I'm out of room in my unraid box, and I want to add more storage. I have an extra case, mobo, processor available, and so I was wondering if I could somehow link the two boxes together.

 

So, right now I have a movies folder. I was wondering if that could span across disks in my first box, and also span across drives in the second box.

 

Would this be possible?

Not automatically.

 

May be possible by mounting individual drives in /mnt from one system to another system, user shares are another story.

 

I don't know if the userfs will see the nfs mounted drives across the network.

 

In any case, this will require tweaks and adjustments to the go script to accomplish this in a repeatable automated fashion.

 

As an alternative, if your server has eSATA you could add on a 'dumb' eSATA JBOD box such as this.

As an alternative, if your server has eSATA you could add on a 'dumb' eSATA JBOD box such as this.

 

I would not call that "dumb" It's a port multiplier solution. But would work fine in this situation.

I meant dumb in that it doesn't have a mobo, cpu, ram, etc.  It is basically slaved to the server.  In the sense of 'dumb' terminal.

 

I didn't mean that it isn't a viable and good solution to the op's problem.

As an alternative, if your server has eSATA you could add on a 'dumb' eSATA JBOD box such as this.

 

I would not call that "dumb" It's a port multiplier solution. But would work fine in this situation.

 

This is the real "dumb" box for esata solution. use esata-sata cables to connect disks in this tower to esata ports at unRAID box.

 

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch_v3.asp?scriteria=BA24977&pagetitle=SANS%20DIGITAL%20HDDRACK5%20-%205-bay%20ide%20/%20sata%20hard%20drive%20org

 

I meant dumb in that it doesn't have a mobo, cpu, ram, etc.  It is basically slaved to the server.  In the sense of 'dumb' terminal.

 

I didn't mean that it isn't a viable and good solution to the op's problem.

 

We have different concepts in dumb and smart.

 

A 'dumb' solution would be a box that supported 1 or more SATA drives and had a matching SATA cable for each drive. I.E. a 1 to 1 connection from controller port to SATA drive.

 

A 'smart' solution would be a port multiplier environment whereby the controller and driver work in unison with a downstream controller to handle the multiplexing of SATA commands over a single eSATA cable.

 

I would also consider a smart or 'raid' solution where the raid is handled outside of the drivers or controller at the hardware level. I.E. the host os only knows about an eSATA drive and the raid part is handled outside of the host os.

 

Just some food for thought.

Fair enough, semantic mismatch.  I'll choose my words more carefully next time.