Hi, ive got a HP Microserver Gen 8, which I currently have the trial version of unraid on, and so far I am very impressed. However, I am unsure how I should set up my disks (I’m totally new to this kind of thing).

 

Im looking to have this set up as a Plex media server streaming mainly TV shows, downloaded via sonarr and sabnzbd, all of these running via Docker containers. 

 

I currently have a 2tb disk, a 300gb disk in there, but I have a 4tb arriving tomorrow. How should I set these up?

 

i would obviously like to have as much space for media storage as possible, but I’m a bit unsure how I should configure them? I read a lot of people talking about cache drives and parity? Could someone help me understand the situation?

 

Thanks and sorry for the n00b questions. 

 

Stewart

The best solution for more space is going to be more and larger disks. Larger disks give you more storage in the same amount of server space, and are a better value also.

 

With the disks you already have, parity must be at least as large as the largest single disk in your array, so the new 4TB would be parity.

 

Ideally, cache should be an SSD, but you could start with the 300GB as cache.

 

That leaves the 2TB as your only storage.

 

And even with parity, you must have backups of any irreplaceable files.

Ok thanks.

 

Can you explain the function of the parity drive? I’m just going to be using it as a tv show storage device, so nothing irreplaceable.....do I really need parity in this case?

https://wiki.lime-technology.com/UnRAID_6/Overview#Parity-Protected_Array

Thanks, I’ll have a read!

 

Is it something I could add later on? Or does it need to be done at initial setup?

 

Sorry, another question. If I decide to go without parity, can I pool together my 4tb and 2tb drives into one space for my media?

Edited October 25, 20178 yr by StuMcBill

Parity can be added later. It is a very nice feature, though, and recommended. It allows any one failed data disk in your array to be rebuilt in the event of failure. With an array of one or two disks, parity is a fair amount of overhead, but with, say 10 disks, it is only a 10% extra cost for a lot of protection.

 

Each data disk has a separate file system, but unRaid has a feature called user shares that lets you combine the capacities of your disks and manage as one.

 

I highly suggest you avail yourself of the wiki and forum to better understand unRaid, its features, and common issues people have so you are going into this project with your eyes wide open. UnRaid is a great solution and a powerful tool, but sometimes people misunderstand some of the fundamentals and wind up having problems, and even losing data, due to a lack of understanding of the basics.

Thanks, I’ll have a read of the Wiki.

 

I will definitely look at adding a parity drive sometime soon. 

 

Thanks for for the help. 

 

Stewart

Ok, I have a weird query, I setup my server, but it was set to the wrong time zone, I installed a bunch of apps while the time zone was wrong, and then changed the time zone on unraid.  However, the apps are still running on the old time (checked the logs).

 

Is there anyway I can reset the time within the apps, as my sabnzbd schedule runs at 1am pacific time, when it should be 1am GMT?

Did you try restarting the apps?

1 hour ago, trurl said:

Did you try restarting the apps?

 

Yeah, and the server.

 

I've attached the latest log entries from sabnzbd and my current server time.

 

If I can figure out the offset I can set the sabnzb schedule on the sabnzbd time, but just wondered why its happening?

Edited October 26, 20178 yr by StuMcBill

Have you set the time zone in the Sab UI?  I believe it has that in the settings... 

12 hours ago, tdallen said:

Have you set the time zone in the Sab UI?  I believe it has that in the settings... 

 

I couldn’t find that setting, but sab required an update, so I did that through the unraid ui, and it seems to have fixed itself.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Stewart