flambot Posted May 9, 2007 Share Posted May 9, 2007 Hello my fellow UnRaidians (well I hope to be soon if things work out) After many years of dreaming about a HD-based media system, I have finally decided it's time to take the plunge. I have limited experience with such things - been over 7 years since I last played with a puter-inards, but I'm enjoying myself having a go. I started an XBMC thread over at AVS forum here - new to the XBMC scene as well (fairly long in the tooth ) but as we all know, dreams don't manifest unless we take action at some level. I brought a server type case today, so hopefully it will do the job - should hold 14 drives. After reading another thread on this site, I thought I'd look at the P5B-E MB - link I plan on using 4x500Gb SATA drives to start (not sure if the free version allows 1xparity +3xdata...OR...1xparity +2xdata), but if things work out then a migration to a licensed version, aiming at about 5Tb over time. Hopefully I can get the hardware together in the next couple of weeks. Question: How many of you leave your servers on all the time? Are there issues with shutting them down/starting up all the time? Is there such a thing as auto startup/shutdown on a puter? Still reading and researching a lot of stuff and hope to get more answers from this site. As this is my first post, I thought I would share the background of my ambitions, and what I'd like to achieve. I'm certainly hoping UnRAID will help me get there...and by the way, if the thread heading didn't give it away I'm a New Zealander. Link to comment
flambot Posted May 9, 2007 Author Share Posted May 9, 2007 Looking for some further advice. What CPU should I use for this MB? (How much does the CPU speed make a difference) Any specific type of RAM? Am I correct in that this board needs a graphics card? (If you need a monitor) Is there a manual for setting this all up? Thx Link to comment
BillK Posted May 10, 2007 Share Posted May 10, 2007 Flambot, First, nice looking case! Now, let me try these questions one at a time... 1. unRAID basic can handle up to three disks....one parity and two data. 2. I leave my unRAID server on all the time, connected to a Belkin UPS, but then I use mine (among other things) as a backup device for myself, my wife and two children...so they need it to be online while I'm at work. 3. On the other hand, if I'm going away for a while (aka family vacation) or need to move my server rack, I use the web interface (Tom refers to it as the Server Management Utility) to gracefully shut down the entire server. I believe Tom (aka limetech) has enabled several linux commands, like "at" so you might be able to automatically shut down the server at a preset time. (Look in the User Customization forum for more hints). 4. As for CPU & RAM configurations, look in the Hardware forum. The good news is that unRAID doesn't demand a whole lot of horsepower. I, for instance, use an Asus P5PE-VM motherboard with an Intel Celeron 2.53Ghz CPU and 1GB of Corsair ValueSelect memory (although I could have easily stayed with 512MB)...not exactly cutting edge. 5. If your MB comes with an onboard video capability, then no, you don't need a separate graphics card. But you will need one (if you mb comes sans video) to set up the server. It's handy to have afterwards, but you might be able to get away without by using the web interface and telnet sessions. 6. The closest thing to a manual is a combination of this document http://www.lime-technology.com/wordpress/?page_id=16 and the forums (which you've already found). Cheers. Link to comment
flambot Posted May 10, 2007 Author Share Posted May 10, 2007 Flambot, First, nice looking case! Now, let me try these questions one at a time... 1. unRAID basic can handle up to three disks....one parity and two data. 2. I leave my unRAID server on all the time, connected to a Belkin UPS, but then I use mine (among other things) as a backup device for myself, my wife and two children...so they need it to be online while I'm at work. 3. On the other hand, if I'm going away for a while (aka family vacation) or need to move my server rack, I use the web interface (Tom refers to it as the Server Management Utility) to gracefully shut down the entire server. I believe Tom (aka limetech) has enabled several linux commands, like "at" so you might be able to automatically shut down the server at a preset time. (Look in the User Customization forum for more hints). 4. As for CPU & RAM configurations, look in the Hardware forum. The good news is that unRAID doesn't demand a whole lot of horsepower. I, for instance, use an Asus P5PE-VM motherboard with an Intel Celeron 2.53Ghz CPU and 1GB of Corsair ValueSelect memory (although I could have easily stayed with 512MB)...not exactly cutting edge. 5. If your MB comes with an onboard video capability, then no, you don't need a separate graphics card. But you will need one (if you mb comes sans video) to set up the server. It's handy to have afterwards, but you might be able to get away without by using the web interface and telnet sessions. 6. The closest thing to a manual is a combination of this document http://www.lime-technology.com/wordpress/?page_id=16 and the forums (which you've already found). Cheers. Thx for the reply and all the fine comments. Like all things new, it's quite nice to have some hand-holding - even if it is only via a few lines of text. I worry that buying a product will result in an incorrect purchase. A lot of shops here will not take the product back if you change your mind - even worse if it's been opened. Quite nice to be able to follow what others have done. Makes problems easier to solve from the people who have gone before. I came across UnRAID quite some time ago and I have been following this forum for about the same time (as a lurker ). Now it's time for me to give it a go. It's scary and exhilarating at the same time. Anyway, hope to get some more components next week. Just thought I'd ask for feedback on the possibilities (especially the MB, RAM and CPU parts) before I make a purchase. Always looking for more comments Link to comment
flambot Posted May 15, 2007 Author Share Posted May 15, 2007 Picked up the next lot of components today. I'm hoping I'll get a chance to put it all together tomorrow. I ended up with the following components MoBo...1x ASUS P5B-E ATX INTEL LGA775 P965/ICH8R 1066/800/533 FSB CPU.....1xIntel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2140 - 1.6GHz (1024KB L2 Cache) 800MHz FSB RAM.....2xSP 1GB DDR2-667 PC5300 SDRAM CL5 Flash....1x512Mb SanDisk Cruzer Micro Case.....1x ThermalTake VA8430BWSA (11xExternal, 3xInt HD bays) (I removed the stupid front wings) I used the same shop for all components for convenience. The CPU and RAM was their recommendation using the info supplied on this site. It was certainly cost effective. I was somewhat concerned about the RAM - they didn't have any 512Mb dimms in stock and I didn't have the time to go elsewhere. I took the chance it will all fall into place (fingers crossed). If not, I plan a new personal PC build soon, so it can be used for that, but I'm hoping it'll do to move forward. The shop also installed the CPU and RAM and tested everything. That side of it should be good to go. Currently I only have one 500Gb SATA HD, but I plan on adding two more next week. At least I can move forward with one. As this Mobo doesn't have on-board graphics, I'll have to dig out an old PCI card I have (somewhere??) for the initial setup. A couple of questions I have. 1. I've downloaded the 4.0-Beta10 version (being the latest) but another build using this broad only discussed the 4.0_beta4 version. Is the 4.0-Beta10 version I've got suitable? 2. The long term plan is to load my case with 12-14 drives. This case comes with a 430W PSU. Is this big enough, or should I aim for 600W? 3. I can only assume when a SATA PCI Card is used for additional drives (Being External) the cables plug into that then feed back inside the case? I think it's pretty obvious I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I'm willing to have a go. Wish me luck! Link to comment
Koolkiwi Posted May 15, 2007 Share Posted May 15, 2007 Picked up the next lot of components today. I'm hoping I'll get a chance to put it all together tomorrow. I ended up with the following components MoBo...1x ASUS P5B-E ATX INTEL LGA775 P965/ICH8R 1066/800/533 FSB CPU.....1xIntel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2140 - 1.6GHz (1024KB L2 Cache) 800MHz FSB RAM.....2xSP 1GB DDR2-667 PC5300 SDRAM CL5 Flash....1x512Mb SanDisk Cruzer Micro Case.....1x ThermalTake VA8430BWSA (11xExternal, 3xInt HD bays) (I removed the stupid front wings) Welcome to the world of unRAID. The gear you have purchased will certainly do the job, infact the CPU and RAM specs are probably overkill, but hey, better to be overspec'd than under spec'd Currently I only have one 500Gb SATA HD, but I plan on adding two more next week. At least I can move forward with one. As this Mobo doesn't have on-board graphics, I'll have to dig out an old PCI card I have (somewhere??) for the initial setup. You can start with just one 500GB, simply allocate it as a data disk with no parity protection. You can add the parity drive at any point later on, when you want to start having protection. I purchased a cheap PCI-e video card, but later discovered that the video card was only needed for initial BIOS setup, so can be removed afterwoods to reduce some power consumption (I have not need to plug it in again). I also have a very old PCI video card that I plugged in to try, with no issues, so my purchase of a PCI-e video card was a waste of money. If you plan to also remove the video card, don't forget to set the BIOS to not halt on any errors (not sure what the exact setting name was). A couple of questions I have. 1. I've downloaded the 4.0-Beta10 version (being the latest) but another build using this broad only discussed the 4.0_beta4 version. Is the 4.0-Beta10 version I've got suitable? 4.0-Beta10 works fine and so does the new 4.0 final. Suggest you grab the 4.0 final and go with that. 2. The long term plan is to load my case with 12-14 drives. This case comes with a 430W PSU. Is this big enough, or should I aim for 600W? I purchased a Coolermaster 600W PSU, which I believe is recommended based on the 12v power requirements at drive spin-up, with a fully loaded system. If saving money, you could get away with a 430W initially, until you have added a few more drives. But for the cost of a decent power supply, I think it is money well spent! I had a RAID5 system that experienced an apparent drive failure, which after testing I later put down to Power issues (a higher rated power supply resolved the issue). 3. I can only assume when a SATA PCI Card is used for additional drives (Being External) the cables plug into that then feed back inside the case? I think it's pretty obvious I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I'm willing to have a go. Wish me luck! To upgrade the P5B-E beyond the 7/8 possible onboard SATA controllers, I added a couple of Promise SATA300 TX4 PCI cards. These each have 4x internal SATA300 connectors (no need to loop anything outside the case), to allow me to use the 6 onboard ICH8 SATA300 controllers + 2x TX4's to give the maximum 14 drive capability. The TX4 cards are relatively cheap (I think I picked mine up for around NZ$165 each = ~US$130?), and should not be confused with the Promise RAID controllers which are considerably more expensive (and unnecessary as you would just run them in JBOD mode). PS: Don't forget to setup the P5B-E BIOS for AHCI mode instead if IDE mode, for the full linux driver support of SATA features (I haven't tested performance impact, but did note that the 2x JMicron SATA300 ports were only supported by unRAID in AHCI mode). Enjoy the ride! Link to comment
flambot Posted May 15, 2007 Author Share Posted May 15, 2007 Picked up the next lot of components today. I'm hoping I'll get a chance to put it all together tomorrow. I ended up with the following components MoBo...1x ASUS P5B-E ATX INTEL LGA775 P965/ICH8R 1066/800/533 FSB CPU.....1xIntel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2140 - 1.6GHz (1024KB L2 Cache) 800MHz FSB RAM.....2xSP 1GB DDR2-667 PC5300 SDRAM CL5 Flash....1x512Mb SanDisk Cruzer Micro Case.....1x ThermalTake VA8430BWSA (11xExternal, 3xInt HD bays) (I removed the stupid front wings) Welcome to the world of unRAID. The gear you have purchased will certainly do the job, infact the CPU and RAM specs are probably overkill, but hey, better to be overspec'd than under spec'd Currently I only have one 500Gb SATA HD, but I plan on adding two more next week. At least I can move forward with one. As this Mobo doesn't have on-board graphics, I'll have to dig out an old PCI card I have (somewhere??) for the initial setup. You can start with just one 500GB, simply allocate it as a data disk with no parity protection. You can add the parity drive at any point later on, when you want to start having protection. I purchased a cheap PCI-e video card, but later discovered that the video card was only needed for initial BIOS setup, so can be removed afterwoods to reduce some power consumption (I have not need to plug it in again). I also have a very old PCI video card that I plugged in to try, with no issues, so my purchase of a PCI-e video card was a waste of money. If you plan to also remove the video card, don't forget to set the BIOS to not halt on any errors (not sure what the exact setting name was). A couple of questions I have. 1. I've downloaded the 4.0-Beta10 version (being the latest) but another build using this broad only discussed the 4.0_beta4 version. Is the 4.0-Beta10 version I've got suitable? 4.0-Beta10 works fine and so does the new 4.0 final. Suggest you grab the 4.0 final and go with that. 2. The long term plan is to load my case with 12-14 drives. This case comes with a 430W PSU. Is this big enough, or should I aim for 600W? I purchased a Coolermaster 600W PSU, which I believe is recommended based on the 12v power requirements at drive spin-up, with a fully loaded system. If saving money, you could get away with a 430W initially, until you have added a few more drives. But for the cost of a decent power supply, I think it is money well spent! I had a RAID5 system that experienced an apparent drive failure, which after testing I later put down to Power issues (a higher rated power supply resolved the issue). 3. I can only assume when a SATA PCI Card is used for additional drives (Being External) the cables plug into that then feed back inside the case? I think it's pretty obvious I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I'm willing to have a go. Wish me luck! To upgrade the P5B-E beyond the 7/8 possible onboard SATA controllers, I added a couple of Promise SATA300 TX4 PCI cards. These each have 4x internal SATA300 connectors (no need to loop anything outside the case), to allow me to use the 6 onboard ICH8 SATA300 controllers + 2x TX4's to give the maximum 14 drive capability. The TX4 cards are relatively cheap (I think I picked mine up for around NZ$165 each = ~US$130?), and should not be confused with the Promise RAID controllers which are considerably more expensive (and unnecessary as you would just run them in JBOD mode). PS: Don't forget to setup the P5B-E BIOS for AHCI mode instead if IDE mode, for the full linux driver support of SATA features (I haven't tested performance impact, but did note that the 2x JMicron SATA300 ports were only supported by unRAID in AHCI mode). Enjoy the ride! Thx for taking the time to reply. Lots of great info here. I thought I would use the 430W until I need to change (Building a new personal PC soon so I'll use it for that) then swap out to a 600W. I didn't realise the 4.0 final had been released - only looked a couple of days ago. Thx for the punt on setting it up without parity - never would have thought of that. Two more HD's are now in the equation though SATA connections - the external SATA plug appears to be different than the internal ones, so I wondered how you would use that. I realise now to get 14 drives I'd need to use 2xTX4's, so I can discount the external one unless I want to add more external space. I figure by the time I get everything ripped to the drives and verify those rips, the next size in HD"s would have dropped to a good price point. Best to just swap out to a bigger size and not have to worry about anything external. I started putting it together last night. I got the MoBo mounted, replacement I/O panel installed, extra USB panel done and a fair amount of cable sorting. There were some pieces of clear thin plastic (1xsmall, 2xsmaller) that came with the case that I have no idea what they are for. They have a small amount of double-sided tape attached to them to stick somewhere - but who knows where. The manuals (both case and MB) are hopeless at showing how things should be done. Anyway, I'm taking it slowly. Hope to get it done soon though. I'm finding it a challenge - both frustrating and exciting at the same time Link to comment
flambot Posted May 15, 2007 Author Share Posted May 15, 2007 Question: The SATA HD has a jumper limiting it to 1.5G/bs or (if removed) for 3.0 G/bs. Which option should I use? Thx. Link to comment
Billped Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 Question: The SATA HD has a jumper limiting it to 1.5G/bs or (if removed) for 3.0 G/bs. Which option should I use? Thx. Depends. If your mobo supports 3.0, set it to 3.0. If your mobo does not support 3.0, then you may need to set it to 1.5. I wrote the previous sentence for a more general audience ... based on what you wrote/show, it should be 3.0. Bill Link to comment
Koolkiwi Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 Question: The SATA HD has a jumper limiting it to 1.5G/bs or (if removed) for 3.0 G/bs. Which option should I use? Thx. As the P5B-E ports are all SATA300 (3.0Gbps) then you are safe to remove that little jumper (I would imagine many people miss this). I have removed the jumpers on all my Seagate 500GB SATA drives during installation with no problems at all. Once again I haven't tested for any performance difference, but I did confirm that the syslog shows that a 3.0Gbps SATA connection is established. So can only be good! Link to comment
flambot Posted May 16, 2007 Author Share Posted May 16, 2007 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D All I can say is YIPPEE!!!! The damn thing started up Well after a day of plugging everything in (after sussing out where everything went), I got to the point it was time for a test run. I did have a few issues. The first was that the old graphics card I had turned out to be an AGP one - so no go. I couldn't find anyone with an old PCI one, and new ones were wickedly expensive. I ended up buying a PCI-e one - the cheapest I could find, which wasn't that cheap IMO - but I needed one to fire up the system. My current puter has an AGP one as well so I couldn't even borrow that. While out getting a Video card, I also brought two more HD's , so I have 3 x 500GB HD"s installed and ready the fill. 1 Terabyte = How many DVD's I wonder? Finally I was ready to kick in the guts. I hit the power button and the pretty blue LED fans fired up. I naturally had to sound an OOOOhhh AAHhhh . I booted into the Bios and configured the machine - seemed fairly basic after reading of your exploits Koolkiwi. One thing I got a little trapped on - there was no option to boot from a USB drive - yet the manual said that was an option to replace to BIOS. Hmmmm...finally figured out the USB drive had to be installed, then the system auto-sensed it. Cool. I was feeling good. Re-configured the BIOS to boot from USB and let it rip.; Major disappointment. The system didn't register the flash drive. Again hmmmm. I ended up having several attempts, trying different ports, re-formatting (both XP and HP) - nothing! I was starting to get frustrated. Suddenly I had a vague memory of reading something about a Sandisk issue in the forum, so I tracked it down and sure enough - a U3 issue. I D/L'd the S/W and removed the offending files, reformatted and rebooted (this should go in the Wiki). Man was I stoked when it booted and the screen filled with text. I powered down and plugged it into the network, fired it back up and tried "ifconfig" for an IP. Magic (things don't usually go this smoothly for me ). Then I found my first issue. I typed //tower in Firefox's address bar and I got a "Wait..." reply on page. I'm still waiting! The LimeTech Icon shows in the bar though. Another interesting thing, after the network connection was made and the server first booted up and stopped at the prompt, i typed "ifconfig" and it asked for a password. I typed root and it seemed to move on, but I don't know any commands. Is this normal? I have "Ping'd" the server IP and I got a reply. Don't know how to proceed from here. Need some help. Koolkiwi and Bill - thx for the reply. I later figured the MB could handle 3.0, so I removed the jumper. Link to comment
Koolkiwi Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 Another interesting thing, after the network connection was made and the server first booted up and stopped at the prompt, i typed "ifconfig" and it asked for a password. I typed root and it seemed to move on, but I don't know any commands. Is this normal? I have "Ping'd" the server IP and I got a reply. Don't know how to proceed from here. Need some help. Koolkiwi and Bill - thx for the reply. I later figured the MB could handle 3.0, so I removed the jumper. OK, sounds like you are almost there, and the network interface is working if you can ping successfully. The first prompt at bootup is for signon, so you need to enter 'root' first to signon and get a linux prompt. then you should be able to type: ifconfig eth0 I assume you must have got this far to be able to determine the server IP to be able to ping it? Question - when you formatted your USB drive, did you give the flash drive a volume label of 'UNRAID'? This is the first gotcha that I experienced as a newbie. If your flash drive does not have this label the unRAID startup will not mount it correctly, and your config files will not be found. A clue to this problem is seeing this type of error towards the end of the boot sequence: /boot/config/network.cfg: No such file or directory You might also want to review some of my earlier posts on the thread below, for my initial experiences and some commands for manually checking / setting IP addresses, and manually starting the management utility when I had not set the flash label to 'UNRAID'. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=571 If this is not the problem, suggest you see if you can retrieve the syslog to post here. Failing that, you can use the linux 'less' command to view the entire log on the console screen (or via a telnet session). ie: less /var/log/syslog Link to comment
flambot Posted May 16, 2007 Author Share Posted May 16, 2007 Another interesting thing, after the network connection was made and the server first booted up and stopped at the prompt, i typed "ifconfig" and it asked for a password. I typed root and it seemed to move on, but I don't know any commands. Is this normal? I have "Ping'd" the server IP and I got a reply. Don't know how to proceed from here. Need some help. Koolkiwi and Bill - thx for the reply. I later figured the MB could handle 3.0, so I removed the jumper. OK, sounds like you are almost there, and the network interface is working if you can ping successfully. The first prompt at bootup is for signon, so you need to enter 'root' first to signon and get a linux prompt. then you should be able to type: ifconfig eth0 I assume you must have got this far to be able to determine the server IP to be able to ping it? Question - when you formatted your USB drive, did you give the flash drive a volume label of 'UNRAID'? This is the first gotcha that I experienced as a newbie. If your flash drive does not have this label the unRAID startup will not mount it correctly, and your config files will not be found. A clue to this problem is seeing this type of error towards the end of the boot sequence: /boot/config/network.cfg: No such file or directory You might also want to review some of my earlier posts on the thread below, for my initial experiences and some commands for manually checking / setting IP addresses, and manually starting the management utility when I had not set the flash label to 'UNRAID'. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=571 If this is not the problem, suggest you see if you can retrieve the syslog to post here. Failing that, you can use the linux 'less' command to view the entire log on the console screen (or via a telnet session). ie: less /var/log/syslog Thx Koolkiwi for your reply and I really appreciate the help. I started to work through your suggestions, booted up the server - everything seemed fine. Came back to the puter and typed "//tower". Still receiving the "Wait..." on the page. Then...it struck me!!! Big Doh. I thought about the "NoScript" extention I run on Firefox - never realised it would affect things locally, but I was wrong. I added the IP to the "allow" list and instantly I booted up into server web page. It's amazing what a nights sleep can do - never thought of this late last night. So I'm racing. This has got the blood pumping. Now I have to figure out what to do next PS - Is there a list of "commands" anywhere? Link to comment
Joe L. Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 Now I have to figure out what to do next PS - Is there a list of "commands" anywhere? Now that you have gotten to the unRaid management web-page, click on the 'Settings' link, the only thing you probably will need to set is the Workgroup: it should be set to the same workgroup name as the other computers on your LAN. You can set the timezone there too as an offset from GMT, or read the post on installing a custom timezone config file, add the file to the flash drive, and then select it. Next, go to the Devices link and assign your physical disks to the logical disk positions in the unRaid array. Lastly, go to the Main page and start the array. It will take a while to initially clear and format the drives and then calculate parity... (with large drives, it could be many hours) Keep us informed as to your progress... you are well on your way. As far as Linux commands for use after you log in as 'root' via telnet... most linux commands will work... too many to list. ls = dir on windows cd directoryname works almost like windows. Joe L. Link to comment
flambot Posted May 16, 2007 Author Share Posted May 16, 2007 Thx Joe for your comments. I have assigned the drives and started the array. It went and did some stuff, then the page changed to this - As the drives are still doing something, I can only assume it is formatting the drives and doing the parity thing automatically, without me pushing any of these buttons. Is this right? How accurate is the estimated time? Added Note: - I've just noticed the info is updating as it goes, so I guess this question has been answered Does the "Refresh" button just refresh this page/info or do something else? . Link to comment
Koolkiwi Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 As the drives are still doing something, I can only assume it is formatting the drives and doing the parity thing automatically, without me pushing any of these buttons. I believe it is initialising the parity drive. Once complete, you will also need to press the [format] button to actually format the data drives (which I don't believe takes very long with a new drive - from memory). Does the "Refresh" button just refresh this page/info or do something else? Yes you are correct, you should be able to presh the [refresh] button at anytime without causing any issues, if you want to check were it's at. PS: Only comment I would add is that with a new system and 3 fresh drives, now is the time to play / test / experiment, before you start loading up your live data. eg. When I setup my system, I started with a single data drive, then added a parity drive. I then tested what happened if I disconected the data drive (to simulate a drive failure). After confirming the data was still available (read from the parity drive), I used a linux command to initilise the prior data drive before re-adding it and recovering the data from the parity drive. I then also tested the process of adding a single new drive (the third drive) to an existing live unRAID server, and again failing and recovering a drive from a 3 drive config etc. All of this might sound unnecessary, but it certainly helps build confidence in your system, and an understadning of all the processes, before you 'go-live' with your precious data! Link to comment
Joe L. Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 Does the "Refresh" button just refresh this page/info or do something else? It is exactly the same as the refresh button on your browser. It will update the screen with the current statistics, but makes no change to server itself. Link to comment
Joe L. Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 You will probably need to press the 'Format' button to create the file-systems on your disks before they will be available in your array.. Joe L. Link to comment
flambot Posted May 17, 2007 Author Share Posted May 17, 2007 Again...thanks guys for the help. It's been making a huge difference. On the plus side (I did decide now is the time to experiement) I played with these before your replies, so I basically answered my own questions. Always a little nervous doing such things as I wouldn't know how to fix it The drives took 126 mins to parity check/write. I did find out you had to push the "Format" button, but that only took a few minutes. Then it took quite some time to figure out how to "see" the disks in Windows. (I'm a bit slow ). Now that I have that figured out I'd like some help with shares and things. User Shares - How are these created? On my personal PC sharing is done via the "Properties" context menu, then selecting the "Sharing Tab" This isn't available on the \\tower\disk1\movies under "My Network Places". I've read lots and lots of posts and I'm really confused...getting tired...and frustrated. Do I shared the whole drive, or just "select" folders on that drive - eg "movies"? The other thing I don't understand is the talk about "mounting", "Samba" etc. I read a post that said "Mounted" stuff transferred files faster than through Windows Explorer. Can you explain this please? I'm worried because it seems to take a lot of command line stuff. Hope I'm not being too much of a pain. Off topic a little - especially as posts indicate the network is the main bottle neck. I plan to upgrade to a Gigabit network. Currently I have 1xputer, 1xXBox (XBMC), 1x UNRAID Server, 1x ADSL Router. The network is obviously 10/100Mbps. Is there such a thing as a Gigabit Router? If not, then I guess I'll have to get some type of Gigabit switch. I figure this means all connections go to the Gigabit switch, then a cable out to the Router. Seeing the Xbox is only 10/100, can it be plugged into the Gigabit switch, or should it be plugged straight into the router (10/100). Update: - I just previewed a movie trailer loaded on the UNRAID through XBMC. It played very smoothly. I'm about to load a much larger file (whole Movie) as a comparison. One final thought - when I searched for the UNRAID via XBMC, it couldn't be seen - I had to input an IP. Is this usual? My Window Shares where visible (I think??) when I originally looked. Thx Link to comment
Koolkiwi Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 User Shares - How are these created? On my personal PC sharing is done via the "Properties" context menu, then selecting the "Sharing Tab" This isn't available on the \\tower\disk1\movies under "My Network Places". I've read lots and lots of posts and I'm really confused...getting tired...and frustrated. Do I shared the whole drive, or just "select" folders on that drive - eg "movies"? There isn't really anything you need to do from the Windows end. All you need to do is setup the 'Shares' in the unRAID management web page. All folders you create on the unRAID disks will be automatically 'shared' on the network, there is currently no security to share some folders but not others. 'User Shares' are simply the merged folders of the same name across all drives in your unRAID server. ie. If all drives had a 'movies' folder created on them, the \\tower\movies user share represents the combined content from all of the individual drives 'movies' folders. I have set my system up like this: - Disk Shares: 'Export read/write, hidden' - User Shares: 'Export read-only' With these settings, anyone browsing the '\\tower' server on the network, will only see the merged user shares (eg. '\\tower\movies'), and these shares will all be read-only to protect you from anyone else on the network deleting the files. To write data to unRAID, you need to specifically key the path to the individual disk you want to write to, into the address bar in Windows explorer (eg. '\\tower\disk1' or '\\tower\disk1\movies'), this will then show you the individual drive folder (or folders) you can write to. 'hidden' simply means the shares do not appear as a visible share in the Windows network explorer view of the \\tower server, so you need to know to specifically enter the share path you require. The other thing I don't understand is the talk about "mounting", "Samba" etc. I read a post that said "Mounted" stuff transferred files faster than through Windows Explorer. Can you explain this please? I'm worried because it seems to take a lot of command line stuff. Personally I would suggest that you simply ignore this. I believe the posts you have read are probably discussing how to transfer data faster by copying directly to the unRAID drives and circumventing the unRAID software parity generation. Then, after copying your data, doing a parity build after all the data has been transferred. Joe probably has better knowledge of this than me and can elaborate (or correct me). I'm a relative newbie to unRAID compared to Joe! Off topic a little - especially as posts indicate the network is the main bottle neck. I plan to upgrade to a Gigabit network. Currently I have 1xputer, 1xXBox (XBMC), 1x UNRAID Server, 1x ADSL Router. The network is obviously 10/100Mbps. Is there such a thing as a Gigabit Router? If not, then I guess I'll have to get some type of Gigabit switch. I figure this means all connections go to the Gigabit switch, then a cable out to the Router. Seeing the Xbox is only 10/100, can it be plugged into the Gigabit switch, or should it be plugged straight into the router (10/100). Yes, you need to go out and buy a Gigabit switch. You can get a 5 port or 8 port switch relatively cheaply these days. Just plug your existing router into one of the Gigabit switch ports. You can then certainly plug any 100Mbps device (like your Xbox) into your router still, as this will save Gigabit ports on the switch for all of your true Gigabit capable devices. Not sure if they are building Gigabit switches into routers yet, as there is obviously no benefit for web browsing etc. (unless your Internet connection is faster than 100Mbps!). No doubt you could buy one somewhere, but as you already own a router, it would be more cost effective to just buy a stand-alone Gigabit switch to add as your network 'backbone'. Update: - I just previewed a movie trailer loaded on the UNRAID through XBMC. It played very smoothly. I'm about to load a much larger file (whole Movie) as a comparison. One final thought - when I searched for the UNRAID via XBMC, it couldn't be seen - I had to input an IP. Is this usual? My Window Shares where visible (I think??) when I originally looked. Thx Not sure about this, as I haven't tried this yet myself. Although, I don't see why the Xbox would not be able to see the shares, if your Shares are setup correctly (as above) and they are visible from your Windows network browser. Have you setup your Workgroup to be the actualy name of your network workgroup? Link to comment
flambot Posted May 17, 2007 Author Share Posted May 17, 2007 Have you setup your Workgroup to be the actualy name of your network workgroup? Thx for the massive reply. Wow...a lot there. I'm starting to get my head around it now...slowly . The above quote is the only part I don't understand. I guess I was looking for some type of Windows network thingee, when the UNraid isn't. Doesn't really matter, I found it using the IP address and that's all that really matters. I've been rather daunted by everything I've had to learn in a short space of time - setting up an Xbox and XBMC (still not there yet) and then the Unraid. It's really great to be seeing the thing running. I can feel myself relaxing a little Does it hurt to close the web page interface while the parity check is going on? I turned the Unraid off tonight, then back on a couple of hours later. When I started the array again, it automatically started a parity check. Is this correct? Does it do this even if no info has been written to it? Does parity start instantly when you are writing something to the Unraid? What speed (Kbps) should the webpage show? Does it vary? What's fast and what's slow? For only 5Gb of info, 106 mins seemed a long time. Is it? Hope you don't mind all my questions. Experience is a soothing relative that takes time to nurture...and unfortunately, I'm not there yet Link to comment
Koolkiwi Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 Have you setup your Workgroup to be the actualy name of your network workgroup? Under 'Settings' on the unRAID management web page, make sure the name you enter for the 'Workgroup' is the same as the Windows Workgroup name you have set on your Windows PC's (and Xbox if such a setting exists). This will ensure the unRAID server appears as a local network share. Does it hurt to close the web page interface while the parity check is going on? I turned the Unraid off tonight, then back on a couple of hours later. When I started the array again, it automatically started a parity check. Is this correct? Does it do this even if no info has been written to it? Does parity start instantly when you are writing something to the Unraid? What speed (Kbps) should the webpage show? Does it vary? What's fast and what's slow? For only 5Gb of info, 106 mins seemed a long time. Is it? No it does not hurt to close the webpage. The webpage is just showing the current status when the page was loaded, so if you re-open your browser later it is just the same as refreshing the page (web browsing is stateless - ie. the connection is not maintained). If you did not close down your unRAID server correctly ('cleanly'), this will result in a parity check on restart. Make sure you use the web management page to first [stop] the array, and then press the [Power down] button for a clean Power down! If doing a parity check, I believe the entire drive must be read to check the parity of all bits, therefore whether you have 5GB or 50GB of files, the speed will be the same. ie. The parity check speed will be related to the number of drives in the array, not the size of the files on the drives. Ensuring you always do a clean powerdown will avoid unRAID having to check the parity due to being in an unknown state at the next powerup. Link to comment
Joe L. Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 The other thing I don't understand is the talk about "mounting", "Samba" etc. I read a post that said "Mounted" stuff transferred files faster than through Windows Explorer. Can you explain this please? I'm worried because it seems to take a lot of command line stuff. Personally I would suggest that you simply ignore this. I believe the posts you have read are probably discussing how to transfer data faster by copying directly to the unRAID drives and circumventing the unRAID software parity generation. Then, after copying your data, doing a parity build after all the data has been transferred. Joe probably has better knowledge of this than me and can elaborate (or correct me). I'm a relative newbie to unRAID compared to Joe! I agree... you will want to ignore those posts... they describe an advanced technique to install a windows formatted drive in the unraid server so you can copy files off it it and onto the data drives in the unRaid server without having to copy the data across the LAN, but instead from a disk, through the PCI bus on the motherboard, and then to the destination disk. Since this is faster than anything you can do over the LAN it will take less time to migrate existing files. To access the files on the windows drive installed in the unRaid server it must be 'mounted' on an empty folder in the unRaid system. (the empty folder is known as a mount-point) Also, you would NOT use the devices screen to assign it to the unraid array. If you did, it would ask you to re-format it as it would not be recognized as an unRaid data file system. As already said, you can ignore those posts. Oh yes, mounting a windows disk internally DOES NOT bypass parity if the array is started. Parity will be calculated as you copy files to /mnt/disk2, /mnt/disk2, etc. There is only one suggested way to bypass parity, and that is to stop the array, un-assign the parity drive, and then re-start the array. Later, after the files are copied, stop the array once more, re-assign the parity drive, and re-start the array once more. The unRaid server will then calculate parity on the entire set of data drives rather than one file at a time. Note, it will do the entire set of drives... on my server it takes about 450 minutes... I would only do this if I thought the mass copy of files would take 5 hours or more, otherwise, I would save no time at all. If you use windows explorer to copy the files to the server it will work just as well as a direct copy from a temporarally installed windows drive and with your beginning linux skills, much easier. Just expect it to take a while if you have hundreds of gigabytes of existing content on an existing server being moved to the unRaid server. Joe L. Link to comment
flambot Posted May 17, 2007 Author Share Posted May 17, 2007 Have you setup your Workgroup to be the actualy name of your network workgroup? Under 'Settings' on the unRAID management web page, make sure the name you enter for the 'Workgroup' is the same as the Windows Workgroup name you have set on your Windows PC's (and Xbox if such a setting exists). This will ensure the unRAID server appears as a local network share. This is where it was stuffed up. My network was under "Workgroup" while the server was under "Mshome" The moment I put "Workgroup" in the server it popped into W/Explorer and I could see it. Yippee!!! Now XBMC should see it. We only have one puter so networking is something I don't play with. If doing a parity check, I believe the entire drive must be read to check the parity of all bits, therefore whether you have 5GB or 50GB of files, the speed will be the same. ie. The parity check speed will be related to the number of drives in the array, not the size of the files on the drives. Ensuring you always do a clean powerdown will avoid unRAID having to check the parity due to being in an unknown state at the next powerup. Long story short, try and copy large quantities of files over at one time. In saying this, parity writing is ongoing automatically in the background (yes?), and even if it is, there is still enough resources to be writing to the server (copying movies), the server updating parity while still being able to watch something all at the same time. I only guess this is correct otherwise the system would be unusable while copying/parity is taking place...so what would be the point. With getting these last little tweaks sorted out I think I'm almost ready to start adding content - a dream of many years finally coming to fruition...can't believe it! Link to comment
flambot Posted May 17, 2007 Author Share Posted May 17, 2007 The other thing I don't understand is the talk about "mounting", "Samba" etc. I read a post that said "Mounted" stuff transferred files faster than through Windows Explorer. Can you explain this please? I'm worried because it seems to take a lot of command line stuff. Personally I would suggest that you simply ignore this. I believe the posts you have read are probably discussing how to transfer data faster by copying directly to the unRAID drives and circumventing the unRAID software parity generation. Then, after copying your data, doing a parity build after all the data has been transferred. Joe probably has better knowledge of this than me and can elaborate (or correct me). I'm a relative newbie to unRAID compared to Joe! I agree... you will want to ignore those posts... they describe an advanced technique to install a windows formatted drive in the unraid server so you can copy files off it it and onto the data drives in the unRaid server without having to copy the data across the LAN, but instead from a disk, through the PCI bus on the motherboard, and then to the destination disk. Since this is faster than anything you can do over the LAN it will take less time to migrate existing files. To access the files on the windows drive installed in the unRaid server it must be 'mounted' on an empty folder in the unRaid system. (the empty folder is known as a mount-point) Also, you would NOT use the devices screen to assign it to the unraid array. If you did, it would ask you to re-format it as it would not be recognized as an unRaid data file system. As already said, you can ignore those posts. Oh yes, mounting a windows disk internally DOES NOT bypass parity if the array is started. Parity will be calculated as you copy files to /mnt/disk2, /mnt/disk2, etc. There is only one suggested way to bypass parity, and that is to stop the array, un-assign the parity drive, and then re-start the array. Later, after the files are copied, stop the array once more, re-assign the parity drive, and re-start the array once more. The unRaid server will then calculate parity on the entire set of data drives rather than one file at a time. Note, it will do the entire set of drives... on my server it takes about 450 minutes... I would only do this if I thought the mass copy of files would take 5 hours or more, otherwise, I would save no time at all. If you use windows explorer to copy the files to the server it will work just as well as a direct copy from a temporarally installed windows drive and with your beginning linux skills, much easier. Just expect it to take a while if you have hundreds of gigabytes of existing content on an existing server being moved to the unRaid server. Joe L. I have to agree too...too much scary stuff here for me. Windows Explorer is something I can use, so I'll stick with that. Since I've changed the Network name on the server (from Mshome to Workgroup), Explorer seems to be accessing the server more quickly. Also, I got the flashing icons to say the drives have spun down for the first time. This is cool! Thx for the info about un-assigning the parity drive for major writing sessions. That would make sense. I don't really have any content to copy over yet. Once this is all setup I need to start ripping (700 tiles = 1184 discs). That alone will take a considerable amount of time. Do you guys store your full DVD's.....just movie and menu.....or just movie? I'm not sure what road to take. Initially, when dreaming of this type of system, I thought I would use the movie only (When storage was expensive). Then I thought I might included the menu. Now 500Gb drives are affordable I'm wondering about the whole DVD. Unfortunately, this option takes a lot of space, which properly wouldn't be fully utilised. We rarely watch any of the extras. On another note though, I have had 6 DVD's die for no apparent reason (Some only watched twice). This gives me great cause for concern and part of me would like to backup the whole DVD, but I conflict with all the extra space it's going to take and the fact I would have to modify each title so the movie started directly (without all the crap that comes before it). Again...you guys really rock for taking the time to answer my desparate pleas I wish I spoke "computer"...must be nice having a second language! Link to comment
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