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2013-08-29, 15:59
(This post was last modified: 2013-08-29, 16:23 by CronosTitan.)
Ok I read a lot lately. Im gonna get my HW tomorrow. But still I am still not sure about the RAID, well SW-RAID. OR if I need one just for drive pooling. I dont go to much for redundancy. Read and Write speed should be no prob with a Gigabit-LAN which my router can do also have a switch. What I dont understand is the question how I want to get out of my HDD. I have 12 TB = 6 x 2TB. 4 are full, 1 is for new stuff, the last one would be parity. And I still 1 more that i didn't mention before. So Flexraid seems to be the better option to me, cos unraid can't handle filled drives. I didnt read about FreeNAS yet.But I think I just want to have a storage server to outsource data from my desktop where me and my family are doing all the work and surfing. The Server goes downstairs.
Did I forget something?
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2013-08-29, 18:11
(This post was last modified: 2013-08-29, 18:16 by CronosTitan.)
Yeah, looks like. I forgot to say that I wont run the server 24/7. Id prefer WOL. I thought about installing dual OS for testing purposes. Which one would be the first to install WHS or Debian?
What concerns me is that SnapRAID works with commandline. That doesn't come in very handy. I'm not very familiar with that. Like the mouse better. But it's free, so....
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With unraid If you have 2 free drives you can make one of them parity and the other one data disk.after that move your disk contents one by one
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Just picked up this thread - if you want some more random opinions, here are mine, based on building a 6-disc server earlier this year.
1. I went for Xubuntu as the host OS. Why? Because the 'buntu distributions give you pretty much the broadest pre-built software library if you want to do things like Handbrake, DNLA serving, TV tuner support, and so on. No, it's not exclusively a 'buntu thing, other distros are available - but it's the safe option. Why Xubuntu? Because it's safe to have a GUI if you're not 100% diehard CLI (I've only been using *ix for 25 years, I still have some to learn :-) ) and Xubuntu is lighter than Gnome, KDE or similar.
2. I went for ZFS as the filesystem. I'm already forgetting precisely why, but there was a lot of concern about how RAID works and the potential for it to have a very resilient copy of damaged data. ZFS is technically still pre-release for 'buntu, but so's much of the rest of the FOSS world, plus it's been around long enough on Solaris for most things to have been ironed out. I use offsite backup, though, so it's purely for single-drive loss. Remember that more drives means more risk of failure, and 6 drives is on the limit of one parity drive - arguably, you're into double-parity territory.
3. I researched mobo power consumption as well as PSU efficiency. There's limited point in having an 80+ Gold PSU if your motherboard is sucking 40W 24x7 just to be alive. That said, most modern PSUs never get to their efficient range unless you're thrashing the system - an i3 or similar idles at diddly-squat, and your motherboard drain is nowhere near enough to get to the efficient operating range of a 300W PSU. Even if you add a few USB tuners at full CPU draw... well, you get the picture. I wondered if a pico PSU would work, but that's a job for another day...
4. Power consumption meant I even went for single-stick RAM. I'm mean like that. Similarly, I went Intel Core i5 as the best balance of grunt when needed (e.g. transcoding), heat output and power consumption.
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And also I think(not sure) it is possible to start without parity disk.so one empty disk is enough. You can set the parity disk at the end.this is not suggested because your array will not be under protection until you are done.you can find info about this both on unraid forum and wiki
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Well, i found it (amahi) a bit troublish when it comes to the addons/plugins. Almost always not uptodate and there you go: you have to go to cli for installing the rest.
And if you want to click why don't you install webmin or ajenti as frontend? Works great!
I have to agree though on the part about sticking at an *ubuntu platform and if you have the license for a windows platform, go ahead. But if you don't then there a plenty of possibilities.
I do think that going to unraid is a long journey in your case. And you still end up paying...
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2013-08-30, 11:21
(This post was last modified: 2013-08-30, 11:31 by CronosTitan.)
Lots of opinions and own wishes. I haven't had a server before. And I just need it as a storage device nothing else. It won't run 24/7. Just turn it on when i need it, like put new stuff on it or copy back files on to my desktop. Is a RAID really the right thing? Now that I get a better picture I have the feeling this is a lot of work and i have family that i prefer to spent time with. Anyway having a server is a lot of work, isn't it?
As i said drivepooling would be nice to get a better overview and better use of HDD memory. Also any O/S is fine Linux or windows. But I want to spent the less time possible once everything is setup.
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Oh boy how could i forget....Openmediavault is a good one for you (reading the above). Pros: free, you can common filesystems (reiserFS which Unraid uses is not something that Windows reads when it comes to a crash or you want to switch to something else), easy setup and configure...a good contender in all this.
just my 2cents..
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2013-08-30, 13:13
(This post was last modified: 2013-08-30, 13:14 by CronosTitan.)
Thanks. But I already mentioned that in post 14. Can it handle filled disks? When I looked for Snapraid I found good overview about what Snapraid,UnRaid, Flex etc can do or not(Post 31). But is just 6 distros. Is there bigger table about pros ond cons of S/W RAIDs?
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I started with a desktop that doubled as my htpc in the living room because it had all my media on it. It so happens that it also had 6 drives which were mostly full and I ran into the same questions you are asking now plus other questions I think you may not have thought about.
1) Will my media grow as time goes on?
2) When I am away from the server will I still be able to access my media?
3) How much money am I willing to spend now?
4) Where will be the best place to house the server once it is complete?
5) What is my finally goal for a server?
6) What am I willing to gamble on my media if I lose some drives?
Since I had been in your situation and I wanted to keep all my media on my drives but yet I wanted to have a hassle free way to access them without turning on my hugh monster everytime I wanted to watch a show or movie, I turned to Unraid. At the time I had roughly 6.5 TB worth of media in drives ranging in size from 320 gig to 2TB. I knew my media would be expanding over time and proceeded accordingly. I built a small, cheap 6 drive server for Unraid with all new hard drives (2TB). I used 1 drive as a parity and I used the 320 gig drive as a cache drive, leaving me with 8TB worth of storage. Once I had the server up and running I created folder shares on the server for pictures, movies, TV shows, etc.. and started to transfer the files from my HUGH monster over to my new sleek little server through the network. This does take some time but it was well worth it. When that was complete I now could take the drives out of my monster and use a quiet HTPC to access my media in the living room. The server is hardwired in another room out of everyone's way. Everyone is happy but I was not done yet. I disassembled my hugh monster for the case. I used that case to build an even larger Unraid box, which is in my sig. NOW I am happy. Granted all of this did not happen over night and I spent roughly 1.5 years total on it all waiting for drive prices to fall and hardware to go on sale but once I had a plan it was worth the time to wait. I now am thinking of upgrading the little server to all 4TB drives and selling it.
My whole post is about getting a plan, looking to the future and following through with it. Good luck with whichever way you choose to go. I just though t I would add my pennies worth in here for you.
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I see no value of true H/W or S/W RAID solution to you over flexraid/snapraid/disparity. True RAID's benefit is 24/7 availability, even with a drive failure. You do not seem to need this sort of access to data, as your server isn't eve on 24/7.
Flexraid/snapraid/disparity all work with whatever file system you want, filled drives, and only require the "loss" of one drive to parity to prevent data loss to single drive failure.
