I'm changing from XPEnology to UNRAID and wanted to check on the 'best' setup for my scenario.

 

I'm going to be using an N54L with 4GB RAM and 4x WD Red 4TB HDD's for storage with a one of them being a parity drive giving me 12TB.

 

But, this is where I need assistance.

 

I'm not sure on the correct config with the rest of the setup, as I have the following drives spare and I'm planning to run a couple of dockers to start with, with more in the future;

 

1x 500GB Seagate 2.5"

2x 500GB WD

2x 500GB WD 2.5"

1x Kingston 50GB SSD 2.5"

 

The UNRAID machine will primarily be used as a backup device and to store and serve up media that'll feed my Plex Server, which is a Dell T110 Tower Server Intel Xeon E3-1220v2 3.1GHz with 8GB ECC RAM and a 120GB SSD.

 

I was thinking 1x 500GB for cache and the 1x SSD for running the dockers and therefore using all my SATA connections?

 

But open to suggestions / guidance, as I'm new to UNRAID and want to try and get it right first time.

 

Thanks in advance!

Well, you can add as many of those 500GB drives as you want to the data array, but they're pretty small in this day and age and may not be worth the SATA port.

 

A 500GB drive makes a fine cache drive if it is fast enough.  The low power 2.5" drives would be a good choice if they are fast.

 

50GB is pretty small for either an SSD cache drive or Dockers.  Your going to want a 10 or 20GB Docker image.  Then each Docker is going to store it's data in appdata.  Plex can use a lot of disk space, but you have it on another server.  Downloads can take a lot of disk space too.  It might work out for you - but maybe not.  My cache drive has 67GB used at the moment and I don't cache writes to the array with it, and really am not doing much with it at the moment.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

To be honest, from what I've read, I'm not sure I'm actually going to use a cache drive for data as it's not really going to benefit me and my usage.

 

However, it sounds like it makes sense for Dockers and the plan is to potential / eventually run;

[*]nzbget & nzbtomedia (and a few other extensions)

[*]Couchpotato

[*]Sonarr

[*]Plexconnect

[*]NZBHydra

[*]PlexPY

 

So I'm hoping they're run on the SSD?

 

Also, what's the latest / recommended BIOS update for the N54L? I 'think' I got mine from AVForums about 2 years ago before running XPEnology, so not sure if that's still the correct one?

I would not be worried about the BIOS version on the MB.  unRAID is almost completely totally hardware agnostic.  Just prepare a bootable Flash Drive and see if it will boot in your MB as presently configured.  (There is always a certain element of danger in bricking a MB when doing a BIOS upgrade...)  unRAID will not do any writing to any hard disk currently in the case unless you tell it to.

However, it sounds like it makes sense for Dockers and the plan is to potential / eventually run;

[*]nzbget & nzbtomedia (and a few other extensions)

[*]Couchpotato

[*]Sonarr

[*]Plexconnect

[*]NZBHydra

[*]PlexPY

 

So I'm hoping they're run on the SSD?

 

The cache drive is the default "application" drive under unRAID 6+.  It's typical that you'd mount the SSD as the cache drive even if you only plan to use it for Dockers.  You can also look at the Unassigned Devices Plugin, but it's really easiest to just use the cache drive for Docker.  You can give it a go with the 50GB SSD, but it's pretty small to do all that so keep an eye on disk space.  50GB wouldn't be enough for me and all I do with my cache drive is run the Dockers in my signature.

If I found the SSD too small in the long run, is there an easy method to upgrade / swap it out for a bigger one?

If I found the SSD too small in the long run, is there an easy method to upgrade / swap it out for a bigger one?

You would copy the files on the small one to the array, replace the drive, then copy them back.  (Or use something like CA Backup / Restore plugin to do it for you)

If I found the SSD too small in the long run, is there an easy method to upgrade / swap it out for a bigger one?

You would copy the files on the small one to the array, replace the drive, then copy them back.  (Or use something like CA Backup / Restore plugin to do it for you)

Perfect. I'm planning to start the build over the weekend, so will initially go for the 50GB SSD.

I would not be worried about the BIOS version on the MB.  unRAID is almost completely totally hardware agnostic.  Just prepare a bootable Flash Drive and see if it will boot in your MB as presently configured.  (There is always a certain element of danger in bricking a MB when doing a BIOS upgrade...)  unRAID will not do any writing to any hard disk currently in the case unless you tell it to.

The only thing I'm thinking about with regards to the BIOS is enabling all SATA ports and running it at full speed, as it's not enabled by default? There's an extra 'hidden' one if I remember rightly?

So, I'm up and running! 

 

However, I wanted to check these speeds seem OK, as building the parity took 1 day, 16 hours, 24 minutes, 46 seconds. Average speed: 27.5 MB/sec. That's 2 4TB WD Red with the Parity drive also being a 4TB WD Red. Does that sound right for an N54L with 4GB RAM? I'm now transferring large mkv files directly to the array and Windows is reporting a transfer rate of 26.1 MB/sec. Again, is this reasonable?

 

Finally, I've also checked some of the drives I've knocking around and I've one drive of 500GB that is 7,200 rpm, with all others being 5,400 rpm. I'm now thinking of using that drive for cache and keeping the 50GB SSD separate for dockers (whilst space permits)? Does that sound like a good plan?

 

Thanks again for the help everyone, I'm learning and enjoying unraid with the plan for it to be 'set and forget' once I've got it right 

However, I wanted to check these speeds seem OK, as building the parity took 1 day, 16 hours, 24 minutes, 46 seconds. Average speed: 27.5 MB/sec. That's 2 4TB WD Red with the Parity drive also being a 4TB WD Red. Does that sound right for an N54L with 4GB RAM? I'm now transferring large mkv files directly to the array and Windows is reporting a transfer rate of 26.1 MB/sec. Again, is this reasonable?

 

Not really, did you enable write cache on the bios?

 

I easily got 100MB/s+ parity checks and 40/60MB/s writes when I used them with similar disks.

However, I wanted to check these speeds seem OK, as building the parity took 1 day, 16 hours, 24 minutes, 46 seconds. Average speed: 27.5 MB/sec. That's 2 4TB WD Red with the Parity drive also being a 4TB WD Red. Does that sound right for an N54L with 4GB RAM? I'm now transferring large mkv files directly to the array and Windows is reporting a transfer rate of 26.1 MB/sec. Again, is this reasonable?

 

Not really, did you enable write cache on the bios?

 

I easily got 100MB/s+ parity checks and 40/60MB/s writes when I used them with similar disks.

 

Ah ha, write cache now enabled and currently transferring at a much more reasonable +-51 MB/sec, so pretty much twice as fast! Damn, I wish I posted yesterday, would've saved me quite a few hours!  But much appreciated, thanks for the pointer! 

 

Now I'm wondering if I need a cache and to just us the SSD for dockers? If that's the case, how's it best to set up the SSD to only be used for dockers? Can it just be installed, not set as cache or part of the array and point the docker image file to the SSD? Is that correct?

When you add a cache disk, using it as its original 'cache' mode is only activated for shares where you say you want that capability.

Also note that you can activate turbo write (reconstruct write) on settings -> disk settings, it can useful especially for the initial data transfer, it should write at or close to gigabit speed at the expense of all disks being spun up.

When you add a cache disk, using it as its original 'cache' mode is only activated for shares where you say you want that capability.

 

I've seen that setting, but I'm thinking if I do install the 500GB drive for cache and I want to use the 50GB SSD for Dockers, I assume the SSD isn't set as cache, but as something else?

Also note that you can activate turbo write (reconstruct write) on settings -> disk settings, it can useful especially for the initial data transfer, it should write at or close to gigabit speed at the expense of all disks being spun up.

 

I don't appear to have that setting available? Not to worry, all in progressing nicely now anyway, I just need to be patient 

As long as you're using v6.2 or above it's there:

 

Settings -> Disk Settings -> Tunable (md_write_method):