Looking to build using unRAID, can someone clear up a few things...

[dynamis_dk]

Hi unRAID forum - new guy on board....

 

I've recently made up a little HTPC just running some basic MC7 plugins, and to be honest i'm pretty happy with what i have from only a few hours playing.

 

As i've ripped more media, storage has become a consern so i've been looking at options and so far unRAID seems to tick all the boxes. I'll admit i haven't spend time reading over too many of the posts already so you'll have to forgive my lack of search use in this instance 

 

Few things i just wanted to get clear in my head...

 

1) Reading though, it stated the parity disk needs to be at least equal or bigger than than the largest data disk. Although this is fine for now, in a years time do i have the option of swapping out the parity disk to a larger one and have the data automatically rebuilt?? i.e. if i run a 1tb parity disk, and 2x 1tb data disks - can i then at a later date say swap the parity drive to a 2tb, then a few months later replace a data drive with a 2tb drive?? OR is the only option to keep adding to the total amount of drives??

 

I'm really thinking case size here as i'm wanting this to be pretty small so i would like to know if the drives are replaceable once used or are you stuck with what you use from day 1.

 

2) What happens if the main parity drive fails??

 

3) Although the server is designed (or at least thats my impression) for Media storage, anything preventing just normal user data being stored too??

[dynamis_dk]

4) Are you able to make multiple mappings to shares (i.e. I can have Movies, Pictures, TV Series etc)

 

Thanks for any info you can give me...

[Chris Pollard]

1) Yes, you can upgrade the parity to a larger drive, also the data drives to larger drives.  The Parity must always be the same size or larger than the data drives.

2) Your data drives will be unprotected until you replace the Parity drive with a new one.  You will still be able to access the data on them however.

3) No, you can store anything you want

4) Yes

[Paak]

Welcome to UnRaid, I'll try and answer a few of your questions but I'm fairly new myself.  I'm sure a few of the regulars will be more than willing to chime in and clear anything up.

 

1)  Yes you can swap Parity drives (or any drive for that matter) to something larger as it becomes available as long as your Parity is equal to or larger than any drive in your config.  Just make sure you after you install your new Parity drive that you run a Parity check and everything should rebuild as normal.  Much like upgrading drives, if your Parity drive fails (or any other drive for that matter) the safest thing to do is shut your UnRaid down until you get a new drive to replace the failure.  A lot of people have a spare drive ready to go, just in case.  Once said failure occurs, swap in a fresh new drive, and rebuild your data.  I haven't personally had any of these happen to me, so perhaps someone with more knowledge could expand on it.

 

2)  Case size isn't much of a deal, in fact there is a thread somewhere where the guys have build a mini server.  I'll try and find a link if possible, but it was smaller than a lot of htpc's I've seen (not including nettops).  You can start out with whatever case you want and as you find smaller ones that fit your needs or bigger if you want to build a 20 drive beast you can swap all your components.

 

3) You can store whatever you want on them!  I have media that I stream to my main computer and out to the living room via XBMC on a classic Xbox but I also have a seperate drive strictly for programs.  I don't run the programs off that drive.  I just keep them there if I ever need to use rebuilt from scratch or something goes wrong I don't have to go searching the intrawebs for where that program was.  I can just drag and drop from that drive to my desktop and install from there.

[dynamis_dk]

Fantastic - Thanks for such prompt replies. Sounds like it should do exactly what i want from it.

 

Basically I'd like to have something for all my music/movies/TV shows, somewhere to keep photos so the other half can browse old baby photos etc and somewhere to keep my original ISO images etc.

 

Case size is more a requirement i'm throwing in myself as i just don't want it to get too big - unlike my PC which is housed in a 18" UFC-2 Cube case

 

Sure if i run into issues i'll be running back to the forum crying (maybe thats not a good sign for a 27yo IT tech!!)

[Rajahal]

Here's the two primary mini-build threads:

 

TinyTen

miniBox

 

The TinyTen requires extensive modding, but it packs a full 10 drives into a very small space.  The miniBox requires little to no modding, but it holds only 5 drives.

 

How small you go depends on how much you want to spend.  For example, this Shuttle case could easily accomodate 5 drives and is much smaller than the miniBox, but it is also a lot more expensive (the case itself is expensive, and it would require a miniITX mobo which is also more expensive).