looking into unraid pro, some questions

[fatal]

Hi, i was building a server and looking for a good raid solution and came across here, the funny thing is, my motherboard is a p5b-vm do and the lian-li PC-A16B case, as you have available to purchase on your website heh

But neway, i currently have 2 500gb drives filled with data already running on a windows 2003 machine, if I wanted to run unRaid would these disks have to be formatted by unraid for it to work? Or would i be able to use these drives as is?

Thats the only concern I have right now, which is holding me back from puchasing.

 

Also, is it better to run drives in AHCI mode even if you are not going to be using hot-swap bays?

 

Thank You

[BillK]

"if I wanted to run unRAID would these disks have to be formatted by unraid for it to work.  Or would I be able to use these drives as is?"

 

Yes, you would need to reformat the drives (unRAID uses the Reiser file system).

 

"Thats the only concern I have right now, which is holding me back from purchasing."

 

Well, you can always download the unRAID Basic software for free.  It supports up to 3 disks (two data drives and one parity drive).  If you pick up two new drives (one for data, one for parity) you can transfer the contents of one of the drives over after you have everything set up.  Then transfer your new "extra" drive over to your unRAID server and repeat the process.

 

Yes, I believe you can set up a unRAID server without a parity drive (temporarily reducing your purchase requirements to only one drive), but you lost any portion of the drive (corruption, bad sectors, etc.), the data would be lost.

[bubbaQ]

Here's what you can do if you have a second computer.

 

1. Buy one additional 250GB (or larger) drive and install it in a second computer.

2. Boot unRAID on the second computer, and format the new drive, assign it as a data disk.... you have no parity drive.

3. Map a drive from the Windows box to unRAID, and copy the contents of the first disk in Windows to unRAID.

4. After confirming that all the data is safely on unRAID, remove the first disk from the Windows box (and reboot Windows box to confirm you removed the correct drive!) and put it in unRAID as a second data disk (still no parity disk).

5. Map a drive again from Windows to unRAID, and copy contents of second Windows disk to second unRAID data disk.

6. After confirming that all the data is safely on unRAID, remove the second disk from the Windows box, install in in unRAID as parity.  If the new disk you got in step 1 is larger than your two original drives, do a parity drive swap instead.

 

If you DON'T have a second computer, but you have a laptop or can borrow a laptop, you can remove both drives from Windows, use the old Windows box for the new unRAID, get an external USB drive enclosure, and hook the Window's drives up to a Windows laptop via USB, and do the copying to the unRAID box that way.

 

It is possible that you could install the necessary software on unRAID to natively mount and copy the Windows disks (I'm assuming they are NTFS) but that is a little more technically challenging.

 

Done.

[daytona235]

1. get in car

2. go to costco

3. buy 1 TB external back up unit

4. come home

5. Hook up 1TB External unit

6. Back up existing drives/data to 1Tb device

7. Build unraid box

8. Copy from 1TB device to new Unraid set up

9. Wipte 1TB device

10. Put 1Tb device in box

11. Get in car

12. go to costco

13. Return 1TB device.

14. Come home

15. Give your self a pat on the back.

 

PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS OFTEN. AND ONLY WHEN YOU REALLY DONT HAVE THE MONEY OR THE NEED FOR ANOTHER DRIVE.

 

With 500gig drives going for $100 just buy two new ones.

[Billped]

1. get in car

2. go to costco

3. buy 1 TB external back up unit

4. come home

5. Hook up 1TB External unit

6. Back up existing drives/data to 1Tb device

7. Build unraid box

8. Copy from 1TB device to new Unraid set up

9. Wipte 1TB device

10. Put 1Tb device in box

11. Get in car

12. go to costco

13. Return 1TB device.

14. Come home

15. Give your self a pat on the back.

 

PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS OFTEN. AND ONLY WHEN YOU REALLY DONT HAVE THE MONEY OR THE NEED FOR ANOTHER DRIVE.

 

With 500gig drives going for $100 just buy two new ones.

 

I'm really not trying to be overly preachy, but blatant abuse of Costco's return policy is why they recently modified it to remove the "lifetime" portion.  Also, nothing is free in the business world, costs get passed on to consumers, so it has a direct impact on the prices the rest of us are paying and I don't want to pay for your "free" hardware rental.  I suggest just buying a couple of drives - you'll likely need them in the near-future anyway.

 

 

Bill