January 7, 201115 yr [EDITED FOR CONTENT CLARITY BY WEEBOTECH] The main reason I want iSCSI as an option is for applications like Mozy (online backup) that require local disk. I also prefer "local disk" over mapped network drives. There are other backup solutions out there besides Mozy that allow for offline backup. Many of us use Crashplan, which runs natively in Linux and doesn't suck up extra network resources to stream to a client machine first.
January 7, 201115 yr There are other backup solutions out there besides Mozy that allow for offline backup. Many of us use Crashplan, which runs natively in Linux and doesn't suck up extra network resources to stream to a client machine first. I'll look into that! It's only 6 bucks a month for unlimited??? I like Mozy because they've been around and will be around for a long time... I guess they're trustworthy to me. I'll do my research on CP!
January 7, 201115 yr Author Installation thread is here, and wiki entry is here. It's not the easiest installation to do, and it does need to be reset when Crashplan updates their client, but it is very seamless once it's running. Hopefully future updates of unRAID will allow for better native integration, as many other NAS boxes out there have plugins for Amazon Cloud, etc. I'll look into that! It's only 6 bucks a month for unlimited??? Yeah, pretty amazing deal. You have to pay annually, but it's still hella cheap.
January 7, 201115 yr Author AFAIK Mozy is $4.95 / mo, isn't that less than $6? Actually, if you look at the pricing plans they are pretty much the same. Crashplan is a tried and tested way of doing what Aaron is trying to accomplish with iSCSI. And since Limetech has indicated no interest in iSCSI development, I gave him an alternative solution. Even if Crashplan was $1 more a month, which it isn't, it is a solution to his problem. Non-Linux based clients with "no network shares" clauses (Mozy, Carbonite, etc) will not achieve the results he is after. This could all change in the future if those programs A) drop the "no network shares" restriction, or B) release a Linux OS client which can perform the backup locally in unRAID.
January 7, 201115 yr AFAIK Mozy is $4.95 / mo, isn't that less than $6? Actually, if you look at the pricing plans they are pretty much the same. Crashplan is a tried and tested way of doing what Aaron is trying to accomplish with iSCSI. And since Limetech has indicated no interest in iSCSI development, I gave him an alternative solution. Even if Crashplan was $1 more a month, which it isn't, it is a solution to his problem. Non-Linux based clients with "no network shares" clauses (Mozy, Carbonite, etc) will not achieve the results he is after. This could all change in the future if those programs A) drop the "no network shares" restriction, or B) release a Linux OS client which can perform the backup locally in unRAID. But which crashplan "plan" are you comparing here? Crashplan+ Family (unlimited storage and up to 10 machines) is $6 / month, at least according to their own website. Actually, it is advertised "as low as $6", and it turns out that the $6 rate is only for a 4 years plan. For the one year plan it costs $10 / month, and for month-to-month is $12! Crashplan+ (unlimited storage, but one computer only) is "as low as $3", again only true on a 4 year plan. If you look at month-to-month the cost goes up to $5 /mo (which is a tiny bit more expensive than Mozy). Mozy also gets cheaper if you sign up for 1 or 2 years. I can see crashplan has the advantage of having a linux client, but I would not say it's cheaper than Mozy.
January 7, 201115 yr It might be a buck or two more a month but that's really not a big deal to me. I just want something that works, and I don't want to have to copy my MOST important things to a disk in an XP machine just to run mozy. I still like iSCSI.
January 7, 201115 yr Author But which crashplan "plan" are you comparing here? I was trying to place the emphasis on the true purpose of this discussion, which really had nothing to do with pricing. I can see crashplan has the advantage of having a linux client, but I would not say it's cheaper than Mozy. I don't recall ever stating that, or validating that. I do recall stating they are "pretty much the same", and you indicated the same conclusion in one of your examples: If you look at month-to-month the cost goes up to $5 /mo (which is a tiny bit more expensive than Mozy). For some reason you want to encourage a debate over a difference in market price based on commitment plans, something that can vary significantly over time. So I will indulge a little. Mozy unlimited is $5 month to month per system, up to a maximum of 5 systems. That's $25 per month, versus $12 for the Crashplan family month to month, for up to 10 systems. If Mozy allowed for a 10 system max, it would be $50/month based on their current pricing model. Realistically though, if this is a file server backup, it stands to reason that backing up individual clients offline is a waste, as those clients should be backed up directly over the local network to the file server. Once on the server, those backups can then be transported offline, saving money, time, and resources. Following that logic, you would only really need a 1 system plan, which falls under the category of "pretty much the same" for pricing. And since Mozy doesn't have a Linux client, nor a "network share" allowance, it doesn't fit all the necessary criteria as a solution to this particular issue. I'm not trying to bash Mozy, or Carbonite, or any of the solutions available out there. I'm not trying to sell shares in Crashplan either. My points were designed to present an alternative to Aaron's potential issue so that he can continue using a very intelligent backup strategy that includes an offline backup component for unRAID.
January 8, 201115 yr I have only one good reason to implement iSCSI in unRAID, and that is VMWare ESXi. I tried to use NFS as datastore on one server, but it's a non go. I don't know why, but the share dropped sometimes causing virtual machines to crash. For this type of use, iSCSI is awesome, far better than NFS/SMB/etc... But unRAID is focused on home serving, and iSCSI is mostly used in corporate environment, so I understand Tom's decision to not include iSCSI target on unRAID.
January 8, 201115 yr But unRAID is focused on home serving, and iSCSI is mostly used in corporate environment, so I understand Tom's decision to not include iSCSI target on unRAID. I'd agree on your statement, but unRAID supports Active-Directory, and that is mostly used in the corporate environment. (I don't know too many home networks running it, that's for sure) iSCSI has its place. Joe L.
January 8, 201115 yr I vote for iSCSI as well. I thought the only resistence to it was that unRAID would get too big to fit on a 1GB flash drive or run in 512MB of ram. Artifically constrained by outdated hardware commitments. However, I'm using non-permanent NFS connections to backup up my ESXi VM's to unRAID and that is working very well.
June 4, 201115 yr I'd agree on your statement, but unRAID supports Active-Directory, and that is mostly used in the corporate environment. (I don't know too many home networks running it, that's for sure) iSCSI has its place. Joe L. Tom, please add iSCSI support. I'd like to record TV from Windows 7 Media Center directly to my unRAID array, but Windows 7 only supports recording to local disks. I think that this would be much more useful than Active Directory for home users. Cheers.
June 6, 201115 yr I would like to have iSCSI for my Aperture(like light room) photo library. Aperture currently does not work with SMB shares and I have not tried NFS, but I am assuming it won't work either. iSCSI would be ideal in this setup. A lot of photographers out there are using drobos and the like. It may be a ways off, but I would love to see it. Keep up the Great work Tom, I have single handy sold several friends on building their own unraind server. Now with Elan getting on board with Plex, we really have a great complete media system all in one box!!
June 7, 201115 yr I'd agree on your statement, but unRAID supports Active-Directory, and that is mostly used in the corporate environment. (I don't know too many home networks running it, that's for sure) iSCSI has its place. Joe L. Tom, please add iSCSI support. I'd like to record TV from Windows 7 Media Center directly to my unRAID array, but Windows 7 only supports recording to local disks. I think that this would be much more useful than Active Directory for home users. Cheers. Ever heard of mapping a share to a drive letter ?? should do the trick in your case you can also use MKLINK in windows so you can add a symbolic link to a folder on a drive (which is what i am doing on all windows PC's .. so that all shares are on the Z drive of each computer)
June 7, 201115 yr I would like to have iSCSI for my Aperture(like light room) photo library. Aperture currently does not work with SMB shares and I have not tried NFS, but I am assuming it won't work either. iSCSI would be ideal in this setup. A lot of photographers out there are using drobos and the like. It may be a ways off, but I would love to see it. Keep up the Great work Tom, I have single handy sold several friends on building their own unraind server. Now with Elan getting on board with Plex, we really have a great complete media system all in one box!! I assume it will work over NFS because Disk Utility lets you configure auto-mount NFS shares.
June 19, 201115 yr Ever heard of mapping a share to a drive letter ?? should do the trick in your case you can also use MKLINK in windows so you can add a symbolic link to a folder on a drive (which is what i am doing on all windows PC's .. so that all shares are on the Z drive of each computer) Yes, actually I have heard of that. A network share that is mapped to a drive letter is not a local drive. It is a share that is mapped to a drive letter. As I said, Windows 7 only supports recording TV to a local drive, hence the need for iSCSI.
June 19, 201115 yr I believe it does support reading from a network drive so people use a script to move recordings from a local drive to a server.
June 19, 201115 yr For something like real-time recording the local drive requirement is a good idea. I'd definitely follow dgaschk's suggestion to record locally and move later. Reason being that it's much harder to know what's happening on remote shared devices and the transport for the duration of your recording session, so making your recording dependent on that variable bandwidth is asking for trouble. Even if you have a very controlled situation where nobody hogs the net or server, adding that point of failure isn't the safe way. You can imagine MS' perspective when it comes to troubleshooting problem reports from this kind of thing.
June 21, 201115 yr I would like to see iSCSI for a couple of the reasons mentioned here. Sadly it's on the roadmap under the "Never" category: http://download.lime-technology.com/develop/infusions/aw_todo/task.php?id=26 The good news is the reasoning is "Why?" so if it's made known that there are some good reasons to have it, maybe it will be implemented in the future.
June 22, 201115 yr What's preventing us from accessing unRAID via one of the iSCSI projects? I'm assuming a full-slackware unRAID install.
June 29, 201115 yr i think someone earlier figured out the way - but seems that thread has died. I too am looking for iSCSI, strictly for the ESxi aspect. the one thread on here that someone posted didn't get much activity. I'd hate to wake it up, but would be good to know how it's working for him (if it's still working). http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10089.0
June 30, 201115 yr i think someone earlier figured out the way - but seems that thread has died. I too am looking for iSCSI, strictly for the ESxi aspect. the one thread on here that someone posted didn't get much activity. I'd hate to wake it up, but would be good to know how it's working for him (if it's still working). http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10089.0 Tom has mentioned eventual support for any file-system on the data disks, not just reiserfs. Since iSCSI works as a "disk", the PC using it must know how to read and write the file-system it attaches to. Today, as far as I now, there are no PC based drivers that can write to a reiserfs, although there are some that can read it. When the ability to use any file system is eventually in place, then the isCSI target makes a lot more sense. (you could have an NTFS file system perhaps) This has only been mentioned as future plans for unRAID, but who knows, a few more years and it might be possible.
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