hello all, I really have no idea what to use with all these

[msantoso]

I currently use 2nd gen Drobo connected to FW800 to my iMac for photos library, kinda slow but it still works for longer that I can remember. I have a 1st backup on my Synology 211 and 2nd backup on Synology 212. I want to keep this photo library from year 2000 until now just on a "faster" storage for better viewing and sharing.

 

I recently moved my Plex library to a raspberry pi 4, so I can move this to unraid as well.

 

That's about it, I planned to get Synology 1019+ last year but then I saw / heard about unraid, so I start exploring it ... and after reading the forum, now I have purchased all the required hardware (I think, I'm totally new to PC building, I even asked my friend to assemble them for me).

 

so here's the hardware list:

 

Motherboard: ASUS WS C246M Pro

Processor: Intel Xeon E-2176G

RAM: Crucial 2x32Gb ECC 

HDD: 4 x 4TB WD RED, 2 x 8TB WD RED (for parity, easier for future upgrades if I'm not mistaken), 1 x 500Gb WD Black NVME

(few days ago seen a video on youtube about Corsair MP510, thinking of getting it too, but really have no idea will it be useful or not)

PSU: Corsair RM750

PC Case: Fractal Design Node 804

Fans: CPU fan and case fans all use Noctua

 

I don't have a separate room to put this computer that has air conditioning, I am hoping it is not too loud for the bedroom.

 

Lately I read a lot about VMs, will I need dedicated GPU? I don't do gaming. Maybe I can build 1 Windows 10 VM and 1 Debian. If I were to get a GPU, which runs "smoothly" on unraid, nvidia or amd? I love to try Mac OS VM though, but the thought of breaking the system "after" software update seems a nightmare.

 

I am thinking, maybe trial run a mail server and if doable, then I move my mail server from linode to this unraid PC, have to get static IP from my ISP (also not sure if they allow running our own mail server).

 

I saw Linux Tech Tips running multiple VMs for gaming, this needs dedicated GPU for every single VM, correct?

* Can I use the WD Black NVME or Corsair MP510 to store the VMs? just the thought of it being stored on SSD (instead of WD RED) will make it faster to run, am I correct?

* The ASUS motherboard has 8 SATA port and I only used 6, maybe 2 ports for SSD Caching, do we need just 1 for caching or 2?

 

What other things that I can make this unraid PC do? My friend said the hardware has way more power than just a NAS and Plex.

 

Thank you for your time reading a newcomer confusion about unraid. Any advice/input are greatly appreciated.

 

cheers,

 

Michael

 

 

 

[JonathanM]

6 hours ago, msantoso said:

HDD: 4 x 4TB WD RED, 2 x 8TB WD RED (for parity, easier for future upgrades if I'm not mistaken)

Unless you got the 4TB drives for free or a substantial discount, it would be better to just use 2 more 8TB for data. Same capacity, but lower power consumption and easier future capacity expansion, plus lower risk. Also, with so few drives, you would be better off using only 1 parity disk and keeping the other as a ready replacement for a possible drive failure, not permanently connected. It sounds like you already may have a solid backup strategy. Keep in mind that parity disks are not backup, they are for high availability so the array stays running with your files still accessible when a drive fails.

 

Running a mail server requires a lot of cooperation from your ISP, they need to be ok with updating the ptr records for your IP so reverse dns lookups return your domain instead of theirs. https://www.itworld.com/article/2833006/how-to-setup-reverse-dns-and-ptr-records.html

[msantoso]

Thank you Jonathan.

 

regarding parity disk, does unraid work similar to traditional raid, whereas if one drive failed, I can connect a new drive and it will rebuild the drive from unraid dashboard?

 

 

[Chess]

9 hours ago, msantoso said:

I am thinking, maybe trial run a mail server and if doable, then I move my mail server from linode to this unraid PC, have to get static IP from my ISP (also not sure if they allow running our own mail server).

 

Been down that road before, and it's a pain. Most residential ISPs block port 25 (SMTP) and that is a must for email. Plus most email hosts block outbound email from most ISP's IP ranges as well. Even with an static IP, you might still have major delivery issues. I ended up picking up a cheap VPS, and use Amazon SES for outbound mail. I got tired chasing down mail providers to allow my mail into their networks. Now I let Amazon deal with that. The VPS (mailcow) uses Amazon SES as a smart route for outbound mail. So far I've not been charged by Amazon SES for over a year, as I don't have a high enough usage, as they don't bill if the change is below a particular threshold. 

[JonathanM]

3 hours ago, msantoso said:

Thank you Jonathan.

 

regarding parity disk, does unraid work similar to traditional raid, whereas if one drive failed, I can connect a new drive and it will rebuild the drive from unraid dashboard?

 

 

Yes, it rebuilds the entire drive partition with the file system as is. Some people misunderstand and think you can recover files from parity, but that's not how it works. It uses all the remaining data drives plus the parity disk(s) to recreate the missing drive. When you replace a drive, if it's smaller than your parity drive, you can rebuild to a drive the same size as your smallest parity drive and Unraid will automatically expand the partition to use the new space while it rebuilds.

 

Very similar to traditional RAID levels as far as drive replacement and rebuilds, with the added advantage of each data drive being a readable file system instead of a bunch of stripes. Disadvantage that read speeds are limited to single drive speed, and write speeds are less than half that because of latency penalties updating 2 drives. With modern drives touching 200MB/s, it's not THAT big of an issue for most folks, and you can change the parity write method to spin up all drives and increase the write speed.

 

The upsides of Unraid for most home use cases far outweigh the speed penalties.

[msantoso]

19 hours ago, Chess said:

 

Been down that road before, and it's a pain. Most residential ISPs block port 25 (SMTP) and that is a must for email. Plus most email hosts block outbound email from most ISP's IP ranges as well. Even with an static IP, you might still have major delivery issues. I ended up picking up a cheap VPS, and use Amazon SES for outbound mail. I got tired chasing down mail providers to allow my mail into their networks. Now I let Amazon deal with that. The VPS (mailcow) uses Amazon SES as a smart route for outbound mail. So far I've not been charged by Amazon SES for over a year, as I don't have a high enough usage, as they don't bill if the change is below a particular threshold. 

 

I leave my mail server on linode, thanks Chess.

[msantoso]

16 hours ago, jonathanm said:

Yes, it rebuilds the entire drive partition with the file system as is. Some people misunderstand and think you can recover files from parity, but that's not how it works. It uses all the remaining data drives plus the parity disk(s) to recreate the missing drive. When you replace a drive, if it's smaller than your parity drive, you can rebuild to a drive the same size as your smallest parity drive and Unraid will automatically expand the partition to use the new space while it rebuilds.

 

Very similar to traditional RAID levels as far as drive replacement and rebuilds, with the added advantage of each data drive being a readable file system instead of a bunch of stripes. Disadvantage that read speeds are limited to single drive speed, and write speeds are less than half that because of latency penalties updating 2 drives. With modern drives touching 200MB/s, it's not THAT big of an issue for most folks, and you can change the parity write method to spin up all drives and increase the write speed.

 

The upsides of Unraid for most home use cases far outweigh the speed penalties.

 

Good to hear about this, put my mind at ease. Thanks Jon.

 

I should be alright with the speed, considering newer tech on this PC.

 

I will read more about GPU, watched a few review, maybe I'll get AMD 5700XT, I think this is a sweet spot. It should be enough for VM too, I suppose.

 

cheers,

Michael

[Chess]

4 hours ago, msantoso said:

I will read more about GPU, watched a few review, maybe I'll get AMD 5700XT, I think this is a sweet spot. It should be enough for VM too, I suppose.

 

If you are considering doing GPU pass through for a VM, really consider an Nvidia card. Getting Nvidia to work is easier, and people seem to have a lot of trouble with AMD cards. 

[msantoso]

Just updating my progress here, finally started UnRaid trials yesterday. I have changed HDD to a few 10TB for parity and main network storage.

 

First of all, the motherboard ASUS WS C246M Pro, in my opinion has a strange layout. I am using Noctua NH-U12A and I can't seem to position the HSF so that the fan blow off to the back of the case (because of the placement of the RAM slots), so the HSF is positioned blowing top or bottom (which if you place a GPU, it kind of block the airflow as well.

 

Successfully setup plex media server up and running smoothly.

 

another question, can I have an nvme drive in the array along with the 10TB drives? Will it cause any problem for being the smallest in the array?

 

I have successfully setup Windows 10 VM and selected this disk while creating the VM. I am installing this nvme using a PCI-E adapter, while the main nvme slot on the motherboard I use for cache.

It has failed on me twice, yesterday after successfully created the VM, and today it suddenly failed again with a weird write status (18,446,744,073,709,049,856 writes and 67 errors). The current status of the drive is disabled, content emulated, no temp status, but VM can still run fine. Yesterday I unassigned the disk and assigned again but it did parity check all over again for the disk. Did I get a bad PCI-E adapter or is there something wrong with the VM setup?

the 18,446,744,073,709,049,856 writes seems too much, right? Should I post diagnostic here for better understanding?

 

I am using ADATA SX6000 lite 1 TB for the disk array (through PCI-E adapter) and use ADATA XPG Gammix S11 pro 1 TB on the main nvme slot for cache.

 

oh is there a file that we can edit to include CPU temp on the dashboard?

 

Software-wise is solid, network shares work great. Hoping to explore this further.

 

thank you thank you

[msantoso]

Is there anything wrong with this nvme?

 

Data Units Read:                    923,841 [473 GB]
Data Units Written:                 3,019,254 [1.54 TB]
Host Read Commands:                 5,764,649
Host Write Commands:                13,748,229

 

I currently use it only to store VM, 1 Windows 10 VM. I am wondering why data units written is already 1.54TB when I only create a 64GB VM which is still in cache.

 

I have selected /mnt/user/domains to use this nvme drive (disk 5) but location still stated on cache (vdisk1.img is on cache), how do I "force" the VM img to be committed to nvme on the array?

 

since the drive failed yesterday, now I am during a rebuild and it takes 3 hours where the used status only state 7 GB , again wonder what is being rebuild.

 

Total size:1 TB

Elapsed time:16 minutes

Current position:84.7 GB (8.3 %)

Estimated speed:72.7 MB/sec

Estimated finish:3 hours, 35 minutes

 

ADATA_SX6000LNP_2K1920009356-20200722-1529.txt

[msantoso]

I can't seem to find the error that cause the nvme disk to fail. Where should I look?

 

Thank you

mshomesvr-diagnostics-20200722-1556.zip