Hey gang!! Love the forum and I look forward to my new trek as an UNRAID user/admin. I currently have 4.6 TB of active DATA and only 1TB of free space left, I would like to have TONS more! I was using a ROCKET RAID card doing RAID 5 and was using Server 2003 software RAID 5. Time for a change. I am mainly trying to protect my AVI's, MKV's, as well as pics, music, and some important documents. It will mainly be used to stream the AVI and HD MKV's to my HTPC via my wired network. I just need to be shot into the right direction. I only want to do this once and correct the first time.

 

 

I just spent a week offloading ALL my data to "spare" storage so I can utilize my good drives for this setup....

 

I have at the ready..

 

6 1TB drives (SATA)

6 750 GB drives (SATA)

1 750 GB (IDE)

and 5 more 500 GB (SATA) at disposal (to use within realistic realm)....

 

I bought an ultra cooling multi bay tower with hot swap drawers.

 

I bought the latest unraid PRO version and USB from LIME (just arrived WOO HOO!)

 

I just want to make sure that I get the right board and use the right SATA cards.

 

 

I have an opportunity to obtain an ABIT AB9 PRO brand NEW, or an ASUS P5B-VM DO USED, out of an active PC (Dont know where its been but it has 90 day warranty) Which one should I get??? Any specific advice on any special settings or approach after I get it?

 

I currently have a 4 port ROCKETRAID 1740 PCI card that does the whole 1, 0, 5 and JBOD. Is this a reliable card with Unraid? If so, would I have to wipe the RAID firmware of just set to JBOD?

 

I purchased on Ebay a 4 port PCI card with Promise PDC 20319 Chipset. Does 0, 1 and 01..Is this a reliable card with Unraid? If so, would I have to wipe the RAID firmware of just set to JBOD?

 

Also.....REALLY confused on what method to set the UNRAID RAID method to. I really need some guidance on what to set that setting to (high water???) This is a biggy for me!

 

Well I guess thats it. I have a guy on standby waiting for which board I am going to get so I can get to work...

 

I hope I didnt peeve anyone, I hope I didnt ask any stupid questions. Im just starting out and really confused like all you guys once were I'm sure. I just want to make sure the hardware is right from the start. If you have any other reliable, and compatible suggestions on model specific boards with the same amount (or close) SATA ports, as well as the SATA cards, that would be great as well..

 

THANKS SO MUCH for all your time in advance. I look forward to my time with this community!

 

Hey gang!! Love the forum and I look forward to my new trek as an UNRAID user/admin. I currently have 4.6 TB of active DATA and only 1TB of free space left, I would like to have TONS more! I was using a ROCKET RAID card doing RAID 5 and was using Server 2003 software RAID 5. Time for a change. I am mainly trying to protect my AVI's, MKV's, as well as pics, music, and some important documents. It will mainly be used to stream the AVI and HD MKV's to my HTPC via my wired network. I just need to be shot into the right direction. I only want to do this once and correct the first time.

 

 

I just spent a week offloading ALL my data to "spare" storage so I can utilize my good drives for this setup....

 

I have at the ready..

 

6 1TB drives (SATA)

6 750 GB drives (SATA)

1 750 GB (IDE)

and 5 more 500 GB (SATA) at disposal (to use within realistic realm)....

 

I bought an ultra cooling multi bay tower with hot swap drawers.

 

I bought the latest unraid PRO version and USB from LIME (just arrived WOO HOO!)

 

I just want to make sure that I get the right board and use the right SATA cards.

 

 

I have an opportunity to obtain an ABIT AB9 PRO brand NEW, or an ASUS P5B-VM DO USED, out of an active PC (Dont know where its been but it has 90 day warranty) Which one should I get??? Any specific advice on any special settings or approach after I get it?

 

I currently have a 4 port ROCKETRAID 1740 PCI card that does the whole 1, 0, 5 and JBOD. Is this a reliable card with Unraid? If so, would I have to wipe the RAID firmware of just set to JBOD?

 

I purchased on Ebay a 4 port PCI card with Promise PDC 20319 Chipset. Does 0, 1 and 01..Is this a reliable card with Unraid? If so, would I have to wipe the RAID firmware of just set to JBOD?

 

Also.....REALLY confused on what method to set the UNRAID RAID method to. I really need some guidance on what to set that setting to (high water???) This is a biggy for me!

 

Well I guess thats it. I have a guy on standby waiting for which board I am going to get so I can get to work...

 

I hope I didnt peeve anyone, I hope I didnt ask any stupid questions. Im just starting out and really confused like all you guys once were I'm sure. I just want to make sure the hardware is right from the start. If you have any other reliable, and compatible suggestions on model specific boards with the same amount (or close) SATA ports, as well as the SATA cards, that would be great as well..

 

THANKS SO MUCH for all your time in advance. I look forward to my time with this community!

 

 

Check out the unRAID wiki, FAQ, and the Topical Index for a place to start.  There are explanation of there that could get you started.

Your questions and your enthusiastic purchases show that you are really committed to this but need to read some more.

 

Basic guidelines:

 

unraid does not like ANY form of raid controller unless it is 1. Supported (a very limited set of chipsets) and 2. Set to JBOD and even then may be limited in the services it can provide (It's common for temperature and SMART data not to be passed up through these cards)

 

You should definitely look into how unraid works and before committing much more to hardware, test out a configuration - and BREAK it before committing your precious data to it.  It sound like what you want to do is a good fit for unraid but YOU (and you've probably never heard this before) KNOW TOO MUCH.  unRaid is simple and although many people here like to tart it up with vmware and news servers and all that - in the end it's just a merged samba share on the network that can recover from a single lost disk.

 

Please, play with it, break it, add a disk, remove a disk, expand a disk and it'll just become so clear you'll wonder why you mucked will all that crap in the past.. (except for speed, unraid is not a rabbit, it's a steady work horse, with a twin brother.)

 

Hope this helps.

I did. The questions I was asking were pertaining to "my" setup. Thats why I gave specifics on what I was using and what I would like to use it for. Just trying to narrow down an explanation.

 

From the documentation in those links listed is why I got confused on the type of RAID to use, like high water?? I'm not clear and would like someone to elaborate based on what I am going to implement the setup for. (What would be best for my scenario and why..)

 

My model of Highpoint card was not listed, actually I'm not sure if any highpoint card was, so I would like to know if Highpoint is a safe go, I'm sure someone has tested with a Highpoint model, the Promise was also not listed, so I would like to know if that model Promise card is a safe go.

 

The documentation lists the two motherboards I mentioned to be a good match, I understand this, and I also get how the Asus is used in the actual Lime implementations, just would like some experienced opinions on whether to get the "used" Asus, or the "new" Abit for the amount of drives I will be using. Is the Asus that good that I should risk a used board for this setup, or is the Abit from a personal opinion just as good, that having a "new" one would be great.

 

Maybe I missed something, but my questions are not answered in that documentation. Great read, but I started this thread to just narrow it down a little to specifics and experience from other users. Also, any experienced suggestions of what some users may have ventured onto as some options in hardware and setup for the RAID option. Are there any other users storing HD mkv's and streaming to HTPCs for example?

 

Any narrowed help in the hardware specifics listed earlier would be great. Either buy board number 1 or number 2, and can I use the 2 PCI SATA cards I mentioned without concern?

 

The RAID option is a big one for me as well as I can't get my head around it. (I think highwater would be best for me, just want to make sure)

 

Thanks Again!!!!

THANKS WHOLLY! That narrows down what I need to do for the SATA cards and the settings to apply for JBOD. Appreciate it. And yes, I probably do "know to much", been doing IT for 11 years and this is actually making me feel stupid. (I'm the Windows guy lol), I'm trying to avoid the breaking stage, I would like this to be more of utility with a purpose, like it presents itself to be, rather than a hobby. I have enough of those, and my data is not to be experimented with, thats why I would like to implement this properly so that my data is protected to its fullest, which hopefully, is the purpose of this neat little utility.

 

I am trying to take the proper steps in "giving UNraid what it wants" regarding hardware, find where I can veer away a little from the hard stone documentation, and get it straight to "working for me".

 

Not to say I wouldn't setup a toy box on the side to fart around with, but this is something I need to nail down. I have had one running with 3 500 gigers, on one of my clone PCs, was impressed, now I need to get a little serious, which would involve coming to this community for some re-assurance. I just need a narrow on what hardware I should shoot at it and what RAID mode would be right for my setup. Thanks again!!

It's actually only an allocation strategy - the entire file is always placed on a single drive (and parity is calculated to the parity drive) no matter what allocation strategy is used.  They can be changed at any time and just try to hint to the system where to put the file... But this only applies if you are not writing directly to a disk share.

 

Disk shares normally \\servername\diskX are just direct mappings to the drives that make up the array.  The allocation strategies mentioned don't apply because you're writing to a specific disk.  (and the minimum space setting doesn't apply either since you're specifying the drive)

 

If user shares are used (they must be enabled, but can provide a unified view of all the drives in the array) look like \\servername\videos and when you write to them it is written using the allocation strategy chosen.

 

I'm sure there's a lot of logic as to how it decides where to put it but based on what I've seen in the forums it's generally magic as to which it chooses and it always seems to be a drive other than the one expected.  But if you set the minimum size right, it seems to always find a place for things.

 

This is another reason why playing with your array before going live helps.

 

I wasn't trying to give you a bad time, some people that come in here are way over their heads - if anything, I thought we were too simple for you!

 

Rob

 

P.S. I'm glad to hear that it's getting things done for you and that you've had a good amount of time to mess with it - make sure you check out unmenu (in the forums) it adds some things that are just plain nice to have around.  The title of your message implied that this was your first unraid, in reality it will be your second!  (you always throw out the first)

Wholly...there we go! Thats what I needed. So I was planning to utilize it it in the manner of

 

\\tower\vault\video\HD movies or \TV shows or \por* (lol) 

\\tower\vault\pictures\birthdays or \ex-girlfriends, 

\\tower\vault\music\heavy metal......

(unless your experience with this has other suggestions)

 

I will be accessing streaming capabilities by mapping the HTPC to a share of the Unraid server and streaming from it.

I will be moving newly obtained data to the Unraid array via over the network copy, from the client with the newly obtained file, to the unraid share, for permanent storage.

 

So keeping the allocation strategy would be fine just set to its default value (If I understood you correctly)

 

Is it safe to change it on the fly, if for ex. I discover later that someone discovered a better purpose for a different Alloc strategy for their HTPC setup?

 

I think I may just go with the Abit Ab9 Pro board just based on the fact that its brand new.....?

 

I definitely will be injecting the unmenu, which I actually have not attempted or physically seen yet, but have read a lot about and will test on my baby box.

 

Thanks so much.

The allocation strategy is user share specific so each one can fill disks in unique and confusing ways.  That also means that they can be changed without even taking the array down.

 

As far as organization, no recommendations  except that generally the fewer the better as there are less to manage.  Most people I know split on either type or who needs access.

 

Another trick that many people have used to load large amounts of data into the array quickly is to mount the drive directly on the unraid server to avoid the network overhead.  When you're logged in either on the console or through telnet/ssh, the array is mounted as /mnt/user - this is the root of the merged disks and the directories found there represent the shares configured in the unraid ui (Note to others, if I've got this wrong, please clarify BUT note that I'm trying to keep it simple, not the nitty gritty details).

 

So, configure your shares in the web browser and then locally copy into the folders found in /mnt/user

 

Go with the new board, that way you've got more people to yell at if something goes wrong.

 

Good luck!

Sometime but only if you have time and interest, I would be interested in hearing what sort of documentation and help would have been better for you.  I know you had checked the Wiki and other docs, but they clearly were not enough.  For instance, what would you suggest adding to the Getting Started with unRAID page, that would especially help a user similar to yourself?