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Sliphorn · (This post was last modified: 2012-07-08, 20:50 by Sliphorn.)

Hello,

I'm considering building a new media server from the ground up. It'll likely have around 10TB or so of storage using 2TB WD Greens. I could use Linux or Windows. I have noticed in general that unRAID seems to curry a lot of favor on this forum...what about Flexraid? And of course I'm probably forgetting other options, or just don't know them.

I have an older RAID card capable or dealing with 12 SATA connections and setting up RAID6 and others. I could go hardware, since it's lying around collecting dust. However, software seems like the future. Thoughts? What are you using and why?

I don't want this to be a war, just some opinions from people with real-world experience with these options. Thanks for your input!

assassin · (This post was last modified: 2012-07-08, 21:08 by assassin.)

FlexRaid has significant benefits over unRaid for HTPC use. I went over these recently in a thread on here. Both are very good options though.

Edit: here are my recent posts on this subject...

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1141651
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1141397

bulletjie · 2012-07-08, 22:02

I've gone with windows home server 2012 and flexraid because I wanted to stay with the windows environment. WHS can be had for a fraction of the cost of say Windows 7.

What sold it for me was that with Flexraid you can add a drive that already contains data, which is ideal for me because I had a mix of new and existing harddrives.

feerlessleadr · 2012-07-08, 23:37

i'm using a program called snapraid in conjunction with elucidate (GUI)

Not realtime raid, but I set it to run a snapshot sync every other day or so and it is really light on resources. I'm running it on a spare win 7 machine. Plus, I can access the data on my drives anyway I want.

I'm not that familiar with flexraid or unraid, but that is my preference.

jangjong · (This post was last modified: 2012-07-09, 20:15 by jangjong.)

I went with unraid because it boots from a usb stick so one more sata port for your data drive, and cheaper than flexraid...

however...now, flexraid is on sale for like $60 and WHS 2011 seems to go on sale for $30 pretty often.. so for $90, flexraid is not a bad option compare to free (3 drives) / $70 (6 drives) / $150 (21 drives) for unRAID.

now, what i'm wondering is if there is any performance difference in between unraid and flexraid? and i'm also wondering what unraid offers that flexraid doesnt?

I tried to research this before i went ahead with unraid but couldn't really find any comparison..

**lrusak** · 2012-07-09, 20:19

FreeNAS. ZFS, snapshots, FREE.

RAND0M1ZER · 2012-07-09, 21:31

(2012-07-09, 20:19)lrusak Wrote: FreeNAS. ZFS, snapshots, FREE.

Can you explain more? I was looking into that but it seems to add storage to the pool it is kinda like adding to an existing RAID 5 array or creating a new array with new drives and then pooling the space.

assassin · 2012-07-09, 21:34

There is free and then there is paid.

Usually you are getting something extra with paid. Like an all in one piece of software that's easy to use and supported well by its developer who has a vested interest in its success. For me that's worth a very small one time fee. For others it may not be.

jmarshall · 2012-07-10, 00:01

It's amusing you'd say that on an XBMC forum.

teaguecl · 2012-07-10, 00:28

(2012-07-09, 21:34)assassin Wrote: There is free and then there is paid.

Usually you are getting something extra with paid. Like an all in one piece of software that's easy to use and supported well by its developer who has a vested interest in its success. For me that's worth a very small one time fee. For others it may not be.

(2012-07-10, 00:01)jmarshall Wrote: It's amusing you'd say that on an XBMC forum.

+1 jmarshall
In most instances the "something extra" you get with paid software is the "opportunity" to upgrade for a price or else face obsolescence. The developer only has a vested interest in the product as long as it's profitable - the timeline for which isn't always convenient for customers. I write software for a living. Developers deserve to be paid, and can price their products any way they like. However, make sure what you pay for is worth the price - with software it's not always a matter of "you get what you pay for".
Note that neither Flexraid nor UnRaid are open source, nor are they freely available. UnRaid is about as non-proprietary as paid software gets, which is why I chose it.

assassin · 2012-07-10, 01:55

(2012-07-10, 00:01)jmarshall Wrote: It's amusing you'd say that on an XBMC forum.

That's because I will gladly pay a little extra for a piece of software that is a one stop solution, easy to use and less stressful to operate. That's just me as my time is valuable.

Sliphorn · 2012-07-10, 02:29

The two main contenders seem to be FlexRAID and unRAID. Assassin, you mentioned significant benefits for an HTPC using FlexRAID. Care to elaborate? Or perhaps link to the discussion you had earlier detailing these differences would be good.

What would be ideal is a chart detailing the similarities and differences side by side. I'm equally interested in knowing the disadvantages in each software.

assassin · 2012-07-10, 03:32

I have elaborated already on the benefits in multiple threads in the last few days.

Sliphorn · 2012-07-10, 05:27

(2012-07-10, 03:32)assassin Wrote: I have elaborated already on the benefits in multiple threads in the last few days.

Okay, I just now saw the links you added in post #2. The first I read before and was what interested me in FlexRAID. The second post I Hadn't seen. Nice info in there. So, I get that they're both excellent, but why is it that it seems like unRAID has a larger fan base here on the forums, and also on avsforums? I don't understand why FlexRAID seems to have a dubious reputation among some of the forum folks. Perhaps someone could clarify for me?

**lrusak** · 2012-07-10, 08:47

(2012-07-09, 21:31)RAND0M1ZER Wrote:
(2012-07-09, 20:19)lrusak Wrote: FreeNAS. ZFS, snapshots, FREE.

Can you explain more? I was looking into that but it seems to add storage to the pool it is kinda like adding to an existing RAID 5 array or creating a new array with new drives and then pooling the space.

You can't exactly add more space by adding drives an having the file system expand. You can however add more disks as a second vdev then combine this with the pool and it will be larger. It wont however be one raid volume, it will be two raid volumes that act as one.

Expansion is in the talks, but this must be done by oracle and there was a paper written about it a little while ago.

The benefits of ZFS far out weigh the cons (of which their aren't any) other then maybe it takes a little more time to setup and it requires a little bit more robust hardware (mostly ram).