June 20, 201610 yr Hi Everyone, I promise I've been scouring the forums and the interwebs prior to this post, still need some suggestions though. I'm moving my content server off of a Win10 Storage Pool for the awesome options that unRAID provides now that I have some new (well cheap and old - but new to me) hardware. Since I'll be working with this older hardware, I'm hoping to building maximum redundancy to the new server. Specifically, I'm most excited about v6.2 and the option for dual redundant parity drives and the ability to have faster, redundant SSD cache drives. I've been burned by enough HDD failures that redundancy is key - also I'm planning to relocate my primary photo storage to the server based on the increased redundancy (I promise everything has cloud and offsite backups, but 12TB is always a pain to restore). Finally the actual question is all about timing for me. v6.2 with the dual parity option is still in Beta. I'm ready to build my box and have the HDDs for dual parity, is the Beta fairly stable? There are always inherent risks in beta releases, but I haven't seen anything in the forums to suggest that there are major data integrity issues at the moment. There are only a few Docker services I plan on running off the bat: Plex, PlexPy, PlexRequests, Subsonic, Calibre, Ubooquity and once I have the final release, ownCloud. What do you think, is it better to go with v6.1 and then add the extra parity drive once 6.2 is firm, or can I build my box on 6.2 Beta 3 weeks from now? Thank you!! For those that are interested, my hardware is a combination of ebay/actual RL auctions ($250 CAD TOTAL!! - excluding hdds of course) Xeon X5675: http://ark.intel.com/products/52577/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5675-12M-Cache-3_06-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI Gigabyte GA-EX58-DS4 (the bios backup bug thing is off by default) http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2959#ov 750w psu 24GB RAM SYBA SY-PEX40039 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124045 2x240gb ssd 6x3TB hdd
June 20, 201610 yr In my experience the current beta is rock-solid for basic NAS functionality. It is mainly around advanced virtualisation capabilities that change is still occurring.
June 20, 201610 yr In my experience the current beta is rock-solid for basic NAS functionality. It is mainly around advanced virtualisation capabilities that change is still occurring. +1
June 20, 201610 yr One thing missing from your spec is enough detail about the PSU. Is it single +12V rail? I think most of the reported issues with the beta are related to VMs. I would be very surprised if there are or will be any data integrity issues, and I am running the beta on my main server without issue. Since you have backups I would say go for it.
June 20, 201610 yr My opinion is to not touch beta with anything that is important. Testing is fine but not your actual server. The fact that you are interested in dual parity suggests the data is important. Then I would say the better thing to do is to stick to 6.1.9 stable. If you are that concerened about having more than 1 failed drive, I think you should simply run 3-pass preclear on all your HDDs + 1 extended SMART test. If your drives don't fail after that then the probability of 1 failing is very low and probability of 2 failing is very low squared.
June 20, 201610 yr Author Wow, you are all fantastic. I'm really blown away by how fast you all responded FAST with great answers (heck, part the reason I decided to go with unRAID was the super active and supportive forum community). Once my new case arrives, I'm going move it over and build it based on v6.1.9 and hope the move to v6.2 plus adding a second parity drive is easy. I'm really going to for basic NAS and Plex at the moment, Piwigo in the future and I may give Rocket.Chat a shot as well. I might eventually start into higher functioning VM's but I expect 6.2 will be a stable release by then. As for the PSU - not too sure, I'll look when I get home. I snagged most of the components from an auction from the assets of a photography company, so I'm hoping its not too bad. Build was done in 2012. Once again, thank you all!
June 20, 201610 yr As for the PSU - not too sure, I'll look when I get home. I snagged most of the components from an auction from the assets of a photography company, so I'm hoping its not too bad. Build was done in 2012. Once again, thank you all! Please read over the PSU thread, https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12219.0 and post back with the exact model of your PSU if you have questions. A PSU that is ideal for a regular server can be a very poor match for a storage server with multiple hard drives.
June 21, 201610 yr Author Well, turns out I've got an Enermax Revolution 87+. That's 4 12v rails on that one for 1000w of fun. The point of that psu post was the dangers of having enough power for all the drives on spin up correct? This thing seems to have 30 amps on all four rails with an ability to assign hdds to each rail as its semi modular with the rails listed. If I even out power distribution, will that be OK? Thanks again
June 21, 201610 yr Well, turns out I've got an Enermax Revolution 87+. That's 4 12v rails on that one for 1000w of fun. The point of that psu post was the dangers of having enough power for all the drives on spin up correct? This thing seems to have 30 amps on all four rails with an ability to assign hdds to each rail as its semi modular with the rails listed. If I even out power distribution, will that be OK? Thanks again As long as you can allocate enough power for your hard drives, you should be fine. MOST multi rail supplies only allocate one rail to all the hard drives and the other rails to the video card and motherboard, thus the recommendation that multi rail supplies = bad. Unraid is fairly unique in the server world as far as power goes, because it has no way to stagger spin up. In a normal server, even fully populated with drives, spin up is a one time thing that happens when you first power up the server, and you can stagger the hard drives so you don't hit the power supply all at once. The hard drives are never spun down until you shut down the server. Unraid, on the other hand, spins down unused drives regularly, because it normally only needs to spin up the disk that contains the specific data you asked for. HOWEVER... should a write fail to a hard drive, ALL drives are immediately spun up. Also, initiating a parity check spins up all drives at once. So, just when you can least afford for a disk to time out for lack of power, unraid demands the most power possible. Thus, the recommendation of a properly sized and configured PSU.
June 21, 201610 yr Author Ahh, yeah I get it. I'll keep a lookout for a single rail psu, but I'm pretty sure I can make this one work. See the pics here http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=270 The rails used are labeled pretty clearly, as are the ones used by cpu and mobo. Will still keep my eyes open though for a deal sooner rather than later. I'm really glad I posted this, I hadn't seen anything before on the psu requirements. Thanks! Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk
June 21, 201610 yr Ahh, yeah I get it. I'll keep a lookout for a single rail psu, but I'm pretty sure I can make this one work. See the pics here http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=270 The rails used are labeled pretty clearly, as are the ones used by cpu and mobo. Will still keep my eyes open though for a deal sooner rather than later. I'm really glad I posted this, I hadn't seen anything before on the psu requirements. Thanks! Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk Looks good, since you can make sure by the labeling that you split the hard drives evenly between 2 different 30amp rails. As long as nothing else about it bothers you, I wouldn't bother replacing it. 60 amps to split amongst your drives should be plenty.
June 21, 201610 yr Just bear in mind however that only the first CPU / GPU is not shared with rails for the drives (according to the pictures) Plan (and wire) accordingly
June 21, 201610 yr Author Thanks! Since the mobo doesn't have on-board video, there is a small gpu for initial setup, but most often it will be run headless. That leaves the 24 pin and cpu on rail 1. Only rail 4 will share gpu with other drives, but I'm hoping the gpu won't have much impact given it's relative lack of use. I'm certainly making a note in my OneNote to keep the issue in mind should I ever expand the use case for the server. If I ever end up doing a dedicated gpu pass through, I'll hopefully be doing a completely new build.
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