Questions before buying unraid

[Acu]

Hi,

 

1, Is it possible to run unraid instead of USB on SSD? Or on another HDD?

2, When buying a paid version of unraid. If my USB died earlier than 12 months, will a free new key be given to me?

3, If i understand it well when i want to make a backup copy of USB disk just do me an image and then restore to another disk and insert only the key?

 

Sorry for my english

 

[itimpi]

17 minutes ago, Acu said:

Hi,

 

1, Is it possible to run unraid instead of USB on SSD? Or on another HDD?

2, When buying a paid version of unraid. If my USB died earlier than 12 months, will a free new key be given to me?

3, If i understand it well when i want to make a backup copy of USB disk just do me an image and then restore to another disk and insert only the key?

 

Sorry for my english

 

1.  Not really.   You have to use the USB stick for unRAID as the license is tied to the GUID of your USB stick.    In practise unRAID is loaded into RAM on booting and then runs from RAM only using the USB stick to store configuration information so there is minimal read/writes to the USB stick in normal use.  The failure rate for USB sticks with unRAID seems to be very small.  although they do happen.  

2.  There is an automated process for registering a new USB stick and transferring the license to it.  You can do this once a year with no intervention from the Limetech end.   If you need to do it more frequently then you need to send an email to Limetech explaining why and they are very helpful in such cases.

3.  The USB stick is in FAT32 format so you can just copy the files on it (rather than image it).   The Community Applications (CA) plugin provides an automated way of backing up the USB stick and ensuring the backup is kept up-to-date.

[Acu]

Thank you for the quick reply.
 

I have one more question. can hard drives get some sleep?

[itimpi]

7 minutes ago, Acu said:

Thank you for the quick reply.
 

I have one more question. can hard drives get some sleep?

I assume you mean Spin Down - if so the answer if yes.    In fact one of the strengths of unRAID is that it does not need to have all drives spun up to access data - only the drives actually holding the data need to be spun up (plus the parity drive if writing data).  

[SSD]

USB failure is one of the most frequent questions for users evaluating unRaid, but one of the least common actual problems that occur. The ability to upgrade a key with an automated solution has made the replacement process very convenient.

 

Just buy a decent brand. USB 2. Anything over about 2G is going to be wasted for most people, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find one that small. 4G is plenty future proof IMO. But 16G seems to be about the smallest I see anymore, and they are fine.

 

A faster USB would provide a slightly faster boot, but that's it. It has no impact on the performance of a running server. So don't stress over getting the fastest stick.

[Frank1940]

You also don't want a flash drive larger than 32GB.  This restriction has to do with the required formatting of the boot drive with Windows machines. 

 

This is also a new utility to prepare the flash drive.  See here for more info:

 

[Acu]

True...

 

I still do not understand saving files to individual disks. I'm testing a 2GB parity HDD, I have a 500GB and a 160GB HDD. Only for the test so far.

The 160GB HDD is nothing more than 500GB.

 

In reality I would like to have 4x 2TB HDD.
1 parity and the rest. Any data should be stored on the parity disk. But how is it possible if the parity disk has only 2TB and the field will have 6TB?

[SSD]

Parity is not a backup or a duplication of data. It works IN COMBINATION WITH the other disks in the array to be able to reconstruct a failed disk.

 

See this post which may help.

 

Parity just needs to be as large or larger than the largest data disk.

 

 

[Frank1940]

55 minutes ago, Acu said:

1 parity and the rest. Any data should be stored on the parity disk. But how is it possible if the parity disk has only 2TB and the field will have 6TB?

Perhaps this explanation form LimeTech could also help you to see how the parity helps protect your data from a single (or dual in the case you have parity drives) drive failure.  

 

https://wiki.lime-technology.com/UnRAID_Manual_6#Parity-Protected_Array

 

IT is also important to realize that the data stored on any of your data drives can actually be read directly from the drive that it is stored on.  Thus, if you have have more drives fail than parity can protect (and this is usually gross negligence on the part of the user),  you can still recover the data from the drives that are still readable.