[avus m3]

From my little knowledge of MDADM it's just a software raid like Intel uses for it's motherboard right? Intel's is very easy to use and can be used on any board with the same or higher chipset. What are the benefits to MDADM? I'm asking because I don't have experience with it.

Is it only implemented through a CLI? If so, I can see that killing adoption to a lot of users. I really like some of the super cool (and advanced) features of ZFS but don't see a lot of people using it due to it's non-graphical interface (and Oracle's grip on it).

[Kirky99]

Just a question:

How come there is very little mention in these XBMC forums of plain, old-school mdadm as a raid solution?

Any reason besides personal preference of course!

mdadm is open-source, completely hardware independent, good raid5 performance, widely supported in Linux and tons of documentation for it.

Said system - i3-540, 4GB DDR3, 6 x 1.5 TB drives - only uses 110 watts idle with approx 38 C system temp and with proper monitoring you can handle any drive failures before losing data.

HW cards seem expensive and dangerous unless you have spares...unRAID seems to close to proprietary for my liking...not looking for a flame-bait just curious why I see so little mention of mdadm as a valid solution on these forums?

That actually is what I'm using, I mention RAID5 as that's how I have mdadm configured. I'm 100% happy with it so far, my network is the bottleneck on my end, not the software raid.

I do like the idea of not being tied to hardware...

[thethirdnut]

RE: avus m3

Is it only implemented through a CLI? If so, I can see that killing adoption to a lot of users. I really like some of the super cool (and advanced) features of ZFS but don't see a lot of people using it due to it's non-graphical interface (and Oracle's grip on it).

mdadm is supported right through the linux kernel module so its not tied to the mobo or any other hardware unlike the Intel software which is married to its chipset. You don't need a mobo with a raid controller to use mdadm for instance.

If you had a smallish HDD with an OS on it such as Ubuntu you can use other HDD's dedicated to the raid array connected via the motherboard SATA ports or even PCIe add-on cards, etc. Drives just need to present in the system and no other special hardware is needed.

You need to have some Linux familiarity to use it. It is relatively easy to configure once the drives are partitioned...here's a good example guide:

http://www.jamierf.co.uk/2009/11/04/soft...untu-9-10/

[cg5150]

One thing I like about FlexRaid is the fact that it uses the drives as is. I can pull a drive (if I wanted) and connect to another PC and the files are accessible. The parity is just built off of the collection of drives as seen (in my case) under Windows.

The other thing I like is using FlexRaid against drives fully encrypted by TrueCrypt. All my computers sync their "My Documents" folders here and I have all my financial data on these same volumes. So everything I have is encrypted at rest. When the server is running the shares appear and function as normal folders and files to the other PCs.

I have no problems running 3 separate XBMC HDPC's simultaneously watching 1080p movies across my network to this system.

[poofyhairguy]

Does your media collection really change that much?

Daily as sickbeard acquires stuff. I average over a TB a month.

Have it snapshot every night at midnight or something. This way, you would only lose the movies/shows/data you added on the drive that failed that same day. Otherwise, it would be protected.

Personally that isn't good enough for me, but I understand that it is for some people. Last thing I want to think about is "are my files protected?" The same thing turns me off to WHS.

To each their own but UnRaid is too constrictive to me. On my server I have: Flexraid running, uTorrent running with its web gui, MySQL DB for the XBMC clients, TV recording, Ember MM scraping data, my WII Iso manager for managing backup Wii games, a Virtual Machine manager, Media Monkey to maintain a clean music collection for XBMC, etc.

I agree with that. But personally I have a beefed up quad core bedroom HTPC that is always on to do all that stuff for me so my Unraid box can remain as a dumb NAS. I prefer it that way so I don't "tinker" with my server constantly and break it.

Another benefit is FlexRaid is free while UnRaid charges $70 for Plus (6 drives) and $120 for Pro (20 drives). The basic version of UnRaid is free but only for 3 drives and does not support user level access.

That is a big benefit, and is why Flexraid is pretty cool. Maybe after the developer gets live parity worked out (and someone else runs it for at least one year with no data loss) I will switch over...

[poofyhairguy]

Just a question:

How come there is very little mention in these XBMC forums of plain, old-school mdadm as a raid solution?

That is what I used prior to Unraid. What turned me away was:

-Running 16 drives in a single RAID 5 with one parity drive is nuts

BUT

- I didn't want to waste more than one bay in my 16 drive server to parity

PLUS

- It is VERY nice knowing that no matter what happens I can always pull out an Unraid drive and read it on my Linux box. On my RAID 5 Ubuntu server I had my array go bad and I lost a good chunk of my data. I am a big believer that home users don't need any of the benefits that striped RAID arrays provide, and Unraid is pretty much the only decent non-striped RAID like software.

[avus m3]

Essentially we agree on the same things just different means to get there. I wanted to eliminate multiple machines on all the time. I had an array go down once (long time ago) and lost a bunch of photos. Never again will I run a striped setup. It is useless for consumers IMHO. Most raid features I think are useless for consumers. They mostly just provide for up-time which is not critical in a home setting.

Big cheap sata drives with a decent plan and parity protection is where its at for me. If a drive or two go down not a big deal. Replace (hopefully under warranty) and rebuild and off you go with no lost data.

My two cents

[TugboatBill]

Another benefit is FlexRaid is free while UnRaid charges $70 for Plus (6 drives) and $120 for Pro (20 drives). The basic version of UnRaid is free but only for 3 drives and does not support user level access.

If you're buying BR disks then $120 is of nearly no importance. You'll spend a few hundred on the chassis, motherboard, CPU, memory, PSU etc. Hard drives are $100 each (2TB). Each drive will hold 65+ BRs of data. At $10 per (good luck buying all your BRs that cheap) that's a couple grand before you exceed the free version. By the time you hit a need for the $120 version of unraid you'll be well over $4K.

We all want to get the most for our money, but when shopping for a NAS or a server, $120 isn't and shouldn't be a significant part of your decision.

[cg5150]

We all want to get the most for our money, but when shopping for a NAS or a server, $120 isn't and shouldn't be a significant part of your decision.

If you're building from the ground up I'd agree. But in my case I didn't have money to throw at this so my 'server' was cobbled together from old PC parts and spare drives of varying sizes I wasn't using anymore. The setup cost me $0 out of pocket to start up.

I now just add drives whenever my free space starts getting low. I buy new drives when it's time to add space, but I'm spreading the cost over time.

Eventually I may build something from the ground up, but this has proven to work really well and I don't have to explain huge $$$ to the wife

[Lime]

As much as I would like to run ZFS, after looking into FlexRAID I think it might the right choice.

My main concern with a conventional RAID is the thought of losing all the data due to a bad drive or two. Without having a proper backup solution, at least with unRAID/FlexRAID if that situation did arise I could at least salvage something. Since FlexRAID runs on top of a Windows or Ubuntu OS I would assume the hardware compatibility is really good.

Has anyone here been running FlexRAID for a considerable time yet? The 'official' forums on the FlexRAID site seem reasonable quiet, so not sure if that's a good or bad sign (ie. little support/very few issues/small user base)

[cg5150]

My main concern with a conventional RAID is the thought of losing all the data due to a bad drive or two.

I'm with you there. RAID is great for a lot of reasons - until you lose more drives than your parity covers. Businesses run regular backups, so they can recover from disastrous drive losses, but for us home users the risk is higher unless you do spend the money for proper backups. One thing I'm excited about is FlexRaid's new Tx RAID engine. It supports any number of parity drives (and data drives) - so if you're like me and paranoid about losing data, you could have 4 parity drives. For the extreme paranoid out there, make more parity drives - how ever many you want I'm going to play with it and then convert my existing setup over. Here's a nice post describing the different RAID flavors FlexRAID supports: Understanding FlexRAID Engines

Since FlexRAID runs on top of a Windows or Ubuntu OS I would assume the hardware compatibility is really good.

As far as Windows - if the OS can see the drive, so can FlexRAID. It's not hardware specific. And I do again like that all drives work just as normal Windows drives - so they're readable on any Windows machine as is. For example there was one time I pulled a drive from the server and brought it to my parents house so I could access my backup software tools to rebuild one of their machines. When I was done and went home, I just dropped it back in.

Has anyone here been running FlexRAID for a considerable time yet?

I've been using my setup for probably close to a year. In that time I had one drive officially fail and another that my SMART monitoring said was going to fail (it soon after did). Both times no problems swapping out and rebuilding from the parity. One thing that's nice for small testing is you can create DRUs (data units) from folders as well as full drives. So for your own initial testing, you could create a very small set of folders representing drives on your day to day computer. Set up FlexRaid and generate parity, then delete one of the folders. Then have it restore it. Once you feel confident there, then move to full drives.

What's cool is because you can use this with existing drives, you can literally run FlexRAID over whatever you have today on Windows. In my case I just installed FlexRAID on my computer and started playing with it. Was pretty painless once I figured out how to use the software.

[Bobb25]

I agree with that. But personally I have a beefed up quad core bedroom HTPC that is always on to do all that stuff for me so my Unraid box can remain as a dumb NAS. I prefer it that way so I don't "tinker" with my server constantly and break it.

That is exactly the setup I am thinking about putting together. My only concern is does Sickbeard/CouchPotato/SABNZBD put any visible strain on your HTPC whilst playing 1080p mkv files? I am thinking about the Dell Zino HD 410 with the AMD Phenom™ II X4 P940 quad core cpu, a SSD and the ATI HD5450 Mobility Radeon graphics card. Would this handle the download chores without affecting a skin like Aeon or a 1080p mkv file?

[ProphetVX]

That is exactly the setup I am thinking about putting together. My only concern is does Sickbeard/CouchPotato/SABNZBD put any visible strain on your HTPC whilst playing 1080p mkv files? I am thinking about the Dell Zino HD 410 with the AMD Phenom™ II X4 P940 quad core cpu, a SSD and the ATI HD5450 Mobility Radeon graphics card. Would this handle the download chores without affecting a skin like Aeon or a 1080p mkv file?

I run a ZOTAC IONITX-F-E Motherboard which has an intel atom 330 and GeForce 9400 video card, with 4gb of RAM.

I run a glassfish server, svn server, couchpotato, sickbeard, sabnzbd (almost always maxed out), deluge bittorrent... It doesn't miss a beat while playing full 1080p, even when doing unrar and par checks from sabnzbd. I have however modified the start scripts for sabnzbd and deluged to use nice and ionice to lower cpu and io usage, which hasn't affected performance of the apps. I also have a SATA expansion card and potentially 6 hard drives being written to concurrently.

So with your setup, you shouldn't have any problems, it has significantly more grunt.

[avus m3]

As much as I would like to run ZFS, after looking into FlexRAID I think it might the right choice.

Since FlexRAID runs on top of a Windows or Ubuntu OS I would assume the hardware compatibility is really good.

Has anyone here been running FlexRAID for a considerable time yet? The 'official' forums on the FlexRAID site seem reasonable quiet, so not sure if that's a good or bad sign (ie. little support/very few issues/small user base)

There is no hardware compatibility. The OS does all the controlling or reading and writing to the disk. Flexraid just rides on top as a management position in a sense. The forums are quiet because it's not well known. The developer is very accessible through the site. Basically, he developed it for himself to meet his own needs. It just happens to be outstanding for all of us as well.

Again, to each their own but this product in both current form and upcoming features I feel is *THE* best way to protect our media collections.

[poofyhairguy]

Would this handle the download chores without affecting a skin like Aeon or a 1080p mkv file?

In Windows 7 that system can do pretty much everything all at once.