June 18, 201610 yr First time post here. I've been using FreeNas for over a year and have a typical Home/Media NAS setup. I built a AMD A6-6400K APU system with 16G etc. before I dug deeper into the FreeNas "true" specs of ECC builds. I'm an advanved windows guy but bumbled through the whole setup eventually with a PLEX server plugin running and a few others. I came from a WHS V1 setup and although the FreeNas system was "working" I never really knew at least 50% of what was going on. I never was able to pull backups from my PC's around the house and just manually did backups and sent the backups to the NAS. CIFS worked and I had scrubs setup etc. but still consider myself below intermediate skilled with FreeNas. Anyways, its time to add 2 more 4T drives which means basically a total redo with the ZFS system. The only way to really do it is to dump the files offsite - delete the pool - add the drives - make a new pool - copy files all back. Kidding myself I started googling for a easier solution and started watching unRaid 6 videos. Very impressed with the docker feature (coming to FreeNas 10) and the overall usability and friendly gui. I'd lose the ZFS filesystem but may gain more usability as the Docker facility seems awesome. My data is backed up offsite and I don't think I would lose sleep not have ZFS. Just wondering if I'd lose more than the ZFS... Any insight from past FreeNas users would be much appreciated.
June 18, 201610 yr Not a previous FreeNAS user, but the one thing that always bugged me about ZFS was its recommended memory requirements of 1 Gig memory per 1 TB of storage. And that's before any memory needed for other applications running on the server. In the case of my secondary server, for me to have 20+Gig of memory for something that is only used as a pure fileserver seems to be just plain wrong.
June 18, 201610 yr Author The worst part about FreeNas is the misinformation given by a 1000 youtube videos showing how to build a NEW FREENAS system using 10 year old PC parts laying around. It can be done but the true benefit of FreeNas is ZFS which loves ECC memory etc. and how FreeNas leans towards the Intel side. I mean ZERO disrespect towards FreeNas and its not their fault for the misinformation.
June 18, 201610 yr What does losing ZFS filesystem mean to you? ZFS has many features. You mentioned scrubbing, which unRAID does not do, but is can schedule a parity check. unRAID currently has only single parity (more is in beta). ZFS has a much more robust data integrity offerings, like more parity. But if you did not use those, that's not want you are losing. ZFS has several tiers of caching. unRAID has caching, but it is a very different architecture. You already know the biggest advantage of using unRAID, no forklift upgrade. Which is a big deal for most home users.
June 19, 201610 yr I used FreeNAS before, never looked back after I switched to unRAID. I like the community more, how simple it is, dockers.. Well everything
June 19, 201610 yr Author Ok, going to try it tonight! No idea how to transfer the plex config from FreeNas. I'll look around to see if I can find somethingit but probably will have to build from scratch. Schedual Install UnRaid Setup the 5 X 4T NAS drives. (1 for Parity and a 500G Hybrid as cache) Setup PLEX (PLEXPY f possible too) Future Figure out a backup solution like WHS that pulls from the PCs instead of push. Checkout if there are any docker plugins for After Effects or 3D render farming.
June 20, 201610 yr Author Do I need the beta install for 6 devices? I finally got the stable UnRaid 6.1 Trial installed (lots problems) and now limited to 3 devices? So I should re-install the beta this time for 6 devices? Run a 12T server from a beta? Maybe its late and I'm not reading details properly, try again tomorrow. Bed Time.
June 20, 201610 yr It's the trial that limits your devices. Changing to beta won't solve that. Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
June 20, 201610 yr It's the trial that limits your devices. Changing to beta won't solve that. Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk if doing a trial it will as the 6.2 beta increased the trial license limit to 6 devices, However since the trial is time limited at some point a paid-for license is needed, and then the device limit is whatever applies to the license type purchased. BTW: in terms of basic NAS functionality the beta seems to be as stable as the 6.1.9 general release version.
June 20, 201610 yr Author Ok, new day, lets install the Beta. Installed even faster this time, GREAT! (This time used compatible USB Thumbdrive, Switched to ON BOARD NIC) Log on to get trial key (from a PC that has my email account)... The error is: Cannot renew trial license because your current trial license hasn't expired yet. Guess I will email for key...
June 20, 201610 yr Ok, new day, lets install the Beta. Installed even faster this time, GREAT! (This time used compatible USB Thumbdrive, Switched to ON BOARD NIC) Log on to get trial key (from a PC that has my email account)... The error is: Cannot renew trial license because your current trial license hasn't expired yet. Guess I will email for key... why not just use the Trial key you already have? The keys are not tied to the unRAID version.
June 20, 201610 yr Author Just finished sending email, read the last post. DUH!!!!! Never even gave it a thought the original keys would work. Thank you.
June 20, 201610 yr As for transferring Plex, I think there is a very good chance of keeping it. You just need to get the Library folder from your current plex install and then put it inside the appdata/Plex folder for your unRAID docker. *edit* Of course, you will also have to have the same folders for your media as in your current install. Not sure how that is in your FreeNAS setup.
June 20, 201610 yr Author Everything OK now. Don't want anyone thinking I'm a FreeNas troll just here to slam UnRaid. Obviously not UnRaid's fault not all thumbdrives boot properly and would of been nice but its understandable that UnRaid was not able to use my Intel NIC card without drivers. Excited about the option of 2 parity drives, looks like the parity sync will take most of the day.
June 20, 201610 yr Everything OK now. Don't want anyone thinking I'm a FreeNas troll just here to slam UnRaid. Obviously not UnRaid's fault not all thumbdrives boot properly and would of been nice but its understandable that UnRaid was not able to use my Intel NIC card without drivers. Excited about the option of 2 parity drives, looks like the parity sync will take most of the day. What lead you to the conclusion that you had an issue with a thumbdrive booting? It's possible but likely something else was the cause of the problem. And even more with regard to an issue with Intel NIC. Intel NICs are most often recommended here when someone is having an issue with a non-Intel NIC on their motherboard. And installing drivers is not usually or easily done by users. What made you think you had an issue with your Intel NIC?
June 20, 201610 yr when i was looking at a NAS solution FreeNas was it for the home user, at that time unraid was in the early stages of version 5, what stirred me away from FN was the Jail system was more complicated than a simple plg install. So i dove in and have not regretted it.
June 20, 201610 yr Author Re: thumbdrives Didn't want to use the working FreeNas USB Key so I went through formatting and installing UnRaid on a few noname older unused drives sitting in drawers. I tried formatting FAT and FAT32 etc. but they simply wouldn't boot from them. It wasn't a bios mistake, they simply wouldn't boot UnRaid. I eventually just grabbed the FreeNas USB Key, reformatted and ran the boot script like I did with the others. Worked right away. The next problem was I couldn't via the web gui get through to the server. http://tower was a no go. I rebooted the Nighthawk a few times and eventually loaded up the router's gui to see the ip address of the server as I couldn't track it during the UnRaid install. The router showed no server so either the server was lost through the switch downstairs or something else. With the FreeNas I had installed a Intel Nic because I the onboard nic seemed slow. I switch the LAN to the onboard NIC and rebooted to a visible UnRaid server. The Jails and Plugins of FreeNas seemed great at first but as a non-linux user the tweaking and upgrading just isn't that enjoyable anymore. I'm just getting too old to re-read 100's of posts and 20 tut videos everytime to update Plex 0.9.16.5 to 0.9.16.9. The forum guys are great and can do it blindfolded but I'm still waiting to hand the IT torch off to my university son...
June 21, 201610 yr Author I'm thinking I should move this thread to support... 10hrs to setup Parity for 2 4T drives - DONE. Format 3 UN-mountable 4T drives - NOPE Starts formatted the 3 drives, approx 10 mins. later - screen refreshes - 3 UN-mountable drives still. Tried twice so far. Will re-boot and try again. Would start from scratch but that 10hr parity build is scarry.
June 21, 201610 yr I'm thinking I should move this thread to support... Yes, you should. Post the diagnostics zip file in your first post there, along with a description of what was on the hard drives before you started, and whether or not you did any testing or prep to ensure the drives were error free before you started trying to add them to the array. New drives aren't always perfect, and / or previously used drives may have existing MBR or formatting that can cause issues. Also, in regards to your network issue, very likely unraid automatically picked the onboard interface as your primary, so if you would have left the add on board attached and just switched the cable to the onboard it probably would have worked. The multiple NIC setup in unraid is not well thought out, the new beta's have more refined multi-NIC GUI controls in place but it's still very much a work in progress right now.
June 21, 201610 yr Also, in regards to your network issue, very likely unraid automatically picked the onboard interface as your primary, so if you would have left the add on board attached and just switched the cable to the onboard it probably would have worked. The multiple NIC setup in unraid is not well thought out, the new beta's have more refined multi-NIC GUI controls in place but it's still very much a work in progress right now. And the way you can force it to use the add on board's NIC is to disable the motherboard NIC if that's what you want. I'm pretty sure you will find the Intel NIC drivers are already installed.
June 21, 201610 yr Author After searching the forum I switched the 3 UN-mountable disks to XFS instead of AUTO and now they appear.
June 21, 201610 yr Format 3 UN-mountable 4T drives - NOPE Starts formatted the 3 drives, approx 10 mins. later - screen refreshes - 3 UN-mountable drives still. This happened recently to another user coming from ZFS, looks like the quick XFS format does not completely remove the ZFS information and auto detects both partitions and fails to mount. While setting fs to XFS like you did works it would be better to leave it in auto, because if in the future you need to do a new config, fs will reset to auto and you can have unmountable disks and don't remember the "fix". If your disks are still empty formatting them to reiserfs and then back to xfs should clear the ZFS info and allow you to use auto.
June 21, 201610 yr Wouldn't pre-clearing the drive solve this? I thought preclear plugin fills the entire disk with zero => so no more remnant of anything.
June 21, 201610 yr Wouldn't pre-clearing the drive solve this? I thought preclear plugin fills the entire disk with zero => so no more remnant of anything. Preclear would also work, but if the disks were previously used and are known to be ok there's no need for the time it takes to preclear them.
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