July 17, 201015 yr Hello all, I have joined this forum as I am currently rebuilding my server and am 95% sure that I am going with unRAID as the OS, but have a few questions and am sure I will need a little help along the way. Currently I am running; Windows home server MSI K8N Diamond Athlon 64 3200 2Gb Ram Norco 4020 case 2 x 500GB WD KS drives (attached to onboard SATA ports) 2 x 500GB WD AAKS drives (attached to onboard SATA ports) But I am in the process of changing that to; unRAID Pro Asus P5Q Premium Intel C2D E6300 Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler Patriot Signature 2GB DDR2 6400 XFX ATI RADEON HD 4550 512MB PCI-E PASSIVE CARD Norco 4020 case SAS backplanes for Norco 4020 Modified firewall for Norco 4020 to take 120mm fans 3x 120mm Noctua NF-S12B ULN fans 2x Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 2 x 500GB WD KS drives 2 x 500GB WD AAKS drives How does this spec look? Anything glaringly wrong or incompatible? The plan is to make it as quiet as possible (ideally close to silent) as at the moment it is FAR too loud. The new case fans, CPU cooler and passive GPU should certainly help matters. A few questions I have though; Is it possible to have multiple parity drives? What I mean is, say you have 2TB data drives, could you have you have 4 x 500GB parity drives to get you up to the 2TB needed? Also is it possible to have multiple parity and cache drives, combined in RAID0? So again, say I have 4x500GB drives, can these be put together in a 2TB RAID0 array? If this is possible are there any downsides other than the increased possibility of a drive failing? Is iSCSI supported, or will it be supported in the future? I use Adobe Lightroom (I'm a photographer) which doesn't like having the database file on network share. If I can get it to appear as a local drive this could be overcome. Does anyone use a Solid State drive as a cache drive? What write speeds do you get? I would love really fast write speeds but am concerned that I could run out of space on the cache drive. What are the options of transferring data from the cache drive to the protected area? Can this only be done every 24 hours, or can you set it to say every 6 hours? And finally what 1TB drives do you guys recommend? Are the green/eco drives a good choice for an unraid setup? I realise that my AAKS drives are on the 'naughty' list, but I have read several posts where people are running these absolutely fine so I have my fingers crossed.
July 17, 201015 yr A few questions I have though; Is it possible to have multiple parity drives? What I mean is, say you have 2TB data drives, could you have you have 4 x 500GB parity drives to get you up to the 2TB needed? No. Also is it possible to have multiple parity and cache drives, combined in RAID0? So again, say I have 4x500GB drives, can these be put together in a 2TB RAID0 array? If this is possible are there any downsides other than the increased possibility of a drive failing?Basically, no, although I understand some motherboards can be configured to present a raid-0 set to the OS as a single drive. Those will work, but you give up the ability to track temperature and spin-up and down drives. Is iSCSI supported, or will it be supported in the future? I use Adobe Lightroom (I'm a photographer) which doesn't like having the database file on network share. If I can get it to appear as a local drive this could be overcome.No idea. Write to lime-tech and ask. Does anyone use a Solid State drive as a cache drive? What write speeds do you get? I would love really fast write speeds but am concerned that I could run out of space on the cache drive. What are the options of transferring data from the cache drive to the protected area? Can this only be done every 24 hours, or can you set it to say every 6 hours?Yes, there are those who use a SSD as a cache drive. You can set any schedule you like for transferring data. By default it is one a day, but you could do it once a minute (or once an hour, or only specific hours) It is a "crontab" format schedule. And finally what 1TB drives do you guys recommend? Are the green/eco drives a good choice for an unraid setup? I realise that my AAKS drives are on the 'naughty' list, but I have read several posts where people are running these absolutely fine so I have my fingers crossed. For a new build I would not recommend 1TB drives at all. Too many good 2TB drives at not much more cost. Green drives are fine, just realize they get their "green" status by spinning slower (translation, you'll get about 1/3 less write speed to a 5400 RPM drive than a 7200 RPM not-so-green drive.) There are several threads on the "ultimate" server. Before you spend all the time and money on an SSD cache drive, realize that with good hardware and 7200RPM drives you can get near 40MB/s sustained write speeds to the protected array without a cache drive.
August 14, 201015 yr Given a 125 MBs limit of gigabit Ethernet, is there any benefit to using a SSD for cache? If the cache drive supports 125 MBs then it can be written to and read from at Ethernet speed.
August 14, 201015 yr Given a 125 MBs limit of gigabit Ethernet, is there any benefit to using a SSD for cache? If the cache drive supports 125 MBs then it can be written to and read from at Ethernet speed. Not many mechanical drives write that fast.
August 14, 201015 yr A few questions I have though; Is it possible to have multiple parity drives? What I mean is, say you have 2TB data drives, could you have you have 4 x 500GB parity drives to get you up to the 2TB needed? Also is it possible to have multiple parity and cache drives, combined in RAID0? So again, say I have 4x500GB drives, can these be put together in a 2TB RAID0 array? If this is possible are there any downsides other than the increased possibility of a drive failing? If you use an advanced hardware raid controller such as an areca or 3ware this will work. There are issues such as spin down and hardware recogcnition. (temperature). The Areca can be programmed to automatically spin down, but you cannot grab the temperature from unRAID. I know the areca works as I'm using it. Is iSCSI supported, or will it be supported in the future? I use Adobe Lightroom (I'm a photographer) which doesn't like having the database file on network share. If I can get it to appear as a local drive this could be overcome. Not yet, Future depends on requests and roadmap, query limetech. Does anyone use a Solid State drive as a cache drive? What write speeds do you get? I would love really fast write speeds but am concerned that I could run out of space on the cache drive. What are the options of transferring data from the cache drive to the protected area? Can this only be done every 24 hours, or can you set it to say every 6 hours? If space is a concern, I would just purchase a large fast drive for cache. Possibly as large as your parity so you can replace any drive in your array should one fail. We call this the cache/warm spare methodology. In the end it will cost less then a SSD and will provide some peace of mind as a way of replacing a failed drive shortly after failure. And finally what 1TB drives do you guys recommend? Are the green/eco drives a good choice for an unraid setup? I realise that my AAKS drives are on the 'naughty' list, but I have read several posts where people are running these absolutely fine so I have my fingers crossed. If you have drives, use them. I like Samsung Spinpoint F3 7200 rpm for 1TB. I like these allot. Seagate 1.5TB 7200rpm for 1.5TB file server storage. I like these allot. Seagate 1.5TB 5900rpm for 1.5TB movie storage. I still have 10 1tb WD Green drives for movie storage. They work. A bit slow, but work fine. I don't have a solid preference for 2TB drives yet. I have 2 WD EADS 2TB drives. No complaints, but no kudos either. After I benchmark the Hitachi 2TB 7200 rpm's I'll know more.
August 15, 201015 yr unRAID Pro Asus P5Q Premium Intel C2D E6300 Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler Patriot Signature 2GB DDR2 6400 XFX ATI RADEON HD 4550 512MB PCI-E PASSIVE CARD Just wondering why you have a video card listed, does the Asus not provide onboard video?
August 16, 201015 yr Just wondering why you have a video card listed, does the Asus not provide onboard video? Certainly not with that Chipset (Intel P45) and CPU combo (Intel Core 2 Duo).
August 16, 201015 yr Given a 125 MBs limit of gigabit Ethernet, is there any benefit to using a SSD for cache? If the cache drive supports 125 MBs then it can be written to and read from at Ethernet speed. Theory... not practice. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=787.msg21068#msg21068
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.