Let me be the first one to start this thread and really a discussion that began back late last year on AVS.  There are several outstanding bugs in the current product that need to be addressed and there are several requested enhancements that have been requested and promised that I know we are all looking to get status on.  I'm sure others will jump in here but let me get the list started.

 

Let start with bugs and/or issues with the current build:

 

1. Ability to both read and write at the same time, this performance issue is a big one for me.

2. OS has major issues with DMA drive errors often causing the box to freeze up.

3. Log files are not written in a location where they can be viewed after a system crash so there is no audit trail on system failures

4. System goes un-responsive every once in a while with no warning, only a re-boot can get it back (see #3 above)

5. Flash drive often lost or not set a boot device on re-boot

6. Flash drive is not proving to be very reliable overall

7. Only disk adds (into empty slot) seems to be consistent with what is expected.  Replacement of devective drives or upgrades to larger drives is not consistent at all.

8. Overall errors on boot-up (like EIP errors) that come and go with no rhyme or reason. Boot once get an EIP error and the system locks-up, re-boot right away and it comes up fine.

 

Now onto Fixes and Enhancements:

 

1. SATA support with spindown

2. Security, better yet user configurable security

3. Ease of data transfer from non-Linux disks

4. Given the several flash issues we have seen a safe and secure way to have a backup or some other fallback plan.  In the current configuration if the flash fails the only option is to contact Lime and have a new one sent.  Even with instant response there will be downtime involved.

 

I'm sure I have missed many here so everyone else please chime in.  Rather than attempt to re-read the monster thread over on AVS it would be good and helpful for Tom (I would think) to have all of this on his forum and in one logical place.

 

My additions to the list are few and minor compared to most have already been mentioned...

 

Let start with bugs and/or issues with the current build:

 

1. Inability to set the time-zone from the user-interface. (I'm stuck on Pacific time-zone, even though I'm on the east coast)

2. Endless self-update loop when administering array with Firefox 1.5 (must click off main page to allow drives to spin down as it constantly keeps them active checking their temperature)

 

 

Now onto Fixes and Enhancements:

 

1. Notification when an unRaid disk fails via LAN message, or via email message.  ( I had posted a shell script to do this via a "yac client" on the big AVS thread, it should be part of the basic distribution... perhaps even configurable from the user interface)

2. Limetech web-page mentions "Initialize Array Configuration," button is labeled "Reset the Array Configuration" ... wording should be consistent to eliminate confusion.

3.  The Limetech web-page mentions using the management utility when performing upgrades to the USB drive. I don't see anywhere in the management utility where USB upgrades are performed.  (Hopefully, an upgrade will include instructions for those updating)

 

I have been using my own "roll-your-own" version of unraid for several months now, and have experienced little if any of the problems you see.  I did have massive problems at the outset, but I found that the specified Intel motherboard is EXTREMELY picky about what RAM it wants to run with.  I initially set up with some Corsair Cas2.5 DDR400 RAM set at DDR400 (CPU is a P4 2.8 533) and all I got on the first several boots were core-dumps... backing down to DDR333 seemed to be fine for a few boots but NOT 100%.  I then tried some Corsair Cas2 DDR400 and found the same.  I then swapped some sticks into other machines and tried with a pair of Samsung Cas2 DDR333 sticks.  MUCH better, but over the next month or so had a few odd quirks, reported Disk Errors on the web config screen, 2 bad boots, one lock up.  I manually set the Cas access from 2 to 2.5 and it's been supoer stable ever since.... not one problem or error anywhere!

 

I agree about the throughput issues... I'm connected via an SMC jumbo-frame complient giga Switch.  Overlapped reads and writes to same/different drives seems to be bottlenecked somewhere.

 

As to the Feature requests, number one for me is SECURITY.  I'd love to give my daughter access to my media server, but with her friends coming over and using her computer, I can't take the chance!

 

Second would be an additional sharing configuration, be it WebDAV or whatever, something to allow more flexible sharing structure...

 

Next, how about support for USB external drives with FAT and NTFS support, outside the array, for purposes of loading media, transferring files to/from, and maybe even backup.

 

I realize that the space in the USB key is limited, but there is a way around it, I think, and the solution would allow the Linux savy and experimenters to build there own system the way they want.  Since the un-raid "driver" seems to load as a run time module to the OS, why not set up the protection key and it's serial number search and all that so that the driver can be loaded into any 2.4 distro so long as the USB key is present in the system, not neccessarily booted from.  I could envision a 1 gig USB key or CDROM distro (Knoppix, Slax, etc.) that boots the system and loads the un-raid from its USB drive and continues on and sets up a much more flexible system.

 

As for where we are now, I LOVE my system so far, I think Tom has created a wonderful addition to our media arsenal that I now could not live without (well... , you know what I mean ).  I look forward to the evolution...

 

 

Jim White

Treasure Island, FL

 

 

I would like the samba log files to be handled with log rotate as wells the syslog files.  My ram drive is at ~52% utilization after reboot, a week later it is at 65%.  The samba log files are huge foreach of my clients.  At this growth I expect the system to crash in about 3 weeks time when the ram drive fills up.

 

I get tons of sysquota errors in all log files, if these errors went away, the log files would almost be empty.

Occasionally I see issues with hidden files in directories. I'm unable to delete a directory because Windows is claiming that there's a file still there. Not sure this isn't a Windows issue but would love to hear feedback from others. I've also had issues with Read Only files. Sometimes one will get copied to the drive but I cannot reset it to remove the attribute - this is hardest if I've got a directory with many files and attempt to reset it from the folder level. Again, not sure this isn't a Windows issue but it sure is aggravating having to hunt down the ONE file in an entire directory that's got the stupid bit stuck!

 

Hrm, and I see the rollercoaster up and down throughput too. If I'm on a 100meg connection it seems steadier but as soon as I'm on a Gig connection I can swamp the connection and it begins the herky jerky pausing thing - drives me nutz! Fixing this is my biggest concern.

Occasionally I see issues with hidden files in directories. I'm unable to delete a directory because Windows is claiming that there's a file still there. Not sure this isn't a Windows issue but would love to hear feedback from others. I've also had issues with Read Only files. Sometimes one will get copied to the drive but I cannot reset it to remove the attribute - this is hardest if I've got a directory with many files and attempt to reset it from the folder level. Again, not sure this isn't a Windows issue but it sure is aggravating having to hunt down the ONE file in an entire directory that's got the stupid bit stuck!

 

Hrm, and I see the rollercoaster up and down throughput too. If I'm on a 100meg connection it seems steadier but as soon as I'm on a Gig connection I can swamp the connection and it begins the herky jerky pausing thing - drives me nutz! Fixing this is my biggest concern.

 

The problem with attributes is a bug which has been fixed & should be released this week.

 

The performance problem is also being worked on.  What we're going to do is get a new release posted out on the website in order to get some experience with the update process.  Subsequent releases will be posted to start addressing performance issues.  More later...