6.7.2 license type and config advice

[Healadin]

Hello,

 

I build my NAS (unraid server but main use as NAS) couple of days ago, but I still need some clarification on how things work.

 

First of all, I have 6x 6 TB drives (2 for parity) and one m.2 sata SSD 120 GB (25 €). From what I found, it seems with basic license, I can use just 6 drives, so I am considering unassinging ssd drive (license to add it is the similar to drives value, also I am gonna be limited by 1 gbit lan). Question is if I can just remove it from array (after using mover) or do I need to do anything special? Drive seems to have used 20 GB all the time and that is the part that bothers me a little. Also can I use this "(soon to be) unassigned" drive in VMs or something?

 

What is the best way to access my shares from outside of my private network? I was trying some sftp dockers and forwarding port on my router with duckdns as domain to access it, but unsuccessfully. Then I found some OpenVPN guide and it looked like it should be the way to go, but haven't tried it yet.

 

Also I have issues with S3 sleep plugin (havent found support thread yet, so I am just going to ask here). So far I left just duckdns container running, no one was using NAS and I have scheduled mover and ssd trim into "awake hours". In the morning, when server should have been asleep, it was running. Also what if I want to use server while its asleep? Is there any way to wake it up?

Edited December 5, 2019 by Healadin
corrected syntax

[itimpi]

When counting drives for licensing purposes ALL attached drives are counted regardless of whether they are being used by Unraid or not.   Therefore if you want to use the Basic license (limited to 6 drives) you will have to remove either the SSD or one of the 6TB drives.   The alternative is to go for the Plus license which increases the limit to 12 drives.   You may well want this anyway if you want to be able to freely attach USB drives for purposes such as backup.

[Healadin]

48 minutes ago, itimpi said:

The alternative is to go for the Plus license which increases the limit to 12 drives.   You may well want this anyway if you want to be able to freely attach USB drives for purposes such as backup.

that is good point

 

also do you know if 120 GB ssd cache is good idea, when I am bottlenecked by Glan anyway?

 

only good reason to have it, that comes to my mind, is if I upload files there and edit them, I edit them on cache disk and then when I am finished editing them, they flush to HDD array and blocks are written sequentially without data being interrupted by editting them right after uploading

 

also I am going to be using it atm mainly for long term storage, not as editting server or something

[trurl]

You should use the cache for dockers and VMs and not for caching user shares since it doesn't have enough capacity. And if you really want to remove a disk I would recommend removing parity2. You really want your apps on SSD cache so they perform better and don't keep the array spinning. 

[Healadin]

40 minutes ago, trurl said:

 You really want your apps on SSD cache so they perform better and don't keep the array spinning. 

and they are there by default? or is there any configuration needed

[testdasi]

6 minutes ago, Healadin said:

and they are there by default? or is there any configuration needed

You need to set the share to cache = only but if you follow SpaceInvaderOne guide on Youtube then you would set that up as part of the tutorial so "by default"-ish.

[Healadin]

20 minutes ago, testdasi said:

You need to set the share to cache = only but if you follow SpaceInvaderOne guide on Youtube then you would set that up as part of the tutorial so "by default"-ish.

and what about plugins? do they install just straight to the RAM and just some kind of record in config file? or maybe usb stick?

[testdasi]

2 minutes ago, Healadin said:

and what about plugins? do they install just straight to the RAM and just some kind of record in config file? or maybe usb stick?

Plugins are stored on the USB stick and loaded into RAM at boot. Config files for plugins should also be on the USB stick.

[Healadin]

Can someone also give advice regarding that second part please?

Quote

What is the best way to access my shares from outside of my private network? I was trying some sftp dockers and forwarding port on my router with duckdns as domain to access it, but unsuccessfully. Then I found some OpenVPN guide and it looked like it should be the way to go, but haven't tried it yet.

Sadly I do not have a lot of time to play with unraid at home, but I can discuss ideas at work .

Edited December 5, 2019 by Healadin
adding reason

[trurl]

1 hour ago, Healadin said:

and they are there by default? or is there any configuration needed

If you install cache before setting up dockers / VMs they are there by default. If you setup dockers / VMs without a cache drive installed then of course they would have to go to the array. And it takes a little work to get them moved to cache because you can't move open files.

 

Have you setup any dockers / VMs yet?

[trurl]

4 hours ago, Healadin said:

What is the best way to access my shares from outside of my private network?

If you want to run the current stable version of Unraid you would need to install OpenVPN docker or something similar, I'm not sure what else is available now, since we have literally hundreds of dockers to choose from so there may be other choices for VPN. Many new routers also have VPN builtin.

 

If you install the latest Unraid release candidate, WireGuard is builtin and many of us are already using that for VPN with good success.

[Healadin]

1 minute ago, trurl said:

Have you setup any dockers / VMs yet?

I tried some SFTP dockers (and after a little bit of thinkering with them I just removed them) and also duckdns (that one is the only one currently running). Also I assigned all my drives as first thing when I started configuring unraid, so the cache is there from very beggining, therefore dockers should be there by default. I will have to check it when I arrive home.

[trurl]

4 hours ago, Healadin said:

Also I have issues with S3 sleep plugin (havent found support thread yet

You can go directly to the correct support thread for any of your plugins by going to the Plugins page and selecting the support link displayed with that plugin. And for your dockers, you can just click on the icon for the specific docker and select Support on either the Docker page or on the Dashboard. Plugins and Dockers also have support links displayed on the Apps page with their listing.

[trurl]

10 minutes ago, Healadin said:

the cache is there from very beggining, therefore dockers should be there by default. I will have to check it when I arrive home.

Go to Shares - User Shares and click Compute All. It will take a little while to produce the result. That will show you which disk each user share is using. By default, the appdata, domains, and system shares are the ones used by dockers and VMs. You want these shares to be all on cache with nothing on the array.

 

Those are the default shares as I said, but it is possible to make something else happen when you first enable the Docker and VM Services. The settings for where these things go are in Settings - Docker and Settings - VM Manager.

 

Or you can just go to Tools - Diagnostics and attach the complete Diagnostics zip file to your NEXT post if you want us to take a look at how you have things configured.

[Healadin]

Thanks a lot guys, a lot of very useful information and advices. This should help me a lot.