tbonedude420 Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 Hey everyone! I just wanted to go over a few things, ask a few questions, and get responses based on my use case scenario, and what better way to do that, then here at the communities forums. I guess easiest place to start is explaining what I've got now, and what more I want presumably from unraid (or an alternative if suggested) -- My use-case scenario -- Plex server, webserver(s), tracker/scraper, ftp, ssh, NAS. Need to run at least 4 remote trans-codes at any given time, I say remote, because technically Ive got 2 networks at home.. 1x fiber @ 940/880, and a 'backup' connection also fiber at 150/150. I toyed with ways of combining them, load balance/fail-over, but its easier to keep them separate. Right now, the back of the house runs on the 150 connection, and me, and my server are on the main connection. Ideally, I want one large array, that has my 'shares', Movies, Tv-Shows, Iso's, Games, Backups. Those are my main folders, and I would like to combine and condense, and maybe get a raid type boost in read performance. Im not too worried about write performance. I plan to use a ssd or 2 as a cache space. Heres my 'server' specs. Asus x99e ws board, 32gb ddr4 @ 3200, intel i7 5820k, roughly 30tb total Drives. 3x 6tb x300 toshibas raid0 (movies), 5 random drives cobbled together for tv shows. 2x3tb, 2x4tb, 1x5tb My plan here, is to buy 2-4 more drives, got my eye on x300's and the price, but im not glued to that idea. Seagate and WD both have 8tb usb drives that i've got no issue tearing apart for the goodies on the inside. Currently im running w10 as its a familiar environment, and I also run wampp (apache, webserver, php, all that), plexpy, sonarr, radarr, jackett, ombi, custom landing page, and some other random stuff, testing out a PFsense box (wow.. networking is hard) and I play with vmware and I love my debian flavors. I've noticed with windows, theres always updates.. my box randomly goes off-line, restarts, or has weird issues.. I need this to stop. I've tried to disable cortana/WUS, but no dice.. I want a linux flavor. I feel comfy enough in CLI, and I prefer stability. Currently, using a 16gb ram disk as my trans-code folder, works awesome, but limits me for things like VM's, especially snappy and responsive ones... Ideally, id like to swap this for a cache drive, such as a cheapo ssd, i've got a crucial mx100 120gb laying around, figured it would be 'good enough' Without berating me for my 'cobbled together nightmare' I would like to know how unraid would effect me. Currently I can get 4-6 transcodes remotely @ 720 with no issues. My network is definatly not the bottleneck in this scenario (940/880 fiber from verizon) ::MY GOAL:: So, now were familiar with my current setup, heres my goal, and I would like feedback on anything you notice. I plan to buy 4 drives within the next month, say 2 per check, and this can change at any moment, as I said above, WD and seagate both have 8tb's for very good prices, and my x300's from toshiba are also in a close price range, but only 6tb's. Also plan to buy unraid obviously, but again, was looking for some feedback before pulling the trigger. Aside from the 12~ spinning drives I have total (also have a games drive, iso drives.. blah blah) I've got an NVME (sm941, precursor to the 960) and crucial 120gb sata ssd. As I understand, unraid completely runs from USB/ram, correct? Does unraid handle NVME storage? Could I install to NVME?, is there any benefit? If not, should I use NVME for trans-code?, or cheapo SSD? Is ram a better idea for trans-code? Is 16gb too much? not enough? My experience shows never more then 1-gb used in the ram drive, and even then it wipes all the time. Other things to add... Also have 3x gbe ports. Can I utilize this in any way? I have 2x gbe's in my desktop, and some 10-12 computers around the house that are always blasting plex. Could the server get a 3gbe connection, my desktop a 2gbe connection? Is this doable? Dockers from what i've gathered, are like OS-less VM's, which means I wouldn't need a win/nix host to run radarr/sonarr and all that stuff. Is this correct? Are my specs 'decent'? I upgraded my gaming/desktop to a 6850k (wanted pci lanes) and... didnt want the 5820k sitting and doing nothing so... board + ram = new build. :-D (Its a geek thing lol) My appeal to unraid, is very much the robust-ness to support drives of different sizes, as well as a parity drive. I'm not totally stupid to raid, as I'm running raid0 and jbod now, but parity does seem appealing, at least just to have. I am one of those people who regularly buys new hardware, and upgrades every few months. Video card here, psu there, cpu's at major price drops, yada yada. I know of freenas, nas4free, and a few other randoms.. but most of these seem 'barbaric'... using terms like jails.. and datasets... I want it to be easy.. unraid seems easy. Also, unraid is the only one that seems to have dockers? Is this correct? Please, I would love to hear some feedback, good or bad, please don't bother berating me about my 'cobbled together setup'... I know.. trust me I know. Thats why im here. I want to do something about it. PS, <3 bytemybits is the reason I'm here, thanks Jason. This is what turned me onto this. He did a video titled "Plex battle OS" and compared several os's against each other, and overall freenas, and unraid were the top dogs. (Edit, sorry.. long post, a bit of a brain dumping. Tried to format, and spell check) Pictures, diagrams, network speed tests, hardware info anything you need is available on request. Thanks in advanced! Link to comment
trurl Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 I'll let others address some of this long post, but the first question (which wasn't really in the form of a question) 6 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: maybe get a raid type boost in read performance unRAID is not RAID. Each file is stored completely on a single disk. There are advantages to this, but increased read speed is not one of them. Link to comment
tbonedude420 Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 3 minutes ago, trurl said: I'll let others address some of this long post, but the first question (which wasn't really in the form of a question) unRAID is not RAID. Each file is stored completely on a single disk. There are advantages to this, but increased read speed is not one of them. HA! Not a question, but a great response! What about the high-water thing? Does this mean I can kind of separate my data so that performance isn't all hitting one drive at once? Also, side note, is there a way to do raid0 on say 2x 6tb disks, and have a 12tb parity disk? That way I get the best of raid, and unraid combined? Link to comment
tbonedude420 Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 Alright, so after some coffee and a pipe, I've been browsing the forums. NVME seems to be handled, and unraid runs from usb/ram, with no install option (that I can tell, but it isnt needed anyway) Usb3 support? Any recommendations? Crappy 8gb drive, or a cruizer extreme pro 32gb? Seems any ol drive can and will work, make a backup just in case. If I were to use hardware raid, and make an array previous to loading up unraid, would unraid handle this? Does the parity drive rule still apply (parity size = max drive pools size) arrays pre hand are supported based on searching forums. Assuming parity rule still applies, no reason it wouldn't. Does unraid offer any kind of customization? I love the look and feel, but want a 'dark theme' if possible. Seen a youtube vid with a dark theme. If I purchase a pro key, is this limited to my server only? Or may I use the same key to play and test things on my desktop also? ^^If not, is a second key offered at a discounted price? Any other users able to chime in on Plex Dockers? What kind of performance is everyone else getting? Most of my content is 1080 @ 10bit @ x265 hevc, I have a few 40bit files, and a few 720 1-5 bit files. Given similar hardware, what are other users expecting with ammount of con-current transcodes? Im looking for 4-6. Currently get that with no issue on windows, but thats not exactally 'tested'. Peak shows 10 users, but 5 of which are direct play. Are 2 parity drives the most that is supported? 2 Drives. (Could I use an array from hardware raid for parity?, pros? cons?) Is a parity drive required for unraid? Is ECC memory required or handled? Handled yes, required no. Link to comment
limetech Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 1 hour ago, tbonedude420 said: If I purchase a pro key, is this limited to my server only? Or may I use the same key to play and test things on my desktop also? Key is bound to USB flash boot device. You can move the physical flash between h/w for testing. 1 hour ago, tbonedude420 said: Any other users able to chime in on Plex Dockers? What kind of performance is everyone else getting? It works great. Why not get a Trial and test it out? 1 hour ago, tbonedude420 said: Is a parity drive required for unraid? No. Link to comment
SSD Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 UnRAID has a feature called user shares. Under the covers, each directory that has the same high level directory name (e.g., "Movies") are combined into a single share called Movies. The look and act as a single, potentially large, volume. If you write to a user share there are settings and configurations as to which physical disk the data is written to. High-water is one of those settings. Instead of writing directly to the user share, you can write to the disk share. So you'd have ultimate control of where content is placed. But I think after studying user shares, you'll find an automated setting that works for you. Each disk is unRAID is an autonomous volume, capable of being mounted on other Linux machines. To provide redundancy, unRAID implements parity across the drives in the array. One or two disks depending if you have single parity or dual parity are dedicated to parity. Parity is gathered at the sector level, so if a disk fails, it is simulated at a low level. unRAID can use parity to rebuild a failed disk, or to upsize an existing disk contents onto a larger disk. Do you need parity? Not technically. But certainly highly recommended. If a disk fails, you can rebuild it. If a second disk fails before you fix the first one, you lose data on the 2 failed disks (unless you have dual parity, in which case you can rebuild both disks). Key point - you only lose data on failed disks. The other disk contents will be accessible. This helps prevent many catastrophic loss scenarios like RAID and competing products that arrange data into pools, and if you lose too many disks in a pool the entire pool is lost. For unRAID, there is just one big pool no matter how many disks, and only failed disks are lost. You can use a hardware RAID for parity. It has some advantages. Not all RAID controllers are supported, I use an Areca controller and have a RAID0 parity. The Plex docker works well and has good performance. Recommend the "LinuxserverIO" version. Keys are tied to USB sticks. You can move the USB stick around to any computer. But it can only be used at a time, as removing the USB stick from a running server is an extremely bad idea. Trial keys are easy to get if you need more than one for some evaluation purposes. Your hardware seems very reasonable. 6 cores / 12 threads. Why don't you summarize other questions. Link to comment
tbonedude420 Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 22 minutes ago, SSD said: Why don't you summarize other questions. Okay. Right now, I have 3x6tb raid0. I get an average of 200 mbps across these (peaks of 300, lows of 150). Plex can handle 4-6 movie requests trans-coding separate files currently. (ram-disk does trans-coding) In unraid, this would be 3x independent disks, so is there a way to ensure a-f, g-q, and r-z are each on a separate disk? Or better, could I import this array to unraid? Are there any methods of importing existing volumes, disks, arrays, datasets, without zero wiping first? The cache drive for writing to the array, could that also be used as my plex transcode drive? Or, does anyone else use ram-disks, if so, what sizes are you using? If I could bring this down to 8gb, it would help with my VM's. For the network side of things, can I assign 3 nics for unraid for a total bandwidth of 3gbs? (pipe size, not throughput) Or, could I dedicate nics to certain aspects? 1 for unraid, 1 for plex, 1 for vm? Does unraid support reverse proxy between VM's/Dockers? Example, I run appache separate from sonarr, could I still access it external to my network? Does unRAID interfere in this process at all? Is unRAID available external via reverse proxy? Cpu side of things. I know unRAID supports individual thread ticker options, if I set unraid to core 0, and plex to 0-7, will this have any impact on unraid? Gui, delay lag, anything like that? Key for server, trial for desktop, got it. Link to comment
SSD Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 2 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: Okay. Right now, I have 3x6tb raid0. I get an average of 200 mbps across these (peaks of 300, lows of 150). Plex can handle 4-6 movie requests trans-coding separate files currently. (ram-disk does trans-coding) You would need to try. Would depend on the disks you are using. I expect this would work depending on the disk speed, size, resolution, etc. 2 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: In unraid, this would be 3x independent disks, so is there a way to ensure a-f, g-q, and r-z are each on a separate disk? Yes - if you keep your movies in separate subfolders linked to those ranges. 2 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: Or better, could I import this array to unraid? Are there any methods of importing existing volumes, disks, arrays, datasets, without zero wiping first? No. unRAID controls the disk partitioning. Very unlikely your volume follows the unRAID convention. You could have to copy to unRAID. 2 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: For the network side of things, can I assign 3 nics for unraid for a total bandwidth of 3gbs? (pipe size, not throughput) Or, could I dedicate nics to certain aspects? 1 for unraid, 1 for plex, 1 for vm? Someone else would have to answer this one. I think the answer is yes. 2 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: Cpu side of things. I know unRAID supports individual thread ticker options, if I set unraid to core 0, and plex to 0-7, will this have any impact on unraid? Gui, delay lag, anything like that? The Plex cores would need to be a subset of the unRAID cores. unRAID is not a big load, and tends to stay on core0/4. But it would have full access and share CPUs with Dockers. Dockers can be configured to use only specific cores. 2 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: Key for server, trial for desktop, got it. 2 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: Does unraid support reverse proxy between VM's/Dockers? Example, I run appache separate from sonarr, could I still access it external to my network? Does unRAID interfere in this process at all? Is unRAID available external via reverse proxy? Someone else would have to answer this one. Link to comment
tbonedude420 Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 Amazing response @SSDand thanks @limetechalso. Clear and concise. Im so on the fence.. I gave it a try, I loved the look, and wanted to know more. What kind of features are there for customizing UI, darkened interface, ect? Is there anything I should know before pulling the trigger? I think im going to test unRAID anyway, and worse comes to worse, I know someone who would want my key if I didn't use it. Is this allowed? No money involved, just a gift from me to him. Link to comment
SSD Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 The trial key gives you full access for unRAID for 30 days, renewable another 30 days. Will give you a chance to run it through its paces with no risk. But you'll be making some hardware investment to have disks to offload the RAID volume. UI is quite nice and has customization settings and a couple themes including darkened interface. Most folks are pretty happy campers. Look into reconstruct write mode (a.k.a., turbo write mode) for your initial disk load. Speeds up bulk copies tremendously. We mods are not part of Limetech. Just love the product and help out in the forums. Good luck! Link to comment
ljm42 Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 2 hours ago, tbonedude420 said: Seems any ol drive can and will work, make a backup just in case. To avoid problems, you should get a name brand USB 2 drive < 32GB and plug it in to a USB 2 slot. I like the SanDisk Cruzer Fit because they don't stick far out of the machine. 51 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: Key for server, trial for desktop, got it. Note that you can also do your testing in an unRAID VM running on the unRAID host: https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/60106-guide-how-to-install-an-unraid-vm-on-an-unraid-host/ I use this for testing beta versions of unRAID and plugins. I do have a valid license key though, because trials will expire. And I don't mind supporting unRAID. 53 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: Does unraid support reverse proxy between VM's/Dockers? Example, I run appache separate from sonarr, could I still access it external to my network? Does unRAID interfere in this process at all? Is unRAID available external via reverse proxy? This docker works great for reverse proxy: https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/51808-support-linuxserverio-letsencrypt-nginx/ It is also possible to reverse proxy the unRAID webgui (no guarantees, no warranties): https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/42003-requestdone-lets-encrypt-container/?do=findComment&comment=461739 3 hours ago, tbonedude420 said: Currently, using a 16gb ram disk as my trans-code folder, works awesome, but limits me for things like VM's, especially snappy and responsive ones... Ideally, id like to swap this for a cache drive, such as a cheapo ssd, i've got a crucial mx100 120gb laying around, figured it would be 'good enough' Plex' support for transcoding to ram disks seems to come and go. It may work, or you may have problems. https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/35878-plex-guide-to-moving-transcoding-to-ram/ I transcode to my SSD-based cache disk. 120gb is fine for regular cache usage, docker appdata and transcoding. If you start installing VMs on it, it could get a little cramped. 1 hour ago, tbonedude420 said: Cpu side of things. I know unRAID supports individual thread ticker options, if I set unraid to core 0, and plex to 0-7, will this have any impact on unraid? Gui, delay lag, anything like that? I would run for a while without making adjustments and only mess with it if you need to solve problems. Link to comment
tbonedude420 Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 14 minutes ago, ljm42 said: To avoid problems, you should get a name brand USB 2 drive < 32GB and plug it in to a USB 2 slot. I like the SanDisk Cruzer Fit because they don't stick far out of the machine. Is there any support for usb3 drives, and or booting? I ask because i've got a fancy onboard usb slot.. like... sticks out of the motherboard. I would love to utilize this port specifically. But it is blue... :\ EDIT:: NVM... mobo doesnt support booting this port unless in UEFI.. this would be problematic I think. Link to comment
limetech Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 5 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: EDIT:: NVM... mobo doesnt support booting this port unless in UEFI.. this would be problematic I think. UEFI boot is supported, and for the record: we never have problems booting USB3.0 flash devices in USB3.0 slots. Seems to be motherboard/bios specific if there are problems. Link to comment
tbonedude420 Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 3 minutes ago, limetech said: UEFI boot is supported, and for the record: we never have problems booting USB3.0 flash devices in USB3.0 slots. Seems to be motherboard/bios specific if there are problems. ?!?! Fantastic. Link to comment
JonathanM Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 2 hours ago, tbonedude420 said: I know someone who would want my key if I didn't use it. Is this allowed? No money involved, just a gift from me to him. Surprised @limetech didn't answer since he's active in the thread right now, and it's his policy. Short answer, sure, you can give it away, but you are still the license holder of record. Can't transfer name on license normally. Any issues with a damaged USB drive with no backup, lost license, etc would need to be handled by you on his behalf. Link to comment
limetech Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 9 minutes ago, jonathanm said: Surprised @limetech didn't answer since he's active in the thread right now, and it's his policy. Short answer, sure, you can give it away, but you are still the license holder of record. Can't transfer name on license normally. Any issues with a damaged USB drive with no backup, lost license, etc would need to be handled by you on his behalf. Short answer is right answer. But you have 60 days total for Trial which is same as Pro. Link to comment
tbonedude420 Posted February 10, 2018 Author Share Posted February 10, 2018 I pulled the trigger for unraid. Just wanted to come back and say thanks to everyone who offered their support in my pre-sales questions. Thanks @limetech, @jonathanm, @ljm42, and @SSD. I know my inquiries were a bit extensive, and long-winded but you all did a fantastic job of informing me and helping to sway my decision. PS, I went with the pro key, as I've currently got 12 drives, with expansion plans for 16 (currently.. that will change im sure) Link to comment
SSD Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 53 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: I pulled the trigger for unraid. Just wanted to come back and say thanks to everyone who offered their support in my pre-sales questions. Thanks @limetech, @jonathanm, @ljm42, and @SSD. I know my inquiries were a bit extensive, and long-winded but you all did a fantastic job of informing me and helping to sway my decision. PS, I went with the pro key, as I've currently got 12 drives, with expansion plans for 16 (currently.. that will change im sure) Welcome aboard. Now that you have purchased don't expect any help! You know only kidding. Most common newbie problem is not securing disk cables. I recommend hot-swap cages because once cables are installed, you can go years without having to muck with them, and the chances of cabling issues is extremely small. 12 drives means 12 power connections, 12 data connections and depending on your controller up to 12 connections to the controller/MB slots. That is a total of 36 individual connections that have to be solid, secure, and not loose. If you have questions ask them. We had a user mistakenly think that /mnt/user0 was an accidental duplication of his data, when in truth it is just a virtual filesystem that unRAID uses internally and links directly back to the data. He deleted everything in user0 meaning all his data was gone. He was smart and had backups. But a simple question on the forum would have prevented this error in the first place. Take your time and give us progress reports! Link to comment
tbonedude420 Posted February 10, 2018 Author Share Posted February 10, 2018 57 minutes ago, SSD said: Take your time and give us progress reports! On that note, I don't see a general tab. Would the Lounge be the appropriate area to post a personal build log, and to help me keep track of my progress? Link to comment
trurl Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 57 minutes ago, tbonedude420 said: On that note, I don't see a general tab. Would the Lounge be the appropriate area to post a personal build log, and to help me keep track of my progress? No, the appropriate place for that is UCD (unRAID Compulsive Design): https://lime-technology.com/forums/forum/35-unraid-compulsive-design/ Link to comment
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