4170 / MSI CSM-H87M-G43 / G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600.

 

When i build the new PC i would like to use the above + 5 x 4tb HDDs to create a file server / torrent box.

 

These are the only 3 things i want it to do.

 

- Have a large pool of storage on the network (with some parity)

- Have a full featured Torrent client that is managable from any PC on the network

- Sonnar for TV shows

 

Now, when i look at all the options (FreeNAS, OMV... so on) i see they all have some torrent options. They all look really limited to me though. I want to be able to add a torrent and choose where it goes in the files system not just have one torrent download folder where everything goes. I want to be ale to use labels for different trackers. Basically i want all the options that uTorrent currently offers me on windows. I'd love it to be headless.. but im thinking i might want an OS with a GUI so i can go in and futs around when needed. That made me think i could only use windows to get what i wanted. Which limits me to FlexRAID, SnapRAID + Drivepool, and Storage Spaces. After a bunch of reading FlexRAID and Storage spaces are out.

 

Then i came across the Linus Tech Tips vid about multiple gaming OS's on one computer. Can i run unRAID to set up the storage / parity part and then run windows 7/8.1 in a VM? Yes! Will the windows VM be able to see the storage pool and save torrents there? Do i even need windows? I see there are Sonar and some torrent client dockers. Can any of the torrent dockers save where ever they want in the storage pool?

 

Sorry this is so long. Thanks for any help

[aptalca]

Yes to all

 

Well the only thing I'm not sure about is the labels for torrents because I don't use torrents very often and I only have the transmission container installed (used it maybe twice) although I believe there are other options available as well.

[roland]

I think the short answer is YES!

 

The long one:

These are the only 3 things i want it to do.

 

- Have a large pool of storage on the network (with some parity)

- Have a full featured Torrent client that is managable from any PC on the network

- Sonnar for TV shows

 

Yes to all of these.

 

Can i run unRAID to set up the storage / parity part and then run windows 7/8.1 in a VM? Yes!

YES

Will the windows VM be able to see the storage pool and save torrents there?

YES

Do i even need windows? I see there are Sonar and some torrent client dockers. Can any of the torrent dockers save where ever they want in the storage pool?

YES! There are dockers for most of the torrent clients and some even come with "built in" VPN.

The dockers can write wherever you want in the array as long as you map that path correctly to the container.

 

To find all the dockers install the Community Applications plugin https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40262.0 and look for your favourite apps

[superderpbro]

Thanks guys

 

"The dockers can write wherever you want in the array as long as you map that path correctly to the container."

 

So if i added a torrent and wanted to save it in say, folder1 (on the pool or array or whatever its called) with the label folder1 THEN added another torrent and wanted to save it in say, folder2 with the label folder2.. so on and so on. As long as I set all these folders up before hand this is possible with dockers? I ask because it seems that most torrent clients on NAS devices seem to want to put everything into the same one download directory.

[aptalca]

Docker containers are like mini VMs running Linux apps inside them.

 

Most Linux torrent clients have docker containers that run on unraid, such as deluge, transmission and rutorrent. You can Google these clients to see their capabilities.

 

Basically, if a Linux torrent client does what you describe, then it will do it on unraid (I know that utorrent in Windows does what you described but I haven't tried it on any of the Linux clients and utorrent is win only I believe)

 

EDIT: quick Google search revealed that deluge has plug-ins that do labels and rutorrent also supports it

[superderpbro]

Thanks aptalca. 

[gundamguy]

So if i added a torrent and wanted to save it in say, folder1 (on the pool or array or whatever its called) with the label folder1 THEN added another torrent and wanted to save it in say, folder2 with the label folder2.. so on and so on. As long as I set all these folders up before hand this is possible with dockers? I ask because it seems that most torrent clients on NAS devices seem to want to put everything into the same one download directory.

 

Well, here is what I would recommend, because that's a bit unwieldy. I'd recommend creating a parent directory for all your download directories, and giving that to the docker... then you can add any number of children directories without having to reconfig your docker.

 

IE:

 

/mnt/user/downloads is the parent and what you give to docker

/mnt/user/downloads/folder1

/mnt/user/downloads/folder2

/mnt/user/downloads/folder3...folder

 

Are all useable and you don't have to change your settings to get access to those folders... Does that make sense?

[superderpbro]

Makes sense. I like to DL directly into the folders the files will stay in for.. well.. ever. Like i don't want to DL a movie Linux ISO in downloads Linux ISOs. I want it to be in my main Linux ISO directory/s. Same with every other type of file i DL. I also just like the idea of adding a torrent and being able to decide to put it anywhere i please. Or, being able to use uTorrents advance>set dl directory to move the torrent anywhere else whenever i want. I think just running a windows VM would be the easiest way to do this, no? I can just do everything exactly the same as i do it now only using the shares as destinations. Iduno, guess im gonna have to build it and find out.. sucks that you can't test in virtual box first.

[aptalca]

On unraid,  all user shares are under /mnt/user/

So if you mount that folder in the docker container, you can set the individual user shares as the custom download locations

[superderpbro]

Is it a bad idea to just have one huge share using all disks?

 

/mnt/user/share

/mnt/user/share/Not Movies

/mnt/user/share/Legal music

/mnt/user/share/Games

 

So on?

 

 

[testdasi]

I'll be the devil's advocate here and suggest you consider an alternative solution:

SnapRAID + Stabblebit DrivePool

 

Pros:

• Run in Windows so you can have all your familiar Windows apps i.e. no need to touch Linux or VM pain
  
• Drives in pool are formatted in NTFS. So if there's a problem, the drives are fully accessible by any Windows machines without any additional software requirement
  
• Parity is run at interval (or whenever you want), reducing write penalty
  
• No need to deal with pass-through, VM, docker etc. e.g. no need to worry if you need "VT-d" and stuff to run VM.
  
• You can "undelete" files very easily, even if files were saved on multiple drives.
  
• Cheaper overall and definitely a lot cheaper to test. SnapRAID is free + DrivePool is free to try and only $30 to buy. unRAID costs a minimum of $60 for 6 drives => see my moaning below for some more info about the "Trial"
  

 

Cons

• More difficult to set up initially e.g. SnapRaid is a command-line tool
  
• The pool is not protected until parity is run - risk of parity being out-of-sync with data.
  

 

The above excludes things I know unRAID doesn' have natively but can work via plugins / scripts (e.g. CRC checking, Unassigned Devices etc.)

 

The moaning:

• unRAID includes ALL storage devices in calculating license requirement (i.e. not just drives in array). That makes the "Trial" version useless for anyone with established storage arangments to try it out. I have 4 HDD, 5 SSD and a 6-type card reader. That shows up in unRAID as 15 devices = "Pro" license. Hence testing unRAID is an ordeal, involving deactiving SATA ports + M.2 + PCIe storage in BIOS - and then reactivating them if I want to use my PC again.
  
• Information for unRAID is highly fragmented / outdated. Asking the forum is a lottery really => just check out the number of questions without any responses. Not saying it's any better with SnapRAID + DrivePool but they don't require as much tweaking, in particular with passthrough and VM. It's the tweaking to make things work that is the most painful in my opinion.
  

 

[superderpbro]

Thanks.

 

Yea, i am considering SnapRAID + Stabblebit DrivePool as well. If i do i am just going to build one computer and not have a separate NAS. I mean i live in an apartment and i really have no need to have another box running just for storage. Just thought it would be cool and i have multiple terabytes to store. I could build the gaming PC i am planning and just add 5x4TB + SnapRAID + Stabblebit DrivePool and be done.

 

What about multiple torrents downloading to the pool when it tries to make the snapshot though

 

 

[ashman70]

Is there any particular reason you want to do torrents versus Usenet?

[superderpbro]

No, not really. Cost maybe. I used to use Usenet years ago. Just havn't in so long. Looks like you have to pay for nzbs now to

 

EDIT: I guess i could just run uTorrent on the gaming pc and save over the network to the correct share. Either run Sonarr on the gaming PC or in a Docker. Iduno. I was just thinking the point in having a server (for me) is not having to run everything else 24/7. Guess i'm leaning towards SnapRAID/Drive pool now. One box for everything.

[vl1969]

Just to add my 2 cents, based on what you want an omv setup with snapraid and mergefs will do all that and more. Also includes torrent plugin and sonarr and subnzb.

As for downloading into specific folder, well I personally always want to rename and do something with download after it is done. For a movie coach potato have special script you can run after it done getting the movie,  so is sonarr and sick beard. The scripts will take your download and rename copy into proper folder etc.

 

Sent from my phone

 

 

[superderpbro]

Yea. I am rethinking the need to not download into a dedicated download folder. Hehe

 

I dislike having things auto renamed mostly though. I use Sonarr for non Bluray ripped TV but that's about as automatic as i want to get. I like to do everything else manually. I am pretty anal about keeping my ISOs (And other stuff) in original rars. I was with video until recently. Nowadays all "scene" video files must have a checksum file created immediately after unrar (or after a recheck in utorrent if non "scene". Mostly Awesome-HD internals). Then deleted and unrared again to make sure they match the checksum before i will delete the rars and keep the file + checksum. I had a problem with files not extracting properly (with no notification from winrar) due to bad RAM years ago. That started me double checking unrared files i plan to keep heh. I hate having terabytes of files with no way to verify the files are the same years later. I have bat files that do all the checksumming and stuff. Double click winrar-unrar> create sha1 checksum>delete extracted file>7zip-unrar>check new file>rename file and nfo to match directory>delete rars. Wish i could make it download the srr file from srrdb but i cant figure out how. I need to have md5 or sha1 files for each file (or set of files) or it drives me crazy. My cheksum free Sonarr dir really bugs me! Its just how i role hehe.

 

Been playing around with ubuntu server/mdadm and stuff like OMV in virtualbox. Haven't been able to get any torrent things working right.

 

The more i think about it, if i end up running a separate NAS, the more i like my original idea of just running unRAID with Win7 in a VM running Sonarr/Deluge and uTorrent. I really don't know what to do.. this is all alien to me.

[vl1969]

Well checkout flawless server.

It is a full setup specifically for downloading ready to go.

 

 

Sent from my phone

 

 

[ashman70]

Too bad Flawless isn't being kept up to date, looks interesting.

[superderpbro]

All flawless server offers is a bunch of auto downloading apps that i don't want to use.

[vl1969]

Ok, I was just sugesting, but flawless offers a pre-configured setup of all popular downloaders like transmission, sinnarr, subnzb, sickbeard, coachpotato, all installed setuped and just waiting for you to point then to proper folder to drop the files and add your info for soirce sites. Very good options for many people.

And ashman70, it is up to date,  the dev keeps up on the forum, infact he just posted a whole series of changes in the structure of the project.  He split up the while setup into 3 and now the actual flawless server is a vb vm that as per dev best running in omv. Also he removed plex and something else from the flawless server and have a separate vm for that.

Basically the fl server os a strictly dowload and organize setup and streaming is done inseparate vm. As soon as I have my omv box up I am trying it.

 

Sent from my phone

 

 

[superderpbro]

 

So, since i cant test unRAID i tested out Transmission in OMV. That combined with Transmission Remote GUI does everything i need. Is the Sonarr docker for unRAID able to use torrents instead of NZBs? If so i wont need to run windows

[aptalca]

 

So, since i cant test unRAID i tested out Transmission in OMV. That combined with Transmission Remote GUI does everything i need. Is the Sonarr docker for unRAID able to use torrents instead of NZBs? If so i wont need to run windows

Sonarr does torrents

[superderpbro]

Great.