My Storage Solution (1 Viewer)

[slimmj0k3r]

Thanks for your help. I've been enjoying my new setup. Hopefully when i move into my new place i can expirement with an actual server and client setup but for now this will suffice

 

[loadme]

Thank you for sharing so many informations regarding unRaid.

There are many pros and only so few cons for unRaid. I'm really suprised.


now this Topic is 6 month old and while I wanted to ask you folks, (1) if there are even better solutions for media storage servers out right now, I wanted to ask you some questions regarding unRAID, too.
I already read many informations on the unRaid website, as well as on blog entries etc.

(2) could you extend unRAID by plugging in a drive, that already contains media content? Would it be erased before the intial use? (Asking this, because i have a very full 2TB drive and no real clue how to get this drive in the future server, without outsource all this data over 2-3 other compters)

(3) I have to use the largest drive as parity drive. Can i switch the parity role to another drive later? Let's say there are good and cheap 3TB or 4TB drives out there in 1-2 years?

(4) What about switching all the hdds to another system? Let's say i found a bottle-neck after a few month and its the motherboard. Could i build up a new server and just plug in the USB stick with unRaid as well as the used hdds from the old installation?

(5) Anyone ever updated unRaid? Is this always compatible to your current build or do you have to reset your "array" at any point?

(6) Would there be any major improvements, if I chose to use a USB 3.0 stick on a much newer and probably more expensive board? Does the size of the stick matters? The install files are about 50-60 mb, but they ship you 2GB sticks, if you buy it on sticks.

(7) How important is the use of a raid controler card on PCIe. I read at the unRAID page, that it should be much more efficient to plug all hdds in a controler on PCI (or even PCI E), because the BUS is much faster and the overall bandwith will increase. But i really would go for a cheaper system and just plug in the sata discs into the motherboard.

----

(8) Can anyone recommend a solid cheap and "size-efficient" case? Something like 3x 5.25" slots used for a 5in3 drive cage? Maybe even no space for an internal DVD drive. I looked up at idealo on so many cases right now, i can't really figure out, what would fit best.
It should use or have room for bigger fans, so its going to be more quite.

(9) does the form factor or the MB somehow is important regarding the energy costs over the next years?


Some of those questions may sound silly, but I really want to make sure, it's a closer solution for eternity, than others

Thanks in advance and greets,
loadme

 

[slimmj0k3r]

Thank you for sharing so many informations regarding unRaid.

There are many pros and only so few cons for unRaid. I'm really suprised.


now this Topic is 6 month old and while I wanted to ask you folks, (1) if there are even better solutions for media storage servers out right now, I wanted to ask you some questions regarding unRAID, too.
I already read many informations on the unRaid website, as well as on blog entries etc.

(2) could you extend unRAID by plugging in a drive, that already contains media content? Would it be erased before the intial use? (Asking this, because i have a very full 2TB drive and no real clue how to get this drive in the future server, without outsource all this data over 2-3 other compters)

(3) I have to use the largest drive as parity drive. Can i switch the parity role to another drive later? Let's say there are good and cheap 3TB or 4TB drives out there in 1-2 years?

(4) What about switching all the hdds to another system? Let's say i found a bottle-neck after a few month and its the motherboard. Could i build up a new server and just plug in the USB stick with unRaid as well as the used hdds from the old installation?

(5) Anyone ever updated unRaid? Is this always compatible to your current build or do you have to reset your "array" at any point?

(6) Would there be any major improvements, if I chose to use a USB 3.0 stick on a much newer and probably more expensive board? Does the size of the stick matters? The install files are about 50-60 mb, but they ship you 2GB sticks, if you buy it on sticks.

(7) How important is the use of a raid controler card on PCIe. I read at the unRAID page, that it should be much more efficient to plug all hdds in a controler on PCI (or even PCI E), because the BUS is much faster and the overall bandwith will increase. But i really would go for a cheaper system and just plug in the sata discs into the motherboard.

----

(8) Can anyone recommend a solid cheap and "size-efficient" case? Something like 3x 5.25" slots used for a 5in3 drive cage? Maybe even no space for an internal DVD drive. I looked up at idealo on so many cases right now, i can't really figure out, what would fit best.
It should use or have room for bigger fans, so its going to be more quite.

(9) does the form factor or the MB somehow is important regarding the energy costs over the next years?


Some of those questions may sound silly, but I really want to make sure, it's a closer solution for eternity, than others

Thanks in advance and greets,
loadme

Don't know the answer to all your questions but the ones i do know/have an idea i did answer

2- I do believe the drive has to be wiped clean, what i did was move everything on a happy medium and setup my unraid then transfer everything back over.

3- in unraid i know it has options for you to select what drive does what, however i am not sure of this offhand. I'm sticking with 2TB drives all the way through

4- i do believe you can switch to another system. all your info is on the thumb drive which is your config info, ect, ect. I'm planning on doing this myself once i decide to get a new case.

5- never update, don't know.

6- not sure of this either, i believe i have a 2gb stick that literally stays plugged in all the time...out of sight, out of mind. Keep yourself a backup though

7- I'm using raid controllers simply because my mobo doesn't have any Sata ports.

8- anything that is capable of holding at least 5-6 HDDs should do just fine. I'm using an OLD PC case from like 2002 and i currently have 3 HDDs setup (2TBx3) with about 100 movie backups right now using about 1.5TBs....most are mkv containers and some are iso's that i tried out for a while but need to be stripped down. Eventually when i need the space i'm gonna get another 2-3 HDDs before i switch cases

9- No idea about this. I haven't seen any dramatic increase in energy bills since i've had my unraid server running, i've been meaning to check out energy consumption but never got around to doing so.

 

[loadme]

Thank you for answering some of my questions!

While talking about the stick and its data, i was thinking: can USB 2.0 really be fast enough to work with an OS instead of a common hdd?
the data transfer rates to usb 2.0 should be really really low?

 

[loadme]

Well.

After reading many stuff, i'll finally give it a try.

unRAID still sounds promising, but there are many aspects, i'm not sure (like those questions above)

until i tested this for myself, i'll use a low cost, low performance server with old hardware.


teststation should go live in 2-3 days.
- amd athlon 2,1Ghz
- 1GB RAM
- 2+2 TB hdds

after setting up this "old granny", i will transfer my 2TB stuff from my 2TB hdd and finally merge this 2TB hdd with the others

really hope unRAID supports arrays with only 2 hdds.
cant register to their forums. activation mails are not sent..

 

[u095538]

Awesome! Make a video! I'd love to see your Norco in action. I've made one for my RPC-4220 (20 SATA drives) file server. Vid is here:

20TB Fileserver (YouTube)