I'm really liking unRAID so far and I relied heavily on the GREAT setup videos, I would have been lost without them.  I think another video or two on populating an array with data (initial transfer of existing data vs. 'normal' operation) and some basic troubleshooting would make unRAID even more accessible to newbies like me.

 

I am just switching over from a WHS2011 and Driverbender setup to unRAID.  I've transferred the data off Drivebender (3rd party app, effectively adds an unRAID-like abilty to WHS), added second AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 card (flashed BIOS since I read some had issues) and they are working fine, and then set up unRAID 6.2.1 and updated to 6.2.2 yesterday.

 

Only hiccup so far is I had a second Seagate 320gb (see pic below) that I was using for some extra space temporarily that warned on SMART so I replaced it with a 1tb WD drive, the parity check ran in 2:37 at 425MB/s, which seemed fine and it was nice to see how it recovers.  I transferred more data overnight from a client PC that I'm connecting the HD's to and invoked Mover to start as well.

 

Quesitons & concerns:

(I've attached the diagnostics file.)

 

1.  This morning (with no transfer of data at all to unRAID) I've timed Mover hour by hour and it is running between 8 and 20 GB per hour to move data out of the Cache.  That's 120+ hours just to clear the Cache with what is there, nevermind the other 10gb I need to transfer (another 700+ hours!).  Is this normal?!?

 

2.  Can I stop Mover?  It sucks if I have to wait ~5 days until it finishes!

 

3.  If/when Mover is stopped should I disable it on all the Shares I've created, copy in my data, run a parity check, and then turn it back on for post mass transfer of small data sets?  Or set it to 'preferred' (does the Cache then direct transfer to data discs if the Cache is full)?

 

4.  What is the bump in performance comparatively going to a SSD for the Cache, assuming I don't have some underlying other issue with my setup?  I'll run to Fry's and get a SSD if that is the only way to fix this bottleneck.  Which would bring up if Mover can be stopped what do I do with the data on it?  Transfer data off until it is smaller size than the SSD I would get, i.e. get a 1tb SSD, add to Cache in Cache pool mode, let mover run until it is at around 900gb, then stop Mover again and remove the 2tb HD?

 

 

 

There is a whack of overhead involved with Mover since the implementation of hardlink support within 6.2 on user shares.

 

Net result is that mover sucks for thousands upon thousands of small files, but is awesome at media files (large files).

 

All in all, you'll get far better performance by setting the shares that have insane amounts of small files (which your mover logs seem to indicate) by setting the useCache to be no.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=50635.msg487376#msg487376

 

And "preferred" sets the shares to move the data to the cache drive.

You can also enable turbo write for the initial transfer, speed should improve considerably, but like Squid pointed out your main problem is the large quantity of small files.

Thanks for the replies.  I actually noticed a jump since I posted.  I think it worked all morning on a bunch of small files and now has moved on.  In the last 30 minutes it has transferred 61gb.  Whew!  Thought this was going to be a couple of weeks of work.

I turned on turbo write and turned the useCache to no.  In the last hour it has moved 146gb off.

 

One thing I see I overlooked was the Cache drive I installed is 2tb, and I'd like to use a 480gb SSD.  I now see the manual says "Attach the replacement disk (must be equal to or larger than the disk being replaced)".  When Mover is finished and useCache=off for all shares can I still just replace it?  Or can I completely remove the Cache and then re-implement it with the SSD?

One thing I see I overlooked was the Cache drive I installed is 2tb, and I'd like to use a 480gb SSD.  I now see the manual says "Attach the replacement disk (must be equal to or larger than the disk being replaced)".  When Mover is finished and useCache=off for all shares can I still just replace it?  Or can I completely remove the Cache and then re-implement it with the SSD?

that statement about replacing disks applies to the array disks, not the cache disk.

 

You can always switch the cache disk to another one (or decide to run without a cache disk), but you will be responsible for preserving any contents you want to keep.