Final Build - Last Hardware Thread I Promise!


hansolo77

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My top level shares are by media type (/MediaTV, /MediaMovies, /MediaMusic) and then use split levels where it makes since: movies can go anywhere, TV seasons stay together, music albums stay together, etc. Ultimately there is no “right” way - it’s flexible to do what makes sense for you. 

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So far mine has been smooth sailing - the basic stack is all together and working under a trial version of Unraid. Knock on wood. Just waiting on new storage. I need to investigate migrating over my current install - I hear it’s as easy as moving over all the drives and USB stick - but not totally sure. 
 

A couple of questions for you - did you make any settings tweaks in your BIOS or HBA card? Also, have you already looked if there is a BIOS update since January? I assume there is. Surprised there is no option to flash from online directly. Flashing from a download on a stick seems so 2005. 

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Your setup is nearly identical with mine with a couple of exceptions.

 

1. I have a movies folder with all my HD movies (Media\Movies) but have a separate folder for UHD Movies not under the movies folder (Media\UHD 4K). The way you have it should be fine with Plex because you will just give it access to Regular movies. My server is not powerful enough to transcode 4K to 1080p. Many people don't do it anyways.

 

2. For music, I put albums and music files all under an individual artist/band. Example Media\Audio\Counting Crows. I never deviate from this. I have lots of folders but it keeps it well organized.

 

3. Photos are the trickiest but what you have is similar to what i do. I store photos by event and name the folder by year. Example Media\Pictures\Christmas 2019. I try to keep the folders named the same way so that if I need to sort in windows I can find what I am looking for. I don't worry much about the individual file names because I have so many pictures I just rename them separately if the need every arises.

 

One thing you might want to consider is creating a share outside of media called Personal Videos or Private. This contains home videos I only share with the family and have it as a private share. To the best of my knowledge you can only set access rights at the share level so remember that.

 

Remember you can always move things around or change things just remember to always do via user or the share, never directly to the disk unless you really know what you are doing.

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19 hours ago, Idolwild said:

A couple of questions for you - did you make any settings tweaks in your BIOS or HBA card? Also, have you already looked if there is a BIOS update since January? I assume there is. Surprised there is no option to flash from online directly. Flashing from a download on a stick seems so 2005. 

I haven't updated the BIOS yet.  In my experience, there's really no need to update unless something isn't working right (like you have a new processor that should be supported but isn't in your BIOS version).  So far, everything worked just like it should have.  As for tweaks, I did change a few things.  First, I enabled the XMP for the RAM so I could get the 3600mhz the RAM is set to.  I then made sure the correct CPU settings were set for Unraid VM's (there was one setting I had to enable, but I don't remember what it was.  Also, I haven't installed any VM's yet, so that's still to come).  Another setting I changed was to disable things I don't plan on using, like the onboard wifi and parallel/serial connections, etc.  I remember checking for S3 standby but seem to recall there not being a setting for it.  The only thing I needed to do on that part was make sure the correct wake settings were made.  I tested it, and I can wake the server on WOL now.  The only other tweak I did was to lower the temperature settings to use higher fan speeds.  Since I'm using Noctua fans, I didn't want things to run hot due to their lower noise.  So I set things up like 50% fan when the CPU is at 40c then 65% when I'm at 55c, etc.  Its lower than the default.  I think it's like 100% everything by the time the CPU is 70c, but I never run that hot anyway, at least not yet.  I also set the rear exhaust fans to be on full 100%, rather than control them PWM.


Something else I've done is order a pair of 10G NICs and a couple of SFP+ cables.  I'll use them to transfer things much faster from the old server to the new.  I'm excited about that, I've never had speeds that fast for, can't wait.  As a bonus, I'll get a lot more HEAT, so I also ordered another Noctua fan with the soul purpose being to blow directly across the expansion cards.  My current server has a 120mm fan blowing down over the cards, but I think it'll be better to blow this new own towards the back vents.  So this is a Noctua NF-A14 iPPC-2000.  It's 140mm, which should fit perfectly inside the case, and is industrial, 2000 rpm for really high air flow.  Depending on how loud this is once I get it installed, I might just go and order 3 more industrial 120's and replace the fanwall if the 3 120's I just got leave the drives running too hot.  I just got this guy in the mail so I'm going to install it.  There is a PUMP PWM header left on the motherboard I'm going to try first, and if the PCI slots are still too hot, I'll either kick it up to 100% all the time like the exhaust fans, or if that doesn't work I'll just direct attach it to a 4-Pin molex fan breakout I have.

 

6 hours ago, stepmback said:

Your setup is nearly identical with mine with a couple of exceptions.

 

1. I have a movies folder with all my HD movies (Media\Movies) but have a separate folder for UHD Movies not under the movies folder (Media\UHD 4K). The way you have it should be fine with Plex because you will just give it access to Regular movies. My server is not powerful enough to transcode 4K to 1080p. Many people don't do it anyways.

 

2. For music, I put albums and music files all under an individual artist/band. Example Media\Audio\Counting Crows. I never deviate from this. I have lots of folders but it keeps it well organized.

 

3. Photos are the trickiest but what you have is similar to what i do. I store photos by event and name the folder by year. Example Media\Pictures\Christmas 2019. I try to keep the folders named the same way so that if I need to sort in windows I can find what I am looking for. I don't worry much about the individual file names because I have so many pictures I just rename them separately if the need every arises.

 

One thing you might want to consider is creating a share outside of media called Personal Videos or Private. This contains home videos I only share with the family and have it as a private share. To the best of my knowledge you can only set access rights at the share level so remember that.

 

Remember you can always move things around or change things just remember to always do via user or the share, never directly to the disk unless you really know what you are doing.

Thanks for your feedback and thoughts.  I think I'm starting to understand it more.  Level 1 splitlevel is the root path you create, and if you set that, then everything in the folder will be on all drives.  I did this for things like my "Saved Install Files" and my "Documents" folders.  Split Level 2 would be any subfolders under that (like movies/4k and movies/hd), so "movies" and each subfolder can go on any drive, but then any movie in each of those folders get saved on one drive (like movies/4k/star wars/files will all be on one drive, and /movies/4k/empire strikes back/files can be on another drive, while /movies/hd/return of the jedi/files can go on another drive too, but the files will all remain with their parent movie folder).  Split Level 3 would be for any subfolders under the 2nd subfolder (like Tvshows/Cartoons/FamilyGuy/Seasons/Episodes).  In that example, "TVShows", "Cartoons", and "Family Guy" should be all split to different drives, but "seasons" and their "episodes" should be kept together on a given drive.  Then I get "/tvshows/regular/x-files/seasons/episodes" where the set would go "tvshows", "regular", "X-files" all go to whatever drive they need, then "seasons" and "episodes" would stay together on one drive.  Does this sound right?

 

1 - I don't plan on transcoding 4k either.  I've yet to transcode and actually have it look right anyway.  Not only does the HDR->SDR conversion screw up the colors, but direct streaming that to my TV causes some weird pixelation artifacts.  When I do it with my Raspberry Pi 4, the colors are just washed.  But using a Firestick 4k and my Xbox One X works great, so I can still stream locally 4k.  I just separated out the 4k stuff so when I'm browsing my PLEX library I can know it's 4k vs HD (because it's a separate library).  I offer it as a shared library to my brother though in case he wants to watch it, but my bandwith causes him to transcode down anyway.  He can still watch it in 4k but at the 10mbps it transcodes to for the lower bitrate.  He says he doesn't notice the SDR color washout though.  He's just not as techy as my I guess lol.  Unless he's got some superior TV that color corrects or something.

 

2 - Yup sounds like my setup.  I have additional folders based on type, but I don't need to.  PLEX doesn't care.  But I like to have the organization.  I originally went with "music/artist/studio" and "music/artist/live" and "music/artist/compilation", etc but that got too messy.  Instead, my current setup is "music/type/artist/album/files" where "type" is anything like "studio album", "live", etc.  I think this would require a split level of 3, so that up to "artist" can be split to other drives, but then each "album" and it's "files" can be together on one drive.  PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG!!

 

3 - Yeah I never really cared about my photo organization until I got a decent camera.  We had a flatbed scanner back in the 90's and I had scanned in all my photos I had with a typical film camera.  I had Polaroids and 110 film.  Then I got an Advantix film camera around 1999 (I remember because that was our address of a new house we were getting built that same year).  I took pictures of that whole building process and that's when I started to better organize my photos so we could have a record of the days we visited the location.  Years went by and I got my first true digital camera, then I got a much better digital camera but not an SLR.  Now I have an SLR.  So my own personal photo collection I've got sorted currently like this: "/photos/name/type/date/pictures".  "Name" is either me, my dad, my brother, my stepmom, etc. where we separate who took the pictures.  "Type" is for me personally, where I've separated out the format from scanned and what camera took the photo.  Then my "date" folder format is "YYYY-MM-DD - Description" so like "2010-12-25 - Christmas at Grandma's".  I started using the year/month/day format YEARS ago, and I find it's a much better way to organize than alphabetical first.  But it's harder to find that one specific photo from "Grandma's house that one Christmas where Uncle Mike was still alive" because you don't know what year that was, etc.  But you can be more descriptive in the title if it helps.  I only wish PLEX (or other 10' services for that matter) offered something better for zooming.  I think Windows Media Center offered that with the OK remote key, but everything else either rotates the image or starts a slide show.  Anyway, my planned split level for this is going to be 3 I think.  So that "photos/name/type/" can go on any drive, but then any "date" and "pictures" will stay together on one drive (meaning the folder "2010-12-25 - Christmas at Grandma's" and it's photos will stay together one one drive, while "1999-03-24 - First Drywall Up" and it's photos can be on another drive if need be.  Again, PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG!!

 

Lastly, I don't really have any need for a "private" folder as you suggest.  The only people I share my PLEX library with are my Dad (who I currently still live with), my Mom (who re-married and lives elsewhere) and my Brother (who moved out, has a wife and kids).  Now, if I go and start sharing my PLEX library with say a co-worker, yeah I'll not give them visible access to things like Photos.  But PLEX can control all that.  As for personal storage though, I do plan on creating a true "USERS" share where I can store personal documents, and my Dad can store his stuff, and my stepmom can store hers, etc.  That will be private with a single user access of only them.  I have that already setup on my current server so I'll just have to figure out how to do that with Unraid.

 

And yeah, the tip about moving files around.  This is a no brainer for people who have been doing this kind of thing for awhile.  I've been using Windows Home Server and Windows Server 2012 for about 15 years or so, so I'm familiar with that whole thing.  But if I was setting this up for my mom for instance, she'd definitely need to be show that you move files around "on the network" and not "locally" because things like permissions and redundancy get screwed up.  But still, thanks for the tip.  I'm sure there might be somebody in the future who comes across this thread and needs to see it.  :)

 

Well, thanks a lot everybody for dealing with me and this super long post.  I tend to ramble when I'm tired (in case you couldn't tell lol).  But yeah, before I get those 10G NIC's in and really start moving data around, I'd really like to know that my grasp of the split leveling is correct.  I just really don't want to have to sit and wait for a drive to spin up if I'm binge watching Star Trek because episode 6 is on the first drive and episode 7 is on another. 

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I did end up updating the BIOS (it’s my habit to always go to the latest rev). There is only one version past what we have, and it doesn’t address anything I care about. 
 

Good thoughts on your BIOS tweaks - I’ll probably end up doing a few of those. 
 

Overall I’m happy with the heat I’m seeing except for the M.2 cards. The drive temps just with the 3x120 fan wall and 2x80 exhaust are below 95F - and that’s with me building the parity drive. Not sure I need anything additional. 
 

The NVME cards seem to run nominal at 130F - and the PCI/mboard fan isn’t even spinning which is weird. I’ve read this is within spec for these cards. Other places I’ve read the Unity board M.2 “heat sink” plates actually raise the temps - might try running with them off. 
 

Below is the build complete, pre-cable management. 

27D05D80-25F3-4BEE-A9A2-512264F0DDDC.jpeg

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I see you went with a hard drive caddy for your 10tb.  I'm guess that's your parity, it's where I put mine.  :)  Interesting to see a similar build to mind but have it look different.  My NVME cards get pretty hot too.. I was just as nervous.  But, they do seem to be operating just fine.  I thought the fan was supposed to blow air over them, but I guess that fan only runs when the PCI controller chips get hot.  You can make it run though (as a test, just go into your BIOS and the monitor screen, just press 'F' to make everything full power).  Curious, what are the 2 cards besides the HBA?  I think one is probably graphics, but it looks pretty tiny (don't really need much I guess).  The other looks like an old internal 56k dialup modem (could you imagine!).  Also, it looks like you were able to get the motherboard 8-pin power without needing a splitter.  The PDU has enough connectors on mine to do that, but the length of the cables were too short so I had to use the splitter to extend it.  I've got pictures on my phone of my build prior to adding the 10G NIC and he new fan.. care to see?  Lighting is pretty bad, I was using my phone.

 

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My 2 parity drives, 12tb each.  I only wish SATA cables provided in the motherboard box were a little longer.  I've got them both kinda pulled up on the very corner edge of the motherboard here.  The power to the drives is a right-angle 2-way splitter, where I've attached a 3-way splitter to the molex lead left over.  I have the 3-way because I plan on attaching some extra SSD's in the future that won't be part of the array.  I have all the wires tidied up as best I could slid up under the drives and pulled back behind the 2 caddie's mounting screws.

 

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A better view of the entire motherboard and expansion slots.  The 2 exhaust fans I've got their power pulled up together and route them down to the bottom of the case and plugged into the system fan headers below the last PCIe-16x slot.  Everything is nice and neat (so far).

 

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My fan wall.  Truth is, after I took this picture I discovered I couldn't get the lid to close down because the weather stripping was too tall.  It's 3 layers thick.  So I had to take the top layer off.  My original thought here was that I could push the lid down to make the fit so tight it wouldn't let any air through.  Turns out I couldn't even get the lid down if I sat on it (I didn't, but you get the idea).  I had trouble getting it to stay down though, because the stripping comes in a roll, and it kept wanting to curl up.  I ended up just using some more zip ties in the top 2 corners to hold down the edges.  It works, but there is a little air gap now.  So far, no bad results.  Also, I saw your pictures... you'll want to put some tape on the vent holes on the outside of the case to prevent the fans from sucking in air that's not going over the drives... they were there for when the case is full with drives so the old fans don't choke.  I've not heard of anybody having that happen with Noctua fans though.

 

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This is a horribly lit image of my expansion slots.  I actually took the picture horizontally, and rotated it horizontally on my computer before uploading it, but for some reason it stayed vertical.  lol  So yeah, that's the (oops) P220, without needing additional power.  Also is the HBA.  Not pictured (haven't done them yet) is the PCIe1x digital tuner card and the 10GB NIC I ordered.  Once that's installed, I'll be full on cards.  Not really anything else I'd need/want.  Perhaps someday in the future I'll replace the HBA with one that has an external port so I can daisy chain another JBOD case.  Or I think I'll have open slots on the back to just use an external plate and route the existing 2nd SAS cable to it.  Not really sure I could need anything else.  I've seen some things like an SSD hotswap caddy you can put in an open plate slot, that might be cool.

 

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Here's a shot of the "between" area.  Fan wall on the left, drive bays on the right, with drive bay #5 (top left, starts with 0 bottom left) filled with my first 12tb data drive.  I've actually just added 2 more 12tb drives yesterday that are preclearing right now.  They're WD EasyStore shucked drives.  I've never done the shucking before, but I'll definitely be doing it going forward.  Each of these Seagate 12tb drives were like $370 each.  The 2 WD drives were like $400 total.  But anyway, back to the "between".  As it is right now, the cables aren't zip tied or moved out of the way.  They're just jumbled up.  I'm trying to research to see if anything can be done about it.  The front panel to motherboard cable is pretty long and it's just kinda taking up space, as is the extension cable I had to add to the one fan to help it reach the motherboard.  I thought about maybe laying down a bunch of electrical tape, or a thin piece of cardboard/stock, to "smush" everything down to the bottom of the case, but that might actually prevent airflow from the bottom 4 drives.  I think I'll leave it as it is right now.

 

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Last "bonus" picture.  I took this when I was trying to set up my fans for the fan wall.  I wanted them to all be the same.  Since I had a really hard time with my mouse (it's weird, moving around really slow, but if I increase the speed it's WAY fast.. works fine in Unraid GUI though), I didn't want to have to keep going back and forth between the fans to check the settings.  I've actually tweaked this setting more since I took the picture, so this is truly just a "bonus" and isn't representative of my final settings.

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Ya - I generally build everything out the way I want it and ensure all is in working order, then I'll go back and do cable management and tidy everything up. It's a mess right now.

  • Good to hear about the PCI fan - that's what I figured but I wasn't sure.
  • One card is a basic-bitch NVIDIA card that didn't require additional power - when I was ready to boot up yesterday I realized ALL of my junk video cards needed additional power, so I had to run out to Best Buy and grab that to continue. Gets the job done for now. My next project will be putting a high-end card in, but I'm not sold on the performance of the P2000 - so anything more grandiose will require me to do something weird with power. That's down the road.
  • The "modem" is just a 2-port gigabit NIC card. I had it, I threw it in. 10G is probably a project AFTER the video card.
  • Heard and understood about the tape - I have some ready, just haven't gotten to it since I'm not ready to seal up.
  • Went with 10TB Iron Wolf for parity, the 12GB was beyond my value-point. I'll wait for them to come down. I'll add a second parity drive before August is out.
  • I did need the same mboard splitter, it's just down out of view.
  • Shucking WD Easystore's - I did the very same. Can't beat $160 for 10TB. One was bad, on RMA turnaround.
  • I hate my fan wall treatment - didn't turn out very nice. Good seal, and the metal tape makes the case cover "glide", but ugly as sin. I will redo it some other day.
  • How do you use the PCIe1x digital tuner card?

Thanks!

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20 hours ago, Idolwild said:

 

  • How do you use the PCIe1x digital tuner card?

I still have to install it, so I don't know if it's any different.  On my current Windows Server build, all I had to do was plug it in, connect an antenna to it, and run the driver package that comes with it (downloaded from the card's manufacturer website).  Once that's done, you use PLEX (requires PLEX PASS) and go into the "Live TV & DVR", it should find your card and start configuring it to use.  It will prompt for what TV service you have (antenna/cable) and then start scanning for channels.  You then enable/disable the ones you want and you're good to go.  If you're using Cable, you need a special card (at least for my service) that supports the digital DRM capabilities.  Some cable companies offer a rental fee and can give you a compatible card/device if you want.  Ours does offer one but they want a lot more money for it than it was worth.  We have cable tv, but I never watch anything on it, mostly just local broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS).  Those are all available in my area free over the air, just need an antenna, and the tuner card does the rest.  The card I have I think is out of service now, it's a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250.  Found it on Amazon.  The box came with all the accessories, though I never used them.  The remote was nice when I was running Window Media Center.  Going forward though, I think I want to upgrade it to a Hauppauge WinTV-quadHD or maybe an HDHomeRun.  The problem is that I have to keep the server ON (not asleep) to get recordings to happen.  They have an HDHomeRun Scribe which comes with a built in DVR Hard Drive so I wouldn't need to be always on, but I've not been able to find out if PLEX can access it or not.  Seems like even more user friendly devices like Roku and FireStick can't.  Bummer.

 

19 hours ago, jonathanm said:

Are you sure the CPU is rated for that? I suspect that while the memory can handle the speed just fine, the motherboard / CPU can't, at least not without stability issues.

 

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/46802-faq-for-unraid-v6/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-819173

 

I've not had any problems with my server running at that speed.  It's the base speed of the RAM, no overclocking.  Linking from the motherboard's spec sheet:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MEG-X570-UNIFY/Specification

DDR4 Memory - 1866/ 2133/ 2400/ 2667/ 2800/2933 /3000 /3066 /3200 /3466 /3600 /3733 /3866 /4000 /4133 /4266 /4400 /4533 /4600 /4733 /4800 /5000+ Mhz by JEDEC and A-XMP OC MODE

I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even give a list of speeds like that if it couldn't support it, and none of the Zen3 chips advertise those clocks.  But, 3200 seems like a base rated speed to begin with anyway.

 

Also, there have been a lot of threads on the internet about "Ryzen 3900x 3600 RAM".  In most cases, it looks like 3600mhz is actually the sweet spot, comparing cost vs performance.  Even AMD recommended.  Have a look here:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/best-memory-for-3900x-ddr4-3600.3497584/

 

But yeah, I guess it would depend on what you get.  Maybe I've just been lucky with mine.  When I first installed it, it wanted to run at 3200mhz, and was fine for a long time (36 hours online, give or take).  Then I started adjusting fan speeds and realized it wasn't running at the base clock the RAM was set for, so I just enabled XMP and it automatically set to 3600.  I'm not going to overclock either.  Seems people start having issues with their systems AFTER they do that.  So far, I've been running at the 3600mhz clock for about 4 days and haven't had a single problem.

 

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Don't get too excited about your 10GB transfer speed when transfering files from your old hard drives. It will be faster than what you get on your 1GB network but you will not be able to saturate your network using non-ssd hard drives. That is why everyone uses a SSD cache drive and most workstatiosn have SSD.

 

Not sure where you stand on transferring your media from your old system but do not setup up your cache drive until after you have transferred everything.

 

Nice build.

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Yeah I know full saturation isn't going to happen.  Classic hard drives have a limit of speed, and my controllers are only 6GB/s.  But it's still gonna be faster in the long run while transferring from one to the other.  As for the future, my main PC uses only SSDs and a Ramdisk.  So transferring files between it and the new server should be a lot better than what I'm currently getting.

 

Yeah I've learned the hard way doing 1GB speeds, about the cache and not using it.  I even disabled my parity to see if I could inch out any extra bandwith.  Although, using the NVMe 1tb PRO drives will be a LOT faster.  It'll probably just take LONGER though because I'd either have to wait for the "end-of-day" Mover schedule, or force a manual move, which defeats the whole purpose.  I'm just hoping I get a decent enough speed to make it worth the cost.

 

Thanks for the feedback on my build!  So far it's working well.  I got the NIC's in the mail today but won't get the cables until tomorrow (figures).  But I'm off the next 2 days so I'll be able to play with this a lot more soon. 

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I've actually not had any stability issues at all.  System has been on non-stop for multiple days on end.  I've had to reboot it to install the 10gb NIC, but other than that, everything is running great.  Now I just wish I could get my transfer speeds higher, much like you suggested that I'd not be able to saturate it.  I should be able to maintain the speed though, I'm experiencing drop outs and max around 128MB/s.  Still working on the settings and stuff. 

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It took me four straight days/nights to copy all my files (30TB) from my old disks to my new disks. I was getting the same speeds using Krusader as well which ranged form 80 to sometimes a consistent 110MB.

 

Happy to hear about the stability.

 

PM me if you have questions. I am by no means an expert.. only been using Unraid for aobut 3 months but I have learned TONS in that timeframe. If you are not already doing so, watch the Space Invader videos on YouTube they are great.

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Yeah I've been doing lots of Google, discord, and youtube.  :)  I think my speeds are probably average then from what I'm seeing.  I expected to see a solid line of speed, but instead I'm seeing a mountain range of highs and lows.  Last night I tried transferring just my movies starting with "A".  It's 350gb and was saying it would take 3 hours to complete.  When I watched it transfer, it would start out ok, like 700MB/s, then drop down to almost 0, then go up to 30MB/s just to drop down to 4 again then shoot up to 120.  It's just all over the place.  Like I said, I expected to see a steady throughput, not all over the place.  I've seen videos where people were getting a solid 1GB/s throughput.  But, I understand that they're going from ramdisk to ramdisk in those videos.  I'm ok not having that.  It's the randomness of speed though that's got me confused thinking something's not right.  But seeing that you were getting 80-110MB/s makes me feel more confident that things are working as they should.  My problem must be because of Window Server and the DrivePool software and the fact that the data is moving off of spinning drives rather than SSD's.  Tonight I'm going to try copying my "B" movies to an SSD first before transferring them over to the new server, and see if speeds are better.

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Old server SSD to new server nvme brought in a steady 400-450MB/s.  I think that's the best I'll be able to get.  But honestly, my largest SSD on my old server is only 120gb.  The nvme drives are 1tb.  I have like 180tb of data to transfer.  After filling up the old server SSD 7-8 times to get the nvme filled up once, it took like 3-4 hours to dump that data off the nvme and onto the array.  Could have been because I was using it at the time though.  But still, using cache is just not an option when moving data like this.  I'm gonna have to just live with it going from old server spinners to new server spinners directly until it's all done.  At least I'm getting that same steady 85-120MB/s speed.

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  • 7 months later...

Any updates on this? How is your system running? I am actually looking at swapping my Threadripper 2920X based unRAID server for my Ryzen 3900X system, and getting the MSI mobo to do it. Have you populated all three PCIex16 slots yet? I am gonna be using a GTX 1660 on first slot, a LSI 9201-16i in second slot, and an LSI 9201-16E on third slot. 

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I built mine after seeing hansolo77's initial posts and built it toward the tail-end of him finishing his. It's been rock-solid and more than handles my needs, I never seem to really stress it. It runs all the usual stuff for a media fetcher/server, some other container apps, and a single Windows domain controller. I've been very happy with it.

 

Full build here:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/comments/jjgfz3/unraid_ryzen_build_custom_network_cabinet_unifi/

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I'm still pretty stable.  Things have changed in the way Unraid handles the P2200 nVidia drivers, and the OTA TV tuner drivers, but "so far" everything is running smooth.  I do have all 3 pcie slots filled, with the 10g nic, drive controller, and the OTA Tv Tuner.  I'm a bit bummed about the 10g nic.  Seems like Windows doesn't like the drivers for it.  I had it installed on my Windows Server computer when I was transferring all the data to the new server, and it was working fine.  Then when that was done I moved it over to my daily machine that was running Windows 7.  It was finicky at first to get the drivers to install but then it started working fine.  A month or so ago my Windows 7 machine took a nose dive.  Not sure what happened but I needed to reinstall Windows.  I went with Windows 10, since it's the latest one and I've got literally no experience with it.  Ever since then, this 10g Nic has been nothing but trouble.  It causes Windows to become completely unstable, random crashes, and a dead screen requiring me to drain the power supply capacitors (turn the computer on from a cold boot with the power supply unplugged) (it forces the motherboard to "restart" rather than "wake up" the computer when it's locked up).  I figured out it was the NIC, because every time I would boot the system back up the Device Manager showed Windows had disabled it.  So I just keep it disabled.  Enable it when I need it, then disable it again.  Like I said, I'm bummed it doesn't work all the time like it did on Windows 7.  I kept all the original driver installation files from before and all the hardware is still the same, but it just doesn't work.

 

Anyway, I'm very pleased with this build.  I might have a new problem I don't know how to address.  I've tried using Google and found a few threads here and on reddit about it.  I've started replacing my older 4-8tb drives with shucked 12tb drives.  I've got about 8 of them now.  One of the drives though is now sitting at 100% usage, while I still have like 3 of the 12tb drives not even used yet.  It's very confusing because I have all my shares configured to use High-Water, which should use a drive to 50% then start using another drive, etc, until all drives are there then it'll start doing 75%, etc.  As it sits now, I have a bunch of 12's that are pushing 80-90%, one that is 100%, a few that are 0%, and a bunch of 4-8tb drives that are still sitting empty.  I don't understand it.  But everything I've read said to just let unRAID handle it, so that's what I've been doing.  Any tips or pointers on that?  I've included a screenshot of my situation.  The newest drives are coming from the bottom up, replacing the lowest capacity drives first.

 

 

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I have that plugin but it seems too complicated to use correctly.  I've read some horror stories from people losing data, etc.  I'm ok with it as long as it's not a problem.  It just looks off, and understanding what High-Level is supposed to do, then seeing what it actually does, is really confusing.

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4 hours ago, Idolwild said:

I built mine after seeing hansolo77's initial posts and built it toward the tail-end of him finishing his. It's been rock-solid and more than handles my needs, I never seem to really stress it. It runs all the usual stuff for a media fetcher/server, some other container apps, and a single Windows domain controller. I've been very happy with it.

 

Full build here:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/comments/jjgfz3/unraid_ryzen_build_custom_network_cabinet_unifi/

 

Nice build!  Looks a lot like mine does (without the fancy LEDs ^_^).  I'm not sure what all that other stuff is, or if I need it.  I'm guessing a lot of it is home automation/security camera type stuff.  I don't have a house, but I'll be looking to add that to my setup if/when.  Kinda sucks you went with the 2x10tb drives for Parity, same as me with 12's.  The 18's are coming down in price now lol!  Ya know.. stimulus just came out.. ;)  I'm actually spending mine of putting a dent in my car payment.. only about $4k left.  Check this site out, if you like shucking (I sure do now that I know about it lol)
https://shucks.top/

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  • 2 months later...

Just updating.  I did have a bit of a nuclear meltdown with my server.  Read all about it here:

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/107529-recent-troubles-shutting-downrebooting/

 

Turns out that 100% drive usage I reported a few posts ago was evil.  I had my split-level set wrong for one of my shares.  Unraid was stuck and being forced to write new files to that drive when it couldn't.  Once I figured it out, I tried using Unbalance to move data off the drive and onto others.  I thought I understood what was going on but it really started to screw up my Parity.  I FIXED the split level WHILE Unbalance was running it's Scatter, so that caused some problems.  I was also, at the same time, trying to combine multiple rar files for a tv show episode that was very large, and it was doing so on my Cache drive, WHILE the mover was running.  At least I think that's what it was doing; Unbalance might have disabled the mover.  In any case, I had a lot of things happening at once and Unraid choked.  When I was done moving data around, and the drive was no longer full, I ran a Parity check and discovered a LOT of errors.  Being computer smart, I thought I'd reboot and tried again.  Turns out that was a bad thing to do too, as it causes Unraid to lose all of it's logs, and identifying problem Parity areas became a much longer and harder chore, not to mention the delay in the shutdown caused me to actually FORCE a power off because Unraid was frozen.  Through the help of a few more knowledgeable users here, we did everything from changing the RAM speeds, to removing my 10G NIC, to doing multiple MEMTEST's in an effort to find out what happened.  At the end of it all, I don't believe I've lost any data, but I certainly learned a lot more about how Unraid works.

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  • 1 year later...

Old thread, still a good build though.  Thought I'd post an update, now that 20tb drives are available.  I'm actually having some difficulty now with my 2nd parity drive frequently having to hard or soft reset.  When I upgraded it, I actually ran into a problem where Parity 1 became disabled.  After I re-enabled it and pre-cleared Parity 2 again and tried to rebuilt it, I was able to get it finished.  Then when I upgraded my Disk 1 to 20tb (now with parity 1 and 2 being 20tb) abou 1/3 of the way through rebuilding, Parity 2 became disabled.  I stopped rebuilding Disk 1 so I could focus on re-enabling Parity 2 and fixing it's problem.  Well, that, in turn, caused Parity 1 to get disabled again.  Once I got both parity drives up and running and stable for a week, I started rebuilding Disk 1 again.  However, once it completed, Unraid said it was unable to mount the drive because of an invalid file system.  I took the drive out, put it in another computer, and repartitioned it.  I then put it back into Unraid, ran a sucessful preclear, then started rebuilding it again.  But, it was still reporting the file system was invalid.  After a long week of troubleshooting, I finally learned with the help of a user on Discord that my Parity had become corrupted.  Probably due to each drive becoming disabled in turn.  So as I am now, I had to build a new configuration without Parity, restored all the data that was on my old Disk 1 prior to upgrade, and I'm now rebuilding the Parity.  Everything has been going good "so far".  Then I decided to check my system logs to see if the Parity drives are acting like they should.  And so, of course, Parity 2 is showing signs in the logs that it is once again getting hard and soft resets.  

 

I think there are 4 factors at play here that I'm coping with:

  1. The Parity 2 drive could just be physically bad.  The SMART data is not indicating any failures, like unwritable sectors or reallocations, etc.  The drive as had a perfect preclear.  So I don't really think this is the problem.
  2. The drivers on the motherboard and/or version of the software on the Parity 2 drive may need updating.  There could be some underlying issue with the communication, etc.  I wouldn't consider this a possibility were it not for the fact that this very problem is why I replaced my Parity drives that were originally Seagate NAS drives with Western Digital Red drives.  Apparently the Seagates were having issues with my motherboard/cpu/whatever.  Every time I would run the monthly parity check, it would come up with errors, even though the data on my array was fine, the parity would always find errors.  Swapped to WD, and hadn't had an issue since.  So it makes me wonder, even though these new drives are WD too, maybe the software/hardware isn't compatible?
  3. Replacing the drives with newer ones maybe be causing extra wear on my SATA connectors.  For the longest time, using the Seagate drives, I had no problems until I started running the full case with 24 drives.  Once I started having parity errors, I swapped them to WD drives (see #2).  I was lucky, in that the physical connectors were good with the swap.  But, the way these drives are mounted in the case (vertically against the power supply (see pictures above)) the plugs don't sit exactly straight.  They're kinda angled like 20-degrees or so because there isn't enough clearance with the power supply.  So I think the frequent pulling and plugging of the cables may have damaged the plugs slightly, at least with Parity 2, in that it doesn't provide a good connection anymore.  So, I purchased some new cables.
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KTLGDZG?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
    At first, I thought this would solve all my problems.  They give me all the clearance I need.  But, as I mentioned earlier, I'm still having issues with the drives getting disabled and/or hard/soft resetting.
  4. I recently replaced the fans in my custom fanwall.  Originally, my design was to help with the noise factor.  The original fans that came with the case were extremely loud.  Not ideal for having in your closet in your bedroom.  So I was using some 120mm Noctua fans.  It was great, the noise wasn't nearly as bad anymore.  I've decided it's time to move out on my own, after 43 years (I know, I have mental issues and a fear of breaking from routine).  A lot of it came from my Dad's increasing memory loss, and my inability to hold a conversation with him longer than 30 seconds without him forgetting what I just said.  I can't take it anymore, so I'm moving out.  I found an apartment, waiting for the keys.  I decided I could upgrade my fans in the server since I'll have the server in a bedroom on it's own and noise won't be a factor.  The new fans I got are still Noctua's, but they're industrial.  They're designed to run faster, and work harder when air flow is hard (like sitting behind a wall of hard drives).  I don't really know much about it, but I assumed since they're still regular fan connectors, they wouldn't be any different "powerwise".  But now that I've replaced them, I've been having these drive problems.  So maybe they are drawing more power?  I don't even know if that's possible, but that's another theory.  These are the new fans:
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KFCRATC?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

I really think the problem is with the connectors, and MAYBE the fans.  With the help of the Discord friend, I've got my data on the array sitting ok, no losses.  I'm trying to rebuilt a new parity.  I'm getting errors on Parity 2 (hard/soft resets, not ERRORS like bad sectors, etc).  My goal is to wait it out and hope I get a good parity built.  Once that's done, I'm going to try a new set of connectors for my parity drives.  I just bought 2 of these, with the hopes that they'll provide a solid connector with enough clearance for me to close the lid, and I won't have any more connectors sitting on harsh angles.  

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JPZMQCL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They won't arrive for 3-4 days, so hopefully I can get the parity built by then.  At that time, I will use these new connectors and run a parity check to see if the results come back ok, and watch the log to see if I get any more reset errors.  IF I DO, my next plan is to replace the fan wall with the old one and re-run the parity check again.  If I still get reset errors (especially if it continues to be Parity 2) I'll see about returning the drive.  Hopefully that will solve the problem.

 

Any take aways or feedback?  I'd really like some help if anybody has any to give.  I appreciate you all and look forward to keeping everybody updated.

 

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