So I've decided to ditch my windows 10 server in favor of unraid. Hardware consists of a old optiplex 790 w/ a i7 2600 and 8gb of non-ecc ram. I'm migrating the hardware to a new case that will allow enough hard drives for my future plans which won't consist of more than 6 hdds for my mild needs.  I'm currently testing out unraid to see how blue iris performs on the Windows 10 VM I have running (necessary evil ?).

 

On to the first question....

 

-I have a small (30gb) sandisk ready cache that I've formatted and made a normal ssd. I would like to designate it as a cache drive. However, I fear that at times this may be too small for my needs. I know that two drives can be assigned as cache drives but can one be selected as a "primary" of sorts, with the second as a overflow in the event the first one fills up?

 

-How are files handled with Sabnzbd?  For instance if I have Sab living on my "overflow", non-ssd cache drive how does it download a file? Will all the partial files populate on that cache drive? Could I select to have them written to the array then erased (I'm sure that's not a good solution)? Once a file is completed and post processed to go to say a "Movie" folder that lives on the array does that file sit on the cache drive where Sab is living or would it be moved to the "primary" cache drive (provided I can do as I asked in previous question) or would it be moved to the "Movie" folder immediately so that my media server could see it?

 

-How do files which have the final destination of the array, but are still located on the cache drive, appear to a connected computer or if you are browsing via the unraid webgui? Does that file show that it's located in its destined directory?  I'm assuming that it would.

 

-My motherboard only has 3 sata connections. What are some compatible, reliable sata pcie cards so I can add 3 or 4 more sata connections?

 

 

I'm sure other questions will arise, these are just some that I was wondering about for now.

 

Thanks

 

-I have a small (30gb) sandisk ready cache that I've formatted and made a normal ssd. I would like to designate it as a cache drive. However, I fear that at times this may be too small for my needs. I know that two drives can be assigned as cache drives but can one be selected as a "primary" of sorts, with the second as a overflow in the event the first one fills up?

 

I'm not too sure about having two separate cache drives.  I know you can have multiple cache drives mirrored for data integrity, but that is different than what you are asking about.  You are probably better off spending the $50 - $80 on a good 120GB - 250GB SSD.

 

-How are files handled with Sabnzbd?  For instance if I have Sab living on my "overflow", non-ssd cache drive how does it download a file? Will all the partial files populate on that cache drive? Could I select to have them written to the array then erased (I'm sure that's not a good solution)? Once a file is completed and post processed to go to say a "Movie" folder that lives on the array does that file sit on the cache drive where Sab is living or would it be moved to the "primary" cache drive (provided I can do as I asked in previous question) or would it be moved to the "Movie" folder immediately so that my media server could see it?

 

Sabnzbd (or any other program for that matter) are going to be run through Docker containers.  You will point them to a User Share (your "Movies" for example), and in that user shares settings you will specify that you want it to use your cache drive.  The file will be downloaded to the cache drive and then moved by a mover script at a predetermined time set by you.  For example, you could tell it to execute the mover script nightly at 3:00 A.M.  At 3:00 A.M. every night, it will move the file from the cache drive and place it onto the actual array.

 

-How do files which have the final destination of the array, but are still located on the cache drive, appear to a connected computer or if you are browsing via the unraid webgui? Does that file show that it's located in its destined directory?  I'm assuming that it would.

 

The file will still be usable and appear as part of the User Share called "Movies" whether it is on the cache drive or on the array.  As far as you are concerned it won't look or behave any different.  This is because you won't be accessing the actual disks themselves, but the "User Share".  If you were to look at the actual disks themselves, then no, the file would appear on the cache drive and not the array drive, but it's recommended to use User Shares for this reason; it makes things easier.

 

Watch these videos:  https://lime-technology.com/getting-started/

 

Particularly the Disk and User Shares one.

 

 

-My motherboard only has 3 sata connections. What are some compatible, reliable sata pcie cards so I can add 3 or 4 more sata connections?

 

Look here:  http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility#PCI_SATA_Controllers

 

 

Wait for someone else to come along and help with this, I am pretty new to this myself and am not sure which to recommend in your particular case.

much obliged!

Hi, a couple more answers:

 

You can configure your BTRFS cache pool as RAID 0 instead of RAID 1.  So you'd get one big pool of cache with no redundancy.  I think Herdo is right, though - your best bet is to buy a bigger SSD. 

 

Sab just downloads things, and typically does its thing just on the cache drive.  You also typically you have a program that decides what to download, and then renames and moves it after the download is complete - SickBeard, SickRage, CouchPotato, etc.  Point the source of that program to your cache drive and the destination to a user share on your array.

 

The Adaptec 1430SA is one of the most recommended 4 port SATA controllers, you can get them cheap on eBay.

 

Edit:  I forgot to mention that that 1430SA uses a Marvell chipset and there have been virtualization issues with that chipset (see this thread.  If you plan to make use of IOMMU VT-d passthrough then common alternatives with 8 ports include the IBM M1015 or Dell PERC H310, also typically acquired on eBay (they are pulled from servers).

Thanks again. Will a ssd make a big difference vs a traditional hdd for a cache disk?  If not, I have a 500gb hdd I can make use of.  Is their no JBOD setting for the cache pool, only raid 0 or 1?

Not sure what you mean by a JBOD setting in this context, everything in unRAID is JBOD.  If you mean being able to see multiple independent cache devices, then no - unRAID starts a pool with the second device.

 

When you add your first cache device it's just a single device with no redundancy and you can pick any file system supported by unRAID - XFS, ReiserFS, or BTRFS.  If you want to eventually have more than one device in a cache pool then pick BTRFS.  When you add a second device unRAID implements a pool using BTRFS RAID 1 by default but you can override and pick RAID 0 instead.

 

SSDs are ideal for unRAID cache devices because they are fast and use very little power.  You can certainly use a regular HDD though.

Is their no JBOD setting for the cache pool, only raid 0 or 1?

 

You can use the single profile, BTRFS equivalent of JBOD, useful when using different size cache devices.

Not sure what you mean by a JBOD setting in this context, everything in unRAID is JBOD.  If you mean being able to see multiple independent cache devices, then no - unRAID starts a pool with the second device.

 

When you add your first cache device it's just a single device with no redundancy and you can pick any file system supported by unRAID - XFS, ReiserFS, or BTRFS.  If you want to eventually have more than one device in a cache pool then pick BTRFS.  When you add a second device unRAID implements a pool using BTRFS RAID 1 by default but you can override and pick RAID 0 instead.

 

SSDs are ideal for unRAID cache devices because they are fast and use very little power.  You can certainly use a regular HDD though.

 

 

Unless I'm mistaken JBOD will add X number of disk with no performance or redundancy advantages. It's simply multiple disks added together to create a "single disk" with the capacity being the sum of the drives in the array.  The only options I'd seen were raid 0 or 1 which affects the total sum of the two disks I currently have which are a 30gb ssd and a 500gb hdd. I don't want to lose all that space.

 

Is their no JBOD setting for the cache pool, only raid 0 or 1?

 

You can use the single profile, BTRFS equivalent of JBOD, useful when using different size cache devices.

 

So it will just add the disks together, no striping or mirroring taking place?  I doubt I'll do this with the current drives I have at hand, but I still want to understand my options.

Is their no JBOD setting for the cache pool, only raid 0 or 1?

 

You can use the single profile, BTRFS equivalent of JBOD, useful when using different size cache devices.

 

So it will just add the disks together, no striping or mirroring taking place?  I doubt I'll do this with the current drives I have at hand, but I still want to understand my options.

 

Yes, single profile (JBOD) has no striping or mirroring, the other available modes are RAID0, RAID1 or RAID10 (also available but not recommended since support is experimental are RAID5 and RAID6).