Are there any drives that are NOT suitable for UnRaid?

[guiri]

Guys, I have a NAS that I plan on selling to get an UnRaid unit. Nothing wrong with the NAS, it's a ReadyNAS NV+ with 5x2TB of enterprise drives but I just like the idea of the Unraid better.

 

However, I had the NAS giving me some errors and the guy at WD suspected that it would be fixed if I got enterprise drives and he was right.

 

So, my question is, does it matter WHAT drives I use in an unraid? I mean, other than actual drive speed?

 

I also talked to a guy from here and he suggested I put in an extra drive for immediate transfer and then let the thing update the info/move to the raid while I sleep or something.

With that in mind, speed on the drives shouldn't matter, right?

 

So, are there any drives at all that shouldn't be used? Slow drives, green drives, etc, etc?

 

Also, if anyone has a unit they want to get rid of at a good price, I'm interested. With or without drives.

 

Thanks

 

George

[purko]

So, my question is, does it matter WHAT drives I use in an unraid? I mean, other than actual drive speed?

Other than actual drive speed, No, it doesn't matter what drives you use in an unRAID.

The issue the enterprise drives are addressing does not exist in unRAID.

 

[terrastrife]

the problem yovue described is a tler issue. enterprise drives have a much mroe lazy error checking routine so that they do not delay their access to the controller, small delay (hdd self correcting error) controlelr thinks drive is down, errors. the array will self correct/verify. unco raid contollers have this problem.

[purko]

I don't understand what exactly you are trying to tell him, but the answer to his question is: No, it doesn't matter what drives you use in unRAID.

 

[terrastrife]

I don't understand what exactly you are trying to tell him, but the answer to his question is: No, it doesn't matter what drives you use in unRAID.

 

unless its an ears.

[purko]

 

   

 

 

[Kaygee]

The NAS issue is that normal d/top drives have error retrying cycle that can take an extended time to respond. A typical raid controller sees this as the drive being out of service and boots it from the array. Enterprise drives dont have TLER enabled.

 

unRAID has no such problems with desktop drives.

[guiri]

So, basically I can buy the absolutely cheapest drives I can find when I see a special?

 

Does the speed matter a lot for transferring info or do you do it like the guy said, when you sleep?

 

Thanks

 

George

[Joe L.]

So, basically I can buy the absolutely cheapest drives I can find when I see a special?

That is exactly how many of us purchase new drives...  Wait for a good sale (unless of course you have a failed drive in the array, in which case you'll want to get the replacement drive as soon as possible)

Does the speed matter a lot for transferring info or do you do it like the guy said, when you sleep?

 

Thanks

 

George

There are many of us with older, slower drives.  Basically, the slowest rotational speed disk will determine the fastest you can write to the array. 

 

If you want the absolute fastest, get all 7200 RPM disks, or if you have more money than most anybody I know, use 2TB SSD's when they eventually go on the market.  There is at least one forum member that has built the "ultimate" unRAID Server" twice....

 

Even without the very fast disks,  you'll still be plenty fast enough for a media server.  The current crop of "green" disks are slower 5400 RPM disks and will do just fine.  They trade lower power consumption for slower slower spindle speed.  Nearly all of my IDE based disks are 5400 RPM or slower drives.  I am not a speed freak. 

 

I have disks ranging from 1.5TB down to 8Gig in my server.  The nearly-antique 8Gig tests at 17.06 MB/sec and

is nowhere near as fast as the newer drives that can get nearly 100MB/s in my array, but then it only slows down parity calcs to its speed for a few minutes while it is read.  It still is easily able to keep up with serving movies, as their data rate is typically only 5 or 6 MB/s. 

 

Joe L.

[guiri]

Thanks. I wasn't really worried so much about speed as I will have a raid 5 inside the actual computer. This will only be for backup and possibly to run as a media server now that you mention it.

 

If you run this as a media server, what do you need? I mean, do you have a separate screen for this one with keyboard and mouse or do you somehow control it through your regular computer? I assume that most or all of you use the unraid as a server only and not as your primary computer?

 

As for failed drives, I would have at least one backup drive anyway. I do now and this won't change in the future.

[ClunkClunk]

To answer your media server question, most people use it like that: a server. They display the video on another physical machine & display, but access network shares of their media which are hosted on their unRAID server. My unRAID lives happily in a closet, yet is accessed by a few Mac Minis connected to my TVs to view my movies and TV shows.

[guiri]

Thanks

 

How do you generally connect to your tv's?

[BRiT]

HDMI.

 

[Kaygee]

Component or composite (depending on source). I use cat 5 to distribute video and sound from multiple sources to four different rooms in the house. All the equipment lives in the computer room and is piped to each room.

[Rajahal]

Check the link in my sig for an easy do-it-yourself $200 HTPC (media player).  Works great with unRAID.