Thinking of jumping in, but I have a few questions

[Seryth]

I am wanting to create a media server to take the strain off of my gaming desktop.  I am trying to do this as cheaply as I can as my wife really doesn't want another piece of nerd gear.  My brother turned me on to unRAID as alternative to a standard NAS.  I am just about ready to make the jump, but I have a few questions.  

 

1) This PC will be used for the unRAID box.  It will have x2 4TB hard disks.  1 for Parity and one for data.  Plex Media server will be just about hte only thing running on this.  My desktop handles all of my other needs.  Will that box be good enough for PMS and unRAID.

 

2) The website says that a max size of 32GB should be used for the thumb drive containing unRAID.  My brother (a computer god) says he is using a 128GB thumb drive.  Can I use a 128GB?  will I get any better performance out of it if I can?

 

3)Is a cache drive necessary?  Will a regular HDD work as a cache drive?  

 

Thanks in advance.

 

     

[ken-ji]

1. Wifi (If present, will be wasted as its unsupported - no driver or wifi support tools bundled into the image I think)

x2 4TB HDDs will only give you 4TB space and it seems you have no ports or slots for anything else. - expansion options would be very limited

the A8-6410 is supposed to have 2525 passmarks which sound just enough for x1 1080p video stream transcoded via Plex

Also the onboard LAN of 100Mbps will bottle neck accesses to the array. 10MB/s max read or write.

 

2. the USB device size is not important, but unRAID doesn't need a lot (tip: I get by on 256MB - but I have to manually do the upgrade - there's no space to upgrade in there)

the USB needs to hold all the small text config files for unRAID itself and any plugins config and support packages (which you say you probably don't need) Then 2x the size of the system files, so that you can upgrade in place automatically.

32GB is already overkill, but if you need to store some stuff on the USB device - I don't see why not.

There will be no performance improvement, in fact it might be possible to have difficulties booting.

 

3. the cache drive is supposed to speed up write access to the array as a parity array needs a lot of accesses normally to write per block of data. Most users write to the array at around 1/4th the normal speed, with a cache drive you can get around network speed (yours will be limited to 10MB/s). That said with your x2 HDD limit, you can't really add a cache disk (SSD or HDD) so its kinda moot.

 

You might want to look for a better machine, but of course there's no harm in starting on this platform - especially if its already available to you. You can always move to a bigger better box later on.

[Seryth]

Thank you for the response.  

 

i know the machine I'm using is crap, but its what I have on hand.  If I like the platform I will then upgrade to something better.  

[SSD]

Couple other points.

 

1 - The USB must be bootable. Used to be that some motherboards had trouble booting for USB drives above a certain size. The MB is really the controlling factor. Size of the USB stick doesn't much matter. Mine is 4G and 3G are free (and I have a bunch of logs, backlevel unRAID versions, and  and other files on mine). I don't think I'd recommend anything less than 1G, but I'm not sure you could even find one that small. 4G is probably a decent size to target. And a super fast USB card is not going to improve the performance of your sever after it boots. Since most of us run 24x7, its not a big issue.

 

2 - The cache drive is very useful for Dockers in general and Plex in particular. If you have the docker image file on your data drive, you will be experiencing slow writes for everything the OS does. Transcoding would also suffer. Even browsing your and updating your metadata could be quite slow. Having it live on the array may be a significant performance issue. An inexpensive SSD (120G - 240G should be fine) would be recommended.

 

3 - The slow network speed is a significant concern. You may be able to add a gigabit LAN card and alleviate that issue. Streaming hi-def video - even one stream potentially - will be problematic.

 

While not optimal, with a cache and a gigabit LAN card, I think this would be an acceptable platform for an initial unRAID platform. Once you get your feet wet, however, you may find the limitations too restrictive. But by then you'll have a better idea of what you would want and would be able to follow other user decisions for servers and make the most intelligent choice for yourself.

 

Remember there is a free trial unRAID license. It is 30 days but can be extended once or twice until you have a good feel for the product.

 

Let us know if other questions.

[ken-ji]

8 minutes ago, bjp999 said:

2 - The cache drive is very useful for Dockers in general and Plex in particular. If you have the docker image file on your data drive, you will be experiencing slow writes for everything the OS does. Transcoding would also suffer. Having it live on the array may be a significant performance issue. An inexpensive SSD (120G - 240G should be fine) would be recommended.

 

3 - The slow network speed is a significant concern. You may be able to add a gigabit LAN card and alleviate that issue. Streaming hi-def video - even one stream potentially - will be problematic.

 

Um, the machine he was gonna use has only 2x SATA ports and no expansion slots. - this enforces a 2x drive limit and that turns the array into a RAID1 array instead - in this mode, there will be no degradation of speed during access - there's no parity to check, just a mirror to make.

 

But yeah, the network speed will be a big issue, unless you only have 100Mbps in your home network...

Edited February 23, 2017 by ken-ji

[SSD]

2 minutes ago, ken-ji said:

Um, the machine he was gonna use has only 2x SATA ports. - this turns the array into a RAID1 array instead - in this mode, there will be no degradation of speed during access - there's no parity to check, just a mirror to make.

 

But yeah, the network speed will be a big issue, unless you only have 100Mbps in your home network...

 

Not sure on your point about RAID1. Yes - its true - that with only 2 data disks it behaves like RAID1, but unless there is optimization in unRAID to special case that situation, Id expect the traditional 2 reads and 2 writes method of update.

 

Frankly, with this limitation of only 2 ports, I'd struggle to recommend it for unRAID. Other options are an unprotected array. Or adding 2 port controller card (bet you;d find one on ebay cheap).

[trurl]

2 hours ago, Seryth said:

2) The website says that a max size of 32GB should be used for the thumb drive containing unRAID.  My brother (a computer god) says he is using a 128GB thumb drive.  Can I use a 128GB?  will I get any better performance out of it if I can?

Are you sure he isn't using a 128GB SSD as cache?

 

If he is indeed using a 128GB flash drive to boot unRAID, then I would say your computer god brother made things unnecessarily difficult, since you would have to go to some extra trouble to even make a flash that size bootable. The recommended 32GB max is due to the required FAT32 filesystem of the boot device.

[JorgeB]

13 minutes ago, bjp999 said:

Not sure on your point about RAID1. Yes - its true - that with only 2 data disks it behaves like RAID1, but unless there is optimization in unRAID to special case that situation, Id expect the traditional 2 reads and 2 writes method of update.

 

With only one data disk and one or both parity disks unRAID detects this configuration and works like true raid1, no read/modify/write.

[ken-ji]

1 minute ago, johnnie.black said:

 

With only one data disk and one or both parity disks unRAID detects this configuration and works like true raid1, no read/modify/write.

 

And I was looking for where ever this was mentioned factually.

 

In any case, the machine the OP wants to use is very limited - but good enough to get his feet wet ( on a trial basis even).

There are very significant limitations - rather weak CPU, slow LAN interface, only 2x SATA ports, and zero expansion options - not one PCIe/PCI slots at all.

 

Well go ahead I say, If you like how it is, then you can consider upgrading to a better machine later on.

[Fireball3]

46 minutes ago, ken-ji said:

and zero expansion options - not one PCIe/PCI slots at all.

It says:

1 PCI Express half-length mini card socket

 

Not sure if one can put that to some good use though...

[Seryth]

OK....  After a lot of begging to my wife (she controls the purse strings) she is allowing me to build a new rig for my gaming needs and I am going to turn my current computer into the unRAID box.  The specs are as follows 

 

i7-4790k CPU

16gb ram

2x 4tb HDD

1x 120 SSD

 

There is also a lot of room for expansion of more drives.  I do have one final question.  Currently my media is on a 4tb drive that is split into 2x 2tb partitions.  What do I need to do to make these drives ready unRAID?  Can I do any setup work via windows to prep to make moving the data easier?

 

[dboonthego]

1 hour ago, Seryth said:

There is also a lot of room for expansion of more drives.  I do have one final question.  Currently my media is on a 4tb drive that is split into 2x 2tb partitions.  What do I need to do to make these drives ready unRAID?  Can I do any setup work via windows to prep to make moving the data easier?

 

First thing is make sure you have backed up any important data from those drives.  All data on them will be lost.  The only prep work in Windows you need to do is configure your flash stick (if you haven't done that already).  Once you have booted your system, you can assign your 4tb drives on using the GUI interface which is accessible from any LAN connected machine at http:\\tower or by selecting GUI option during boot.  Assign one 4tb disk as a parity, the other 4tb disk as data disk 1, and the SSD as a cache.  The data disk and cache will appear under unassigned disks and there should be a button to format them.   You basically just need to make some drive assignments and unRAID will do the rest.

[Seryth]

So I do in fact need to move my media off of the drives before setting up the unraid box

 

[CHBMB]

You need at least one free drive to get things going yes.

[trurl]

15 minutes ago, Seryth said:

So I do in fact need to move my media off of the drives before setting up the unraid box

 

Yes. And you should always have backups of any irreplaceable data in any case, even after you get unRAID going. The simplest thing would be to start with new disks if you can.

 

If not, you mention 2 x 4TB, but the data is currently on 2 partitions on one of those 4TB disks. Is there anything on the other disk you need to keep?

 

If so, you could copy it somewhere else. That will get that one ready to use as your first data disk.

 

Then after you get unRAID going you could use Unassigned Devices plugin to copy the data from the disk with 2 partitions onto that first data disk. Then use the 2 partition disk as parity.

 

Probably best to take things a little at a time, so I will leave it there and wait for more questions.