Limetech un-Raid Media Storage Server support thread [Text View] - Page 3

limetech

10-30-05, 12:55 AM

Hi, Madpoet!

Thank you! I should have mentioned that "RE2" stands for RAID Edition 2. These drives are specifically designed for RAID-like applications, so don't run out and buy one for a desktop. Among the optimizations they've made are some tweaks to the motor or head control algorithms for vibration control in tightly-packed drive configurations, and they've also limited the amount of time that the drive will crank away trying over and over again to recover from a hard error (this prevents repeated controller errors from interfering with the RAID/Unraid data recovery process).

Since these drives also support Native Command Queueing (the SCSI-like ability to automatically reorder commands for optimal performance as the heads sweep back and forth across the disks when multiple applications are addressing the drive simultaneously), I wonder if the Unraid software will also support NCQ? It'll be fun to experiment with this and see!

Have Fun!
MarkF

We purchased a bunch of Seagate SATA drives which support NCQ to check for performance increases - let's just say, the jury is still out. Remember that OS's have had to deal with IDE single command a time for a long time now, and they have become pretty good at reordering their own driver queues and other tricks. I suspect NCQ is going to be one of those things which looks good on benchmarks but has no dramatic impact in real life - but I could be wrong :)

limetech

10-30-05, 01:01 AM

OK, I'll bite - where might one find these for < $20? Any sources you know of in the SF Bay area?

Thanks.

-pischke

Well googling it now reveals $22 at PCPitStop. I believe Orbit Micro had them for around $20 at one time. One thing to try: you can call or email many of the smaller e-tailers and ask them about a "quantity purchase" of 12 - many of them will come down on their price; if not for the unit itself, definitely for shipping.

Mark J. Foster

10-30-05, 01:01 AM

For SATA, we're going to be releasing a 12-drive tower version (same CM Stacker case), and a 12-drive 2U rackmount version!Hi, Tom!

My preference is for the tower case, but when I said I was ready to move forwards, I wasn't kidding! What's the size of the Paypal for the earliest to ship? ;)

Cheers!
MarkF

limetech

10-30-05, 01:05 AM

One other question Tom - is there any way to have drives mounted as read only? Or at least shared out as read only? Once a drive is full, it would be handy to be able to set it as read-only to avoid "accidents".

-pischke

(BTW, I'm loving this product! For once, my tendency to procrastinate has served me well, as I had been meaning to put together a raid 5 box for quite a while, until I saw this thread)

What a great idea! Yes we can do this.

limetech

10-30-05, 01:31 AM

One thing we strive for in our business is to always be open and honest with our customers. With this in mind, here's the status of the SATA version of UnRAID:

1. The SATA code has been running several weeks now & there haven't been any issues regarding data integrity.
2. There are still some limitations which I've posted previously: no spin down and no temperatures (though of course the drives support both).
3. Hot swap is problematic.
4. Mixing PATA and SATA is ok.
5. We're using the Intel D915GAGLK m/b, and Promise SATAII TX4 controllers BUT don't consider this an official endorsement yet.
6. The reason we haven't released the code is that we also wish to be an upstanding member of the open software/linux community, without which our product would not be possible. Hence we need to be a little more "official" and this is taking longer than we anticipated.
7. SATA product photos and website updates will be taking place next week, as well as, hopefully, an AddToCart button :)

BLKMGK

10-30-05, 01:33 AM

Linktheater is a DVD player - it's hardware. It responds to uPNP server software. So far PCCast from the Linkstation seems to work best but it will work with ANY uPNP server that follows spec. To hit multiple stores of media you can set it up in the server software. The Linktheater will see multiple uPNP servers but moving from to another is a little painful. If I could get the PCCast software to see the array's media that would work very well too :)

jimwhite

10-30-05, 06:46 AM

Since I just ordered the USB dongle and it has shipped, I question now how updates, like the above mentioned future addition of "read-only" status, will be handled???

:confused:

Mark J. Foster

10-30-05, 07:38 AM

Hi, Gang!

I know that Tom already knows this, but the reason that NCQ is interesting is that without it, once the head of a drive is moving, the O.S. can't help anymore - it must wait for up to 30 mS for that command to complete. However, NCQ drives can accept commands that entire time, and can service them as the head sweeps across the disk. In good SCSI implementations, this can easily triple drive throughput. However, that's for big parallel access server tasks. Here, where most of us will typically only have a few folks hitting a disk simultaneously (at most), I agree that NCQ is at best "icing", not "cake"! ;)

Have Fun!
MarkF

thaipham

10-30-05, 07:00 PM

Thomas J. Coyle

10-30-05, 09:36 PM

Hi all,

If you, like I did, find that "My Network Places" will only show 10 of the 11 data drives, don't panic.

I found that I had to use "Add a network place" to add the 11th drive. I was able to browse to the tower under the MsHome network and the 11th drive was under the tower server and I was able to add it.

Both MS Windows XP Home Edition and XP Pro acted the same way.

Is there some kind of preference default limit for the number of server drives that will be displayed initially in the My Network Places window?

Tom was very helpful with troubleshooting this problem. I learned a lot about telnet and communicating with the basic UnRaid OS system.

Once again, Tom/Lime Technology came through. I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to roll their own or wants a full up system.

BLKMGK

10-30-05, 10:00 PM

Hi Gang,

I thought that under some opensource licence, the author of a derived
work is not obligated to distribute, make available the source code of the
derived work if the author of the derived work is distributing an appliance
that runs the derived work. (and not distribute the software itself perse.)

Firewall, net appliances comes to mind. Never mind me if I am way off base.

-thai

Umm, NO! If you use GPL work and modify it for your own use then yeah, no need to distribute the changes made to GPL code. However if you distribute and especially SELL GPL modified code then you *must* provide source of the changes. Appliances like Astaro, the Linksys WRT54*, the TIVO, the NSLU2, the Linkstation, and others *all* provide source in one way or another. They are not required to host it, it can be on a CD and a reasonable charge for the cost of duplication can be charged but once obtained by one person it can be redistributed.

Now, this does *not* mean that Tom has to distribute everything. If Tom has built code that is independant of the GPL and not statically linked to GPL code then he's clear. Write a module that runs independant or on top of GPL code and isn't using any GPL code in it then he's 100% in the clear. More than one company *coughLinksyscough* has tried to use GPL code and hide it, they were caught, and you'll note that they now distribute their changes. All of the other companies I mentioned do as well.

Also note that there are groups who spend a great deal of time looking for violators and they go NUTZ when they find them. If you broke your hump creating code and giving it away only to have someone take it and make money off of it without giving their changes back you'd be upset too. Embedded apps are the worst offenders, I'm aware of at least one company that tried to keep from giving up their changes to some programmers I work with - umm in the end they did ;)

Note: the BSD license is different. Anyone can do anything they want with it, no strings I'm aware of. This is how we got OSX and how Microsoft got their TCP/IP stack for WIN2K :)

I've honestly not tried to tear apart Tom's code to see if there's GPL code in it, I'm taking him at his word that he's working this. I'm not a code contributor to any Linux project nor am I one of the GPL gestapo but I do understand why folks get upset on this and I brought it up earlier in hopes that Tom can avoid getting a front page story on Slashdot attacking him which would suck...

djg

10-30-05, 10:03 PM

Just want to add my name to the list of happy customers. I assembled my own system this weekend with the Intel D865GLCLK mb, CM Stacker case, Cremax trays, 2.8 Celeron, and 1024 meg memory from Newegg, ZipZoomFly, and eWiz. I had a minor problem on startup that Tom diagnosed correctly (I failed to make a proper bios setting) with one email reply sent 12 minutes after I submitted my question last night. I've only got 4 -250 GB drives plus the parity in it right now but it works as expected, replacing a raid 5 array I never could get to work repeatably.

Thanks Tom & Lime Technology! :)

BLKMGK

10-30-05, 10:09 PM

Tom, added some drives to my array. One didn't come up right - cabling I guess - and when it errored it was taken offline. I got it back up okay but some of the stuff in the Tools section were a little bit of a mystery. Reset for instance - will that nuke the array? I've figured out that the blinking green dots mean that the drives have spun down but there's nothing to tell folks this. Some sort of pop-up or web page linked to some of this to give context. Nothing fancy but a little clue as it would stink to blow up a bunch of data accidently ;) Otherwise - when the drive was finally recognized and "rebuilt" things when smooth as silk and everything worked as I'd exect...

ohlwiler

10-31-05, 08:28 AM

I wanted to relate the experience I had attempting to expand my array over the past week. I started with an array that had 12 drives in it. I was attempting to replace a 250 G drive with a 300 G drive. The old drive was a Maxtor, the new drive was a Seagate that was identical to two others already in the array. I had previously been using the new 300 G drive in a windows machine for about a week. I wanted to make sure it was fully functional before I placed it in the array. I carefully followed the procedures on the management web page. They are very simple and they state:

Stop the array.
Power down the unit.
Replace smaller disk with new bigger disk.
Power up the unit.
Start the array.

When I started the system the old disk identification string was listed along with the new disk identification string. I did not anticipate any problems so I wasn't keeping notes, but as I recall. I was given the option to replace the old disk with the new disk. This required selecting a check box and then clicking a button. I did this. The steps I expected were:

The system would format the drive
The drive would be rebuilt using the other 11 drives in the array.

After a short time it marked the new disk with a red dot (disabled) and coded the array yellow (functioning, but not protected). I verified that the contents of the "failed" drive were available through the magic of raid.

Next I tried the following:

>Suppose I want the system to try and reconstruct onto my failed disk?
You can try this, but the disk is likely to fail again. Anyway, here's how:

Stop the array.
Power down the unit.
Physically remove the failed disk, leaving the slot empty.
Power up the unit.
Start the array.
Stop the array.
Power down the unit.
Re-install your failed disk.
Power up the unit.
Start the array.

I had the same result as before.

At this point I decided to give up and take a different tact. I replaced the original 250 G. drive and reset the array configuration. I then cleared the contents off my least filled drive in the array. I then removed that disk and again reset the array configuration. I now had an array with 11 disks. Then I added my 300 G drive to the array. It first cleared the drive. I formatted the drive and I was ready to go. It has been functioning fine for the last couple of days.

The good news. I never lost data. I also never feared loosing data. After living with this thing for the last few weeks, I have grown to trust it.

The bad news is that I jumped through a lot of hoops to expand the array. In a few weeks I'll try again with another disk. I'm hoping it was just a glitch.

Anybody tried the same procedure successfully?

Scott

BLKMGK

10-31-05, 09:15 PM

Thomas J. Coyle

10-31-05, 10:47 PM

limetech

11-01-05, 11:27 PM

Since I just ordered the USB dongle and it has shipped, I question now how updates, like the above mentioned future addition of "read-only" status, will be handled???

:confused:

We'll soon have a download area on our website.

limetech

11-01-05, 11:33 PM

I wanted to relate the experience I had attempting to expand my array over the past week.

*snip*

The good news. I never lost data. I also never feared loosing data. After living with this thing for the last few weeks, I have grown to trust it.

The bad news is that I jumped through a lot of hoops to expand the array. In a few weeks I'll try again with another disk. I'm hoping it was just a glitch.

Anybody tried the same procedure successfully?

Scott
I'm sorry it didn't work for you. We've done this many times, but I'll have all our test cases re-run again. Did you notice if the "Error" count was non-zero?

limetech

11-01-05, 11:35 PM

Heh, managed to lock up my array tonight :) I needed to move some 100+gig from one drive to another so rather than "copying" with a client computer I Telnet in and did a CP -R from one drive to another. About 20Gigs into it - BOOM! No WEB client response, no Telnet, nada. Doh! Not sure exactly what occured and I lost no data but umm, maybe not the best way to move data on the array?

Tom is there any reason why this shouldn't be done? Just seemed like the best way to do it is all...

Yes, this is also something we do all the time. For example, to copy the contents of disk1 to disk10, telnet into system (or use console), type "root" as the username and then:
cp -R /mnt/disk1/* /mnt/disk10

limetech

11-01-05, 11:39 PM

Hi all,

Presently I am moving all of the ripped DVDs on my #1 Server, which runs under Windows XP Pro, to my second Server which is running the UnRaid OS so I can convert the #1 Server to the UnRaid OS.

Both my #1 Server and the UnRaid server are on a 10/100 LAN with four switches and a router separating them from each other. I plan to upgrade to Linksys Gigabit switches shortly and redo my LAN so that there are only three Gigabit switches between my two servers and their client PCs.

Anyway, with my present LAN, I am getting a transfer rate of about 25GBytes per hour between the two servers. Does this seem slow or is it due to all of the switches and the router being between the two servers? The data transfer going on between the two routers is about all that is going on on the LAN.

Regards,
TCIII

Doing the math, 25 GB/hour is about 7 MB/sec which is "in the ballpark" for a 100 Mbit ethernet connection. Going through four switches and a router may be slowing it down a bit, but the best you can ever expect from 100 Mbit ethernet is perhaps 8-9 MB/sec. Remember 100 Mbit refers to the raw bit rate of the interface, and by the time you add transmission overhead, plus tcp/ip overhead, the effective throughput gets lowered considerably.

Regarding switching to a GigE lan, try and make sure your switches support jumbo frames. I know the SMC 8505T and 8508T switches do support them. Not that jumbo frames do a heck of a lot today, but as drivers and hardware matures I expect peformance will only increase.

Martin Blank

11-01-05, 11:57 PM

I'm trying to determine how much risk is involved with using my own motherboard combination. What types of issues might I have, is it just a matter of making sure I have the correct device drivers and bios settings?

I have a newer Asus P4P800 SE that's begging to be used for this. Some of the basic stats:
Intel 865PE MCH
FSB: 800 / 533 / 400 MHz
ICH5R South Bridge:
-2 x UltraDMA 100/66/33
-2 x Serial ATA, RAID 0,1 function
-Marvell 88E8001

Am I crazy for trying to go the just the software route with a non-recommended mb, or is it a reasonable amount of risk. I've been computing since I was 15 and I'm significantly older than that now, so the technology doesn't phase me -- but if I'm going to waste more than two weekends or if there is a risk that the unraid might become corrupted -- that is more risk than it is worth.

BTW - developing this approach was a great idea and I'm looking forward to giving it a try!

Bdogg

11-02-05, 01:45 AM

reiser4 or the 2.6 kernel?? [I think both - which is why we're using neither]

I only meant reiser4. I'm actually a little surprised you're not using the 2.6 kernel. The SATA support is much more mature there.

6. The reason we haven't released the code is that we also wish to be an upstanding member of the open software/linux community, without which our product would not be possible. Hence we need to be a little more "official" and this is taking longer than we anticipated.
:)

jimwhite

11-02-05, 05:59 AM

can the USB dongle be "backed-up" in the normal methods (since it's fat32) and restored if "disaster" strikes (like, say, the Cat takes the dongle outside and looses it) ?

:confused:

ohlwiler

11-02-05, 09:59 AM

I'm sorry it didn't work for you. We've done this many times, but I'll have all our test cases re-run again. Did you notice if the "Error" count was non-zero?

I'm sorry I should have included that detail. The error count was zero both times I tried. As I recall, the process never seemed to get going. The write count if it incremented at all only showed a few writes. When I try again I will keep close track of what I do. That way I know it will work fine!

Scott

ohlwiler

11-02-05, 10:27 AM

I would like to relate another experience I had when first building my array. I placed a known bad disk in the array just to see what would happen. This particular disk has a difficult time reading from just a few sectors of the disk. When it first went bad in a Windows machine only about 4 or 5 files were lost.

Back to the Lime Tech array, I started the array and the drive cleared fine. I don't recall if the problems occurred during formatting or parity generation, but the array locked up. I tried three times and each time the array froze. Each time I waited several hours, just in case.

On a windows machine this particular drive tries for about 10 minutes to read from the problem sector, and then quits trying. Also in Windows, Disk Management indicates "errors". Should this same failure mode occur with the Lime Tech array, I don't know how I will find out easily which drive is causing the problem. Maybe I will try booting with another USB drive and run some of the manufacturers DOS based diagnostic utilities. I imagine the chances of that happening are remote, and I will deal with it when it happens.

Scott

ohlwiler

11-04-05, 12:11 PM

Power supply requirements

I read a very insightful article (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page1.html) at Silent PC Review:

The main points:

As the power supply load goes down so does the efficiency.
Modern computers get most of their power from the 12-volt rail.
ATX 2.0 compliant power supplies usually include multiple 12-volt rails.
Multiple rails are a safety measure to keep the current on any given rail below 20A.
If the total 12-volt power supplied does not exceed the design limit, either rail can deliver 20A.

The big challenge in specifying a power supply is allowing enough capacity to spin up the hard disks, but not too great of capacity to achieve the greatest efficiency.

So how much power does a hard disk consume when starting up? Storage Review recently began measuring this (http://www.storagereview.com/comparison.html) (12 V Maximum Power Dissipation). Their measurements show that the peak 12-volt power draw is correlated with drive manufacturer.

Hitachi: 15 watts
Maxtor: 19 watts
Western Digital: 18-24 watts
Seagate: 28 watts

The ATX Power supply design guide (http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/ATX12V_PSDG_2_2_public_br2.pdf) specifies peak currents greater than the continuous rating, so it is safe to assume that peak currents can be supplied, the question is how much. During my ramblings I found at least one power supply that had peak current ratings 1.5 times as high as the continuous ratings.

Twelve Seagate drives would have a peak current requirement of 28 amps when starting. For my configuration, I calculated my maximum 12-volt startup current to be 21 amps. If 12V1 supplies 20 amps continuous and 30 amps peak then there should be no problem starting the array.

Power supply selection

I wanted a high efficiency ATX power supply with multiple 12-volt rails. The combined 12-volt power capacity needed to be about 350 watts continuous. The lower capacity the supply the more efficient it would be during normal operation. I selected the Seasonic S12-430.

I paid $85.46 shipped for a single Seasonic S12-430. For reference, two Sparkle FSP300-60PN power supplies cost $77.80 shipped from Newegg.

Power consumption measurements

The following are my components:

Intel D865GLCLK
Intel 2.26GHz Celeron D
(2) 256k ram
(2) Promise Ultra 100 TX2
(6) Maxtor drives
(3) Seagate drives
(3) Western Digital drives
Thermaltake Purepower 420
Antec True 430
(3) Cooler Master 4-3 drive cages
Note that no other fans are used

The following are some power consumption measurements (Kill A Watt meter):

Before (two power supplies)
System on, all disks spun down: 101 watts
System on, all disks spinning: 202 watts

After (single Seasonic power supply)
System on, all disks spun down: 68 watts
System on, all disks spinning: 180 watts

Since I pay $.09 per KWh, the annual cost savings will be about $26.

Scott

Thomas J. Coyle

11-04-05, 01:30 PM

dahester

11-04-05, 04:41 PM

Scott,
Great information all around. What case did you go with? I'm getting close to building one of these myself. Thanks.

ohlwiler

11-04-05, 07:47 PM

The two supplys that you were using are over 100 watts/supply bigger than the recommended 300 watts/supply. I suspect that had you been using the recommend 300 watt supplys, your array's power consumption would be more inline with your single bigger supply's power consumption. Just a thought.

For what it is worth. My array is fully loaded and spends about 80 percent of the time with the disks spun down. In that condition the load to be supplied by the power supply(s) is 50-55 watts. All power supplies that can provide enough current to start the array will be providing well below their maximum. After looking at many power supply reviews at Silent PC Review, I learned that the peak efficiency occurred well above that point. The Sparkle is rated at a 65% efficiency, the Antec and Cooler Master that I tested are both rated at 68%. At 25% capacity 50% efficiency was very common for this type of supply. I would be very surprised if the dual Sparkles were not very close to the dual Antec/Cooler Master combo in efficiency at 50-55 watts. Of course the only way to really know is to test it.

I started this whole experiment because I was running my array with borrowed power supplies. I had to purchase something new anyway. For quality power supply reviews Silent PC Reviews is the place to go. Some great info there. If I get brave enough I'm going to hang a few more drives off my power supply to see how many it will start up.

Scott

ohlwiler

11-04-05, 07:50 PM

What case did you go with?

I bought a Cooler Master stacker. I looked around at other options, but this one seems to be in a league of its own. I suspect I'll have this case for many years to come.

Scott

Thomas J. Coyle

11-04-05, 09:26 PM

dahester,

I have two of the CM Stackers. I bought them long before Lime Technology came out with their UnRaid OS.

I originally had two Antec full size towers, but wanted room for more drives and the Stacker was the answer.

They are well built and loaded with options. I especially like the number of fans that come with the stock Stacker and the ability to add additional fans.

I have one of my Stackers in the garage and now that the weather has cooled off here in Los Angeles, my spun up drives are running at a cool 29-30 deg C. However, when it is warmer, the drives can reach up to 35-36 deg C, but this is within the drives operating specs.

Regards,
TCIII

The Belgain

11-07-05, 04:25 PM

Well I just came across this thread yesterday (I've only skimmed it, so apologies if any of this has been asked already), and it's looking like a really good product... well done.

At the moment I'm running a "normal" (i.e. striping) sofware RAID5 array on Linux, and am very pleased with it (especially the performance on old hardware). The main problem with it (and striping RAID4/5 in general) is the lack of flexibility in terms of sizes of drive for the home user. Hence why I like the look of this product.

A couple of questions though:

1) Have you considered selling a driver-only version of the software where people could just get the linux non-striping RAID4 driver you wrote and configure the rest of the system the way they like (i.e. pick your own prefered distro, installed programs, etc..)? I guess this would have to be a source release in order for people to be able to compile it against any kernel version.

2) I'm no GPL expert and was just wondering how this stood regarding the GPL? Am I right in thinking that there is no obligation on you to release the source code for the driver (I'm guessing it's loaded as a module rather than compiled into the kernel?)?

3) Performance question: am I right in thinking that write performance on the is decreases with the number of drives in the array? Writing one chunk of data to a drive in an array with n drives (including the parity drive) involves reading data from n-2 drives (in order to calculate partiy data), and writing data to 2 drives (the drive to be written to, and the parity drive). So I'm guessing max theoretical write performance is ((PCI bus bandwidth) / (number of drives)), eg. 133 / 12 = 11MB/s for a 12-drive array. Is this why there's a limitation to max 12 drives (to keep the performance reasonable? Have you tested on PCI-E systems with multiple controller cards (this should give good performance as bandwidth isn't shared.

All the same of course, 10MB/s is plenty for an AV server...

4) Are there any plans to release driver code into the main Linux RAID kernel driver?

J. L.

11-07-05, 05:24 PM

<snip>

A couple of questions though:

3) Performance question: am I right in thinking that write performance on the is decreases with the number of drives in the array? Writing one chunk of data to a drive in an array with n drives (including the parity drive) involves reading data from n-2 drives (in order to calculate partiy data), and writing data to 2 drives (the drive to be written to, and the parity drive). So I'm guessing max theoretical write performance is ((PCI bus bandwidth) / (number of drives)), eg. 133 / 12 = 11MB/s for a 12-drive array. Is this why there's a limitation to max 12 drives (to keep the performance reasonable? I can answer part of this...
There is a need to read all the drives in the array when re-creating data on-the-fly when a single member of the array fails. In that case, by reading all the remaining drives it is possible to determine the data on the failed drive. I think Tom has said the performance is limited by the bus bandwidth and raid overhead in this situation and is one reason why we do not see RAID arrays with hundreds of data disks sharing a single parity disk.

However, there is no need to read all the disks to generate parity when writing to a single disk and the array is not broken. In fact, none of the disks other than the parity drive and the disk being written to are accessed at all. I described how this is actually pretty easy back in this post:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6317817&&#post6317817

In practice, the other disks in my unRaid array don't even spin up when writing to a single drive.

Joe L.

The Belgain

11-07-05, 06:09 PM

Ah yes, thanks for that. I should have spotted that; seems much more sensible.

So that 133/n should really be a 133/4 (theoretical maximum, though presumably rather less than that in practice...), which obviously scales rather better :)

Richard_P_Harvey

11-08-05, 02:47 PM

Is it the general thinking here that because it's Linux that there is no need for an Anti-Virus package to be running on this box....? Sorry I'm a Linux newbie so this may be a VERY lame question.

ednigma

11-08-05, 06:22 PM

Started to gather parts for my unRaid. I received the recommended MB from ZZF. The MB came in a whitebox with a label that identifies it as a D865GLCLK, (I know this is a bulk product). The board came with an I/O shield some IDE/floppy cables, and a cd with drivers (the CD has no writing, like it was burned on a home PC). Now my question, is there a way to positively ID this board as a D865GLCLK with gigE? I looked under a upc label at the silkscreen and it read D865GLCL, no K which I thought I read that it signifies gigE and not plain 10/100. Will the BIOS identify the LAN port? Will booting with the unRaid S/W allow me see if I have the right board? I have the unRaid USB key already.

Thanks
Ed

Richard_P_Harvey

11-08-05, 07:12 PM

dougnliz

11-08-05, 07:18 PM

Thomas J. Coyle

11-08-05, 08:13 PM

ednigma

11-08-05, 11:36 PM

This is exactly why paying just a tad more and getting it right from Tom may be the best way to go.

Let's do some math. I have all the parts, although my MB is a Gigabyte, fully loaded with the intel Pro 1000 gigE on the CSA port of an 875 northbridge, and running a Pentium4 2.8GHz. I can get the recommended MB for $95, add $159 for the unRaid SW = $254 I have extra memory, an unused Celeron and two TX2 ultra100 cards. Since Tom doesn't sell just the MB, $469 is just a tad more than $254.

If I didn't have any of the parts, I'd gladly pay Lime-Tech for a tested electronic package.

ednigma

11-08-05, 11:48 PM

ednigma,

Also, the Intel specification, on the D865GL support page, for this motherboard indicates that the led on the right side of the RJ45 socket will light yellow if it running at 1000MB and green if it is running at 100MB.

Regards,
TCIII

Thanks Tom and also to Doug for your help. Unfortunately, I don't have a gigE switch yet, I'm looking for one that supports Jumbo Frames.

After getting home this evening, I started to do some more research. Seems that D865GLC is the family identifier for the mATX version of the MB. This board comes in three models, no lan, 10/100 lan, and 10/100/1000 pro. The 10/100/1000 pro has the 82547EI PLC chip next to the first PCI slot. The 10/100 version has a 82562EZ PLC chip in its place and the no lan version has no chip, obviously. Hope this info helps someone else.

Regards.. Ed

sonofdbn

11-08-05, 11:54 PM

I don't wish to be unfair here, but has anyone else had a problem with contacting the unRAID website? I sent in a query to the support e-mail address a week ago, and have had no response. I also see that limestone hasn't been active here for a while. There might of course be a perfectly good explanation for all this, and if he's working on upgrading the software, that's great.

limetech

11-09-05, 03:54 AM

limetech

11-09-05, 04:00 AM

can the USB dongle be "backed-up" in the normal methods (since it's fat32) and restored if "disaster" strikes (like, say, the Cat takes the dongle outside and looses it) ?

:confused:

There is a config file on the Flash drive called model.cfg which contains the model of the system and a serial number which is matched to the particular USB Flash drive. The management software will only run if this serial number is correct; so try and keep your cat away from the server :D

limetech

11-09-05, 04:03 AM

limetech

11-09-05, 04:09 AM

ohlwiler,

Nice analysis.

Based on the fact that the ATX switching power supplys are more efficient when operated closer to their maximum rating, I think that is why Lime Tech recommends using only 300 watt power supplys. I suspect that a fully loaded UnRaid array will push the two 300 watt supplys fairly close to their optimum efficiencies.

The two supplys that you were using are over 100 watts/supply bigger than the recommended 300 watts/supply. I suspect that had you been using the recommend 300 watt supplys, your array's power consumption would be more inline with your single bigger supply's power consumption. Just a thought.

Regards,
TCIII

Yes, I agree, nice analysis. We did something similar, finding that Seagate drives tend to use the most spin-up current on +12V rail. The dual 300W supplies should be just adequate for an all-Seagate configuration. We chose Sparkle/Fortron just on their reputation.

In many cases, a single 430W or 460W supply would be just fine and even advantageous.

limetech

11-09-05, 04:21 AM

Well I just came across this thread yesterday (I've only skimmed it, so apologies if any of this has been asked already), and it's looking like a really good product... well done.

At the moment I'm running a "normal" (i.e. striping) sofware RAID5 array on Linux, and am very pleased with it (especially the performance on old hardware). The main problem with it (and striping RAID4/5 in general) is the lack of flexibility in terms of sizes of drive for the home user. Hence why I like the look of this product.

A couple of questions though:

1) Have you considered selling a driver-only version of the software where people could just get the linux non-striping RAID4 driver you wrote and configure the rest of the system the way they like (i.e. pick your own prefered distro, installed programs, etc..)? I guess this would have to be a source release in order for people to be able to compile it against any kernel version.
Our plan at this point is to release the driver source under the GPL, but not make any effort to "mainstream" the code. This means that a motivated linux geek could get the driver to run on a 2.4 kernel; however all the management s/w will be non-GPL for time being.

2) I'm no GPL expert and was just wondering how this stood regarding the GPL? Am I right in thinking that there is no obligation on you to release the source code for the driver (I'm guessing it's loaded as a module rather than compiled into the kernel?)?
Correct, it's loaded as a module.

3) Performance question: am I right in thinking that write performance on the is decreases with the number of drives in the array? Writing one chunk of data to a drive in an array with n drives (including the parity drive) involves reading data from n-2 drives (in order to calculate partiy data), and writing data to 2 drives (the drive to be written to, and the parity drive). So I'm guessing max theoretical write performance is ((PCI bus bandwidth) / (number of drives)), eg. 133 / 12 = 11MB/s for a 12-drive array. Is this why there's a limitation to max 12 drives (to keep the performance reasonable? Have you tested on PCI-E systems with multiple controller cards (this should give good performance as bandwidth isn't shared.
Refer to Joe's answer :)

All the same of course, 10MB/s is plenty for an AV server...

4) Are there any plans to release driver code into the main Linux RAID kernel driver?
No.

limetech

11-09-05, 04:28 AM

Is it the general thinking here that because it's Linux that there is no need for an Anti-Virus package to be running on this box....? Sorry I'm a Linux newbie so this may be a VERY lame question.

Not lame. It's hard to imagine how a virus could get running under the linux OS, because everything running under linux is open source (except, *cough*, the UnRAID s/w), which means it's available for folks to examine for vulnerabilities.

That said, if your shares were visible on an untrused network, then yes, someone could put malicious files on the Flash (since the flash is currently a writeable share), or put something on one of your data shares - so don't put UnRAID on an untrusted network :rolleyes:

limetech

11-09-05, 04:33 AM

I don't wish to be unfair here, but has anyone else had a problem with contacting the unRAID website? I sent in a query to the support e-mail address a week ago, and have had no response.
I try to answer every email, but the volume has been pretty high recently; I'll go back and see if there's something unreplied-to.

I also see that limestone hasn't been active here for a while. There might of course be a perfectly good explanation for all this, and if he's working on upgrading the software, that's great.
Right you are & some travelling. Hey, Limestone Technology... I like it :D

wfisher1

11-09-05, 02:56 PM

kind of off topic, but interesting for us guys slowly piecing this together. there has been quite a few refurb cm stacker cases on ebay as of late for under $100 shipped ... might be a good reason to get this project started!

can't wait to order my usb flash! :)

bkzoller

11-09-05, 03:01 PM

What's the status of getting LVM (logical volume management) working on the unRAID software? Is the goal with that feature to combine all of the drives into a single share?

I'm looking for a replacement for a RAID5 server, and the thing I really like about that system is having all of the drives combined as a single share. Being able to add new drives on the unRAID without any hassles is a good selling point, but having to deal with storage allocation across drives is the only downside for me.

Brian

wfisher1

11-09-05, 03:12 PM

Should we expect to be able to mix and match sata and pata in a future version of the software?

madpoet

11-09-05, 04:07 PM

wfisher, they have said yes to that before.

madpoet

11-09-05, 04:10 PM

Have to keep my eye out for a stacker refurb!

erikatcuse

11-09-05, 05:25 PM

There's 13 refurb cases right now on ebay just search by model number... STC-T01

Very tempting

madpoet

11-09-05, 06:28 PM

Thanks... I should have broadned my search terms!

wfisher1

11-09-05, 07:14 PM

There's 13 refurb cases right now on ebay just search by model number... STC-T01

Very tempting

I picked one up today off ebay for $83.00 shipped. Some lucky guy got his for $71.00 shipped on the same round of cases....

There's also a 10% off ebay coupon floating around as of yesterday. Check some of the deal sites like techbargains, etc ...

good luck!

Thomas J. Coyle

11-09-05, 08:18 PM

Hi all,

For those of you who are rolling your own hardware, if you purchase your Promise Ultra 100 TX2 cards off of eBay or through some other source that is not a computer hardware retailer, make sure that the BIOS revision is at least 2.20.0.14.

If it is not 2.20.0.14 or up, the BIOS cannot recognize hard drives bigger than 137GB. The Promise website has instruction about flashing the BIOS to the later versions.

Also, make sure that the controller you are buying is the Ultra 100 TX2 and not the Ultra 100. Several sellers on eBay are listing the controller as an Ultra 100 TX2 when in reality the picture shows an Ultra 100! The Ultra 100 was designed for the slower 33 MHz PCI bus and not the newer 66 MHz bus.

Regards,
TCIII

erikatcuse

11-10-05, 12:55 AM

What about the Ultra 133 tx2. This card will work right?

BLKMGK

11-10-05, 08:33 AM

What about the Ultra 133 tx2. This card will work right?

It should but apparently there's no throughput increase and they are harder to find\more expensive.

erikatcuse

11-10-05, 11:53 AM

Read [MBytes/s] Write [MBytes/s] Copy [MBytes/s]
Promise Ultra133 TX2 28.2 14.9 16.1
Promise Ultra100 27.5 14.7 15.7

Just did a quick search and looks like an Ultra100 tx2 will save me some money :) Now lets hope there are some good black friday deals....

Tom - Is the SATA version ready yet? What about mixed?

Only reason I ask is SATA drives are comming down in price almost to the point where the deals are becoming tempting

erikatcuse

11-12-05, 01:21 PM

I've done it...I pulled the trigger and purchased just about everything I need. Now to find some good HD deals and buy the unraid software.

Oh the cremax racks where 15.99 at newegg yesterday. I tried to buy 12 but they didn't have that many. So I decided to wait now they don't even list them :(

Geordon

11-12-05, 01:48 PM

Only reason I ask is SATA drives are comming down in price almost to the point where the deals are becoming tempting

Yep. I have been picking up Seagate 300GB SATA drives for about $100 - $110 after all those stinking rebates. Not as good as $80 PATA, though.

madpoet

11-13-05, 09:14 AM

Well I won one of the refurb cases from Ebay pretty cheap ($51 + $40 shipping) so we'll see how it looks when it gets here.

Mark J. Foster

11-13-05, 10:05 AM

Hi, Tom!

Any updated ETA on the SATA unRaid? I've got 4.8TB worth of drives sitting here now, and I'm anxious to fire these puppies up! ;)

Thank you!
MarkF

erikatcuse

11-13-05, 11:03 AM

Well I won one of the refurb cases from Ebay pretty cheap ($51 + $40 shipping) so we'll see how it looks when it gets here.

So did I...did you make sure to use the ebay coupon thats floating around for 10% off?

erikatcuse

11-13-05, 12:12 PM

I need to get parity drive. Which 500gb drive would you recommend? or would you go with a 400gb drive?

BLKMGK

11-13-05, 01:06 PM

I need to get parity drive. Which 500gb drive would you recommend? or would you go with a 400gb drive?

I'm using a 300Gig drive as it's at least as big as any other drive in the system. If at some point I find a good deal on larger drives I will simply buy two, move my Parity to a data position, and use one of the new drives as the new parity. I just didn't see the sense of paying a bunch for a really big parity drive when costs for the drives hadn't fallen enough for me to be willing to buy. Bottom line: You need not buy a huge Parity drive off the bat, it can be upgraded later if needed.

erikatcuse

11-13-05, 02:12 PM

Yeah I noticed the 500gb drive are expensive so I looked around and found this https://shop2.outpost.com/product/4413666?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG 400gb drive for 189.99 after rebate. This way when the 400 gig drives come down more in the next year I won't have to worry about parity for a while. I aslo bought the 300 gig http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4280824?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG for 89.99 after rebate. I was able to find 2 more of the 300gb drives on amazon from private sellers fror 89 each.
.
So I now have 900gb of storage at .30 cents a gig and a parity drive at .47 or .35 cents a gig for the 1.3TB.

I'm hopping to get one or more 250 plus drives durring black friday for cheap.

J. L.

11-13-05, 03:24 PM

The last thing Tom needs is more work, but...

As I was thinking of how some folks are paying a premium for a large parity drive to keep from having to replace it later an idea hit me.

What if two physical drives could be used as a single logical "parity" drive?

If that were the case, then two smaller existing drives could be used as a larger logical "parity" drive until prices on the 500Gig drives dropped some more.

I have no idea how much this would change the unRaid driver, but it sure would make it flexible for those re-using existing drives and make the unRaid software even more attractive to those who might not have funds for both Tom's software and a big parity drive. (It would also make the "parity" drive twice as likely to fail... but you can't have everything)

Since the driver is only reading and writing "blocks" of data to the parity drive, the odds are it is not too much change to the driver to read/write a second parity drive once it gets past the end of the first parity drive... unfortunately, it would likely be a much larger change to the management utility.

Tom.. got any spare time for requests for new features??? ;) ;) ;)

Joe L.

madpoet

11-13-05, 03:25 PM

So did I...did you make sure to use the ebay coupon thats floating around for 10% off?

Hadn't paid yet... thanks for the heads up on the coupon!

madpoet

11-13-05, 03:26 PM

Joe, I suppose they could make it so you could RAID 0 two of the drives for use as Parity... good idea!

justmikie

11-14-05, 01:29 AM

My Un-raid has been running for over a month (serving movies) and has worked great. I just added 2 new drives and went through the cleaning/parity process.

They show up in the management utility, with green parity lights, state OK.

But when I explore the tower, I only show all the old drives.

The previous drives I had were 1,2,3,4,5,11

I added 9&10. What do I need to do to get them to show up. :(

justmikie

11-14-05, 01:40 AM

I stoped and then rebooted the array and now I can get to the 2 new drives. Hmmm... rebooting a linux system to get it to work. I'll bet Bill G is smiling.... :cool:

jimwhite

11-14-05, 08:24 AM

Well, I got my "custom" UN-RAID up over the weekend, P4-2.66(533) w/1gb, and now I'm in the process of adding drives, 2 at a time, while I copy the data from my existing drives and slowly add them to the array.... a time consuming but satisfying process...

When I first brought up the system, with only 3 drives, I was getting all sorts of weird linux error messages on the console, and the management web page kept disappearing... the linux error messages were interesting.... things like "oops", "panic", and eek!" :D well, it turned out that the intel board is VERY picky about memory.... the two sticks of 512 that I stuck in were DDR-400 2-3-3-5 stuff that was working just fine hours before in a P4C-2.4 system with P4P800 motherboard overclocked to 3ghz so the memory was actually running at DDR-416 and passed memtest86 just fine.... put that memory into the intel board at DDR-333 and 2.5-4-4-7 and memtest86 showed tons of errors!! So, for now I have some Corsair DDR-550 memory in there until I can find some DDR-333 stuff for it!

BTW, unplug the USB-dongle with the linux code and plug in an external USB device like a CD drive and poof.... it boots right up from a CD without touching a thing.... nice !!

Question: what is the accepted way to shut this thing off? I know next to nothing about linux. What I've been doing is stopping the array and then just switching off the power :eek:

:cool:

Thomas J. Coyle

11-14-05, 09:34 AM

justmike,

When you add new drives to the array, you will have to use the "new network location" function in My Network to get them to show up.

Start the "new network location" function and navigate to the "entire network". The browse function will show the Tower and all of the drives in its array.

Just select the drives that you have added to the array as "new network locations" and they will instantly appear in the "My Network" window.

No need to reboot the server.

Regards,
TCIII

Thomas J. Coyle

11-14-05, 09:39 AM

dfrazee

11-14-05, 11:05 AM

jimwhite

11-14-05, 11:46 AM

I smiled big time reading your post and wishes for a quiet system :D My "custom" Un-Raid server is housed in a VERY old full tower case which has 6 open 5-1/4" bays up high.... I used two 5-in-3 cheapo metal cages which leaves less than 1/4" between drives :eek: so after mounting all of the drives I mounted a 6" dia. AC-powered fan I found in a surplus shop in a cardboard box and attached it over the drive-openings in the front of the case with duct tape. :D Real ghetto style, but even with all drives spun up, the highest drive temp I've seen is 34°C !! :D BUT, it sure is NOT quiet :) Fortunately it's going downstairs in a closet off my workshop.

BTW, FWIW I needed LONG ide cables to wire this thing up, so I bought a package deal of 8 24" long cables bundled by 3 Ware from Buy.com at about $40 shipped. They only have a connector at each end, but I pulled the secondary drive connectors from a bunch of old cables and crimped them on exactly where I needed them.... works great !!!

:cool:

Thomas J. Coyle

11-14-05, 12:01 PM

dfrazee,

The CM Stacker case, even with all the drive bays filled, is pretty quiet compared to most rack mount servers I have heard. Since it is a server, I would generally not locate it in a normally occupied area.

My two CM Stacker UnRaid servers are located in my garage in cabinets that have fine particle dust filters. During array building, when all the drives were on, several drive temperatures got to 40 deg C when the garage ambient air was around 78 deg F. However, during normal server operation, I seldom have a drive go over 31 deg C when in operation and around 23-24 deg C when spun down.

Regards,
TCIII

J. L.

11-14-05, 01:35 PM

Try as I might, I can't seem to find the time to read thru all 20-pages; thus please accept my apologies if I am asking a repeat question.

1. Is it possible to have slimserver running on this un-RAID server?

2. Please confirm that spin-down is compatible w/ all PATA drives.

FYI, high on my wish list is SATA support, but must include spin-down functionality, auto e-mail notification of failure, hot-spare support and security. Secondly, I prefer the system to be as quiet as possible, with as few moving parts, i.e. fans. Obviously, reasonable HDD temperatures must be maintained, but I suspect that sw controlled case fans, combined with airflow optimization and removal of the 40mm? swap-tray fans will result in a quieter system. With software control, case-fans could be close to inaudible, except when required under high-load conditions.

Doug Frazee
TechHome AdvisorsDoug,

I think I can save you a lot of time. Based on the items high on your wish list, the unRaid server may not be for you.

1. Since the Slimserver has a Linux version, it might work, if it can work without a swap device (the unRaid has no "swap space" it runs entirely in RAM) I don't remember if anyone has tried it on the unRaid box and would have to read all 20 pages to go back and see... :D Hey, you might be the first one to try it and let us know if the Slimserver works...

2. Although SATA support is promised "any day now" it is not currently being shipped. Tom has already said (if you go back and read some of this thread) that the SATA drivers in the OS do not support spin-down currently.

3. The PATA hard-disk itself would have to support spin-down under software control. I would guess that some older (smaller) drives might not. Most do. Check with your drive manufacturer.

4. The current unRaid software I have (and I know of no updates so far) does NOT support auto e-mail notification. In fact, out of the box, no notification exists at all. (You can add some lan based notification yourself, as I posted a guide back a ways in this thread, but then you would have to read some of the thread to discover this :) ) To learn of the array status, you must visit its management web-page. e-mail notification is slated for some future release.

5. There is no support for a "hot spare"

6. There is no support for security. None... nada... nothing. It is promised for some future release. Currently, anybody can read, write, or delete files on any drive, including the flash drive used to hold the unRaid OS. Tom has said "Do not use the unRaid server on an insecure LAN."

7. If you configure a CM Stacker case with the suggested removable drive trays you will have 2 power supply fans, two case fans, and 12 drive tray fans in addition to the CPU fan on the motherboard. None of those are software controlled. All are always on as far as I can tell. (not sure of the drive trays where drives are not installed, but since the fans are on the fixed part of the slide I think the fans spin even if the tray is not filled)

Now, the unRaid array sits near one of my other machines in my basement. The unRaid makes hardly any noise in comparison. (The CM stacker case is pretty decent in that respect) The other desktop PC is much noisier.

My experience with drive temperatures are similar to Thomas's. Most of the time, most of my drives are idle and have spun down.

If you can't deal with these limitations at this time, and it sounds like you might not based on your wish list, the unRaid server is not for you.

Joe L.

dfrazee

11-14-05, 03:17 PM

J.L.
Thanks for your detailed response, I have read much of the thread, but did not see your post with the "notification guide"

Overall, my impression of this product is that it is revolutionary for use as a central media repository/server. It has completely steered me away from pursuing a hot-swap SATA RAID 5 Linux/Samba server, which was the plan! The drive spin-down, fault tolerance, expandability/flexibility and reasonable cost are beautiful features.

I would like to see additional features before I'll come onboard, tho. So I'll rephrase into a wish list for future enhancement of the product:

1. Security
2. SATA drive support with spin-down
3. Failure notification, e-mail, perhaps even telephone?
4. Hot-spare
3. Noise-control, smart fan support (like speedfan)

Security is a bigee, if I set this up for a client and he uses it as a vault for his priceless family photos, they shouldn't be vulnerable to his 10-year old's explorations into the depths of the home network shares.

Tom, posted back on September 7, that
1. Security
2. Alerts
3. Standby Ability
are the big-3 for the next release, this will adress 90% of my concerns.

Tom, any hints as to when the next release will be made? Any updates on the SATA server development?

Doug Frazee
TechHome Advisors

jimwhite

11-14-05, 07:26 PM

interesting, thanks....

about 8 lines down "FreeBSD support for 3ware RAID controllers was added by Eduard Martinescu in August, 2004 "

????????

:cool:

Mark J. Foster

11-14-05, 09:05 PM

Hi, Gang!

After looking at a couple of plausible SATA configurations, I wonder if Tom'll wind up moving to another motherboard and/or the 2.6 kernel for the SATA release? At least from my casual inspection, it's tempting to go with some of the newer Intel 800 FSB, DDR2 motherboards that have onboard 4-channel SATA300 support, and then you could just add a single PCI Express 8-channel SATA controller to complete 12-drive support (the Supermicro SATA-MV8 Marvel-based controller's rather interesting). Given that Tom's benchmarks have revealed that you're largely I/O bus bound, anyway, this seems like it could be a very interesting alternative. Of course, if this is true, the SATA version will be more expensive, but I, for one, am willing to pay extra for a truly long-term solution like this.

I guess we'll see what pops out of the labs soon! ;)

Cheers!
MarkF

boykster

11-14-05, 09:57 PM

Yeah, WTF?? I had the software raid and the 3ware cards in my Linux box (Ubuntu) and I could not get it to detect the 3ware drives - maybe something I was doing? I did not try all that hard since it was working with my software raid5 and that, at the time, was all I was montoring, the 3ware has a pretty decent montoring on its own. I will need to look into this some more - still running the same system :)

Have you run smartctl -h? Last line of the summary describes how to access 3ware drives.

syntax:

smartctl --device=3ware, N /dev/sdX

Where N is the drive number (0 based) and X /dev/sdX is the array as exported to the system. So, to check on drive 0 (first one) on array exported as sda the command is:

smartctl --device=3ware,0 /dev/sda

Cheers,

Rich

erikatcuse

11-14-05, 11:11 PM

jimwhite,

I turn off my server the same way that you do: stop the array and then push the power button on the server to shut the Stacker down.

Also, the Intel product support for this motherboard states that you should only use PC2100 ram with the FSB of 533.

Regards,
TCIII

Are you sure about this I just bought Patriot Signature Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220037

On intels site I found this
System Bus & Memory Speeds

System Bus Speed (PC2100 266MHz) (PC2700333MHz) (PC3200 400MHz)
800 MHz * *1 *
533 MHz * * *2
400 MHz * *3 *4

Notes:
2 To minimize system latencies and optimize system performance 400 MHz DDR memory is clocked at 333 MHz when using an Intel processor with a 533 MHz system bus speed

So according to note 2 pc3200 memory should work, right?

Here's the link http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/D865GLC/sb/cs-008975.htm

erikatcuse

11-15-05, 12:59 AM

Richard_P_Harvey

11-15-05, 08:30 AM

Thomas J. Coyle

11-15-05, 09:08 AM

gotta5000,

I used Kingston PC2100 speed ram on both of my unRaid servers and never had any memory problems. PC2100 ram is about 2/3 the price of PC3200 ram. Why pay more?

Regards,
TCIII

Thomas J. Coyle

11-15-05, 09:12 AM

Richard_P_Harvey,

I had the same problem.

I had to move about 200GB from each of the seven drives on my original DVD server.

However, I never had the Windows XP Pro on the original server puke during the 200GB transfers to the unRaid server.

I was able to transfer between 25GB-30GB per hour on a 10/100 LAN and the data flow had to pass through four switches and one router.

I have since rearranged my LAN so that there are only two switches between the servers and any client and have replaced the original 10/100 switches with GB switches.

Regards,
TCIII

J. L.

11-15-05, 09:32 AM

Got mine fired up yesterday and I'm in the process of moving over the data....! This is one MAJOR pain....! There has got to be a better way. I need to move over about 2.5TB and with only a 100Mbps connection there is no simple (read fast) way. Worse yet if you try to move a large volume at one time like say 200GB off one drive while I sleep, it's almost a guarantee that Windows will puke along the way. Does anyone have a better way to move all this stuff to the Tower....?Richard,
You should try to backup a notebook PC to the unRaid server through a older, slower, 802.11b wireless link. You will think your 100Mbps connection is really really fast. A 30Gig drive backup using TrueImage took overnight.

I'm waiting for black friday to see if I can pick up a deal on a gigabyte router, although I'm not sure if it will help too much since only one of the other network connections on the PCs on my lan can work at that speed. (and that PC is currently using the 802.11g wireless connection built into its motherboard instead of the hardwired lan connection)

All I can say is be patient, and if you can get a 1Gig network card installed in the pc currently holding the data, consider either a temporary direct connection the the unRaid server with a crossover cable or a router that can handle that speed. (several models that support large frames have been mentioned in this thread)

Joe L.

musicmann

11-15-05, 11:06 AM

Got mine fired up yesterday and I'm in the process of moving over the data....! This is one MAJOR pain....! There has got to be a better way. I need to move over about 2.5TB and with only a 100Mbps connection there is no simple (read fast) way. Worse yet if you try to move a large volume at one time like say 200GB off one drive while I sleep, it's almost a guarantee that Windows will puke along the way. Does anyone have a better way to move all this stuff to the Tower....?

I don't even have an unRAID yet (400GBs to go on my old rig!), so I might be reaching at straws here. But what about using one of the Windows ReiserFS tools to make the drives writable on your Windows box and then doing the file transfer on the machine that currently has the data. Maybe this will save the overhead time caused by copying across the network and by the need for the parity calculation. Maybe you could do each disk like that and then, at the end, have unRAID do one parity calculation of all the disks.

J. L.

11-15-05, 12:09 PM

I don't even have an unRAID yet (400GBs to go on my old rig!), so I might be reaching at straws here. But what about using one of the Windows ReiserFS tools to make the drives writable on your Windows box and then doing the file transfer on the machine that currently has the data. Maybe this will save the overhead time caused by copying across the network and by the need for the parity calculation. Maybe you could do each disk like that and then, at the end, have unRAID do one parity calculation of all the disks.musicmann,
Not a bad idea... Unfortunately, all the windows ReiserFS tools I know of are read-only. Do you have a link to one that can read and write?

A slightly different approach might be to boot up the PC where the data currently resides using a Linux boot CD that can read NTFS and FAT file systems and write to a ReiserFS disk you temporally locate on that machine. Then, once data is copied using Linux onto a ReiserFS on the temporary drive you could physically move the disk to the unRaid server and calculate parity on it.

Either way seems like it is a lot of work.

Only other way I can possibly think of is to use a USB external drive, copy the data to it, move it to the unRaid array and plug it in AFTER the array is started so the unRaid does not get its device numbering confused, then copy the files from the
USB drive.

Now, the odds are the unRaid will not know how to read an NTFS filesystem so the external drive will need to be FAT32, but that might eliminate a bit of network latency/transfer delay at the cost of several copy operations. (read: it might take just as long or longer, but be more work)

For me, I'd just as soon start a transfer and go to bed... it will eventually finish, with any luck, before you wake.

shokunin

11-15-05, 02:22 PM

snip.... and then you could just add a single PCI Express 8-channel SATA controller to complete 12-drive support (the Supermicro SATA-MV8 Marvel-based controller's rather interesting).

Mark, ooh... did you find a PCI-e version of supermicro's MV8 8 port SATA card? I only see PCI-X, although I wish they had it in PCI-e...

bkzoller

11-15-05, 02:26 PM

A slightly different approach might be to boot up the PC where the data currently resides using a Linux boot CD that can read NTFS and FAT file systems and write to a ReiserFS disk you temporally locate on that machine. Then, once data is copied using Linux onto a ReiserFS on the temporary drive you could physically move the disk to the unRaid server and calculate parity on it.

That's a good idea. All you need is a Knoppix CD and a bootable CD/DVD reader. You can do this on your Windows box if you want. The Knoppix distribution has the NTFS, FAT and reiserfs filesystem drivers. When you boot the CD, it detects all of your hardware and you go into a KDE GUI environment. Knoppix does not touch your boot drive by default, so when you reboot the machine and remove the Knoppix CD, you go right back to your Windows boot drive.

The NTFS driver in Knoppix might be read-only, but I don't remember. It won't matter because you will only be writing reiserfs. There is a read-write NTFS driver available with the 2.6 Linux kernel, but the write option has to be enabled when compiling the kernel driver.

Brian

musicmann

11-15-05, 03:24 PM

musicmann,
Not a bad idea... Unfortunately, all the windows ReiserFS tools I know of are read-only. Do you have a link to one that can read and write?

Good to know. I've never worked with any of the ReiserFS tools, but I thought RFS might be open source or source available and that there'd be a read/write driver for Windows. Oh well.

How safe do you think Knoppix is for this task? I have used it a few times to rescue data from some badly damaged Windows machines, but based on what I've read about linux and NTFS, I've tried to limit direct exposure of of my NTFS drives to only when it was vital. I know linux distros are not supposed to try to write to onboard NTFS partition, but...

The only good thing about not being able to implement unRAID yet, is that I get to watch some of this issues be resolved.

J. L.

11-15-05, 09:40 PM

Good to know. I've never worked with any of the ReiserFS tools, but I thought RFS might be open source or source available and that there'd be a read/write driver for Windows. Oh well. musicman,
I did a google search and found a read/write possibility at http://www.it.fht-esslingen.de/~zimmerma/software/ltools.html

I have not tried it, but it says it can read and write a ReiserFS from within windows.
You might be able to first create and initialize a blank target drive in the unRaid array. This would zero it out and create a file system on it.

Then transfer the target drive it to a windows box (where windows will ignore it sine it natively will not recognize it) and use the utility at the above link to copy your files to it, then put it back in the unRaid array and re-calculate parity.

Worth a try to see if it would save you any time... especially if you are going to be shuffling around disks anyway.

Edit: This might be a false lead. The ReiserFS might still be read-only. Guess somebody will have to try it to see. I personally don't have a machine with both a ReiserFS and windows OS on it. The release notes of the package state Includes RFSTOOL 0.14-1.0, which starts to implement write mode for ReiserFS files.Currently, only
changing UID, GID and the file's access rights is supported. Additionally this version uses a different
method (the same as 'ldir -part' uses) to scan the partition table, to guarantue consistent parttion table
information.

Joe L.

Geordon

11-15-05, 10:20 PM

xact

11-15-05, 11:02 PM

All these discussions about Windows to Linux and ReiserFS read yes/write maybe, and moving drives around to format and fill, no spin-down support, etc., etc. is what is really keeping me from going this direction at this time. I think the whole UnRaid storage format is great -- I only wish it could be developed as a Windows device-driver. I understand not everyone in the world has Windows, but quite a few do. Another advantage to a Windows driver is that the drive array could reside inside a workstation, which would allow for faster throughput for at least one machine. I know this is probably well beyond the scope of the UnRaid, but if others can contribute to the wish list, then I would like to, as well.
Although I'm in the process of building a full Linux-based un-Raid server, I would actually prefer a driver-based solution for the Windows platform as you mentioned. I think the non-striped variant of RAID 4 is an awesome storage implementation... but I really wish I could just utilize it from a Windows machine.

BLKMGK

11-15-05, 11:03 PM

erikatcuse

11-15-05, 11:13 PM

Yeah as much as I'm a linux noob I don't think windows will have any advantage. This is a small problem. This is my first server I don't have any dvd's backed up yet as I'm sure a lot of people probally don't or just have a limited number on hd's. It's really a one time thing transfering files to your unraid server (if you have gigbit your set).

I'm with Blkmgk I'd like to see some security and single volume/share along with ups support. It's the scalabilty and mixed drives of unraid that I like.

smeehrrr

11-16-05, 01:49 AM

That's a good idea. All you need is a Knoppix CD and a bootable CD/DVD reader. You can do this on your Windows box if you want. The Knoppix distribution has the NTFS, FAT and reiserfs filesystem drivers. When you boot the CD, it detects all of your hardware and you go into a KDE GUI environment. Knoppix does not touch your boot drive by default, so when you reboot the machine and remove the Knoppix CD, you go right back to your Windows boot drive.

I'm trying this right now. The copy appears to be going just fine, once the 400gb are all moved over I'll try to start the array and see what happens. That'll be morning, most likely.

On a totally unrelated note, does anyone know how to make a backup of the flash drive? It's so flimsy I'm paranoid it's going to get bumped wrong and break off.

J. L.

11-16-05, 06:49 AM

I'm trying this right now. The copy appears to be going just fine, once the 400gb are all moved over I'll try to start the array and see what happens. That'll be morning, most likely.smeehrrr,
Glad to hear the file copy is under way.

Did you clear the target drive and create the ReiserFS on it in the unRaid array first before moving it to the windows machine and coping the files to it using the Knoppix CD? Or did you create the file system on it using the Knoppix CD?

I suspect that using the Management screen of the unRaid array to initially create the file system would probably be the best approach. I got the impression that its clearing of the "empty" space on the target drive before you create the file system on it is an important initial step.

Joe L.

Richard_P_Harvey

11-16-05, 10:14 AM

All I can say is be patient, and if you can get a 1Gig network card installed in the pc currently holding the data, consider either a temporary direct connection the the unRaid server with a crossover cable or a router that can handle that speed. (several models that support large frames have been mentioned in this thread)

Joe L.

I went out yesterday and picked up a Linksys Gigabit 5 port switch and with it in place it's going faster and with far less errors. I'm two days into this and I'm guessing I'm 60% done. The good news is this is a one time event.

BLKMGK

11-16-05, 10:55 AM

Anyone seeing odd things while copying data? In my case I'm merging two HUGE MP3 collections together by hand and this means moving 100-200megs worth of files around at a time. I will see the copy start off looking good counting down fast then suddenly pause and stall. Looking at my network access in Task Manager I see 20% usage of bandwidth suddenly plummet to 0% and then after a bit shoot back up to normal and the copy proceeds quickly. I've seen this both on my wireless laptop (slow anyway) and my wired desktop that's hooked to the SMC Gige switch. TOP on the Linux array shows CPU usage spiking upwards a bit but NEVER maxxing out and the timing of th etwo events not quite aligned. I'm not using Explorer to copy the files but rather ExplorerXP which has proven to work pretty well despite multiple quirks. Right now I cannot quite determine what's up but it's maddening! :( If someone has a way of better troubleshooting this and determining where the error is occuring I'd be interested in hearing about it. I'm wondering, now that type this, if perhaps the CAT5 I'm using might not be up to snuff for Gig usage - could that be it? These are store bought cables.... Very frustrating as I know there's some issue and the pauses make moving files irritating (lol)

smeehrrr

11-16-05, 12:24 PM

smeehrrr,
Glad to hear the file copy is under way.

Did you clear the target drive and create the ReiserFS on it in the unRaid array first before moving it to the windows machine and coping the files to it using the Knoppix CD? Or did you create the file system on it using the Knoppix CD?

I suspect that using the Management screen of the unRaid array to initially create the file system would probably be the best approach. I got the impression that its clearing of the "empty" space on the target drive before you create the file system on it is an important initial step.

I created the partitions under Knoppix, so we'll see what happens. I only have one empty drive of the appropriate size, so I'm cascading (B -> C, A -> B, then A becomes the parity drive and B and C are the data drives). Having to reboot into unraid would be a huge pain in the neck.

Tip for anyone doing this kind of copy - make sure you turn on DMA in Knoppix, or you only get about 1MB/s throughput.

Thomas J. Coyle

11-16-05, 01:30 PM

Richard_P_Harvey,

I purchased two of the Linksys 1Gb switches when the $20 rebate was on. Were you able to take advantage of the rebate?

You do realize that the Linksys 1Gb switches do not do jumbo frames?

Regards,
TCIII

smeehrrr

11-16-05, 01:41 PM

I created the partitions under Knoppix, so we'll see what happens. I only have one empty drive of the appropriate size, so I'm cascading (B -> C, A -> B, then A becomes the parity drive and B and C are the data drives). Having to reboot into unraid would be a huge pain in the neck.

Good news! Looks like this worked fine. When I went into Unraid it recognized the new partitions and started rebuilding parity on the A drive. The partitions were shared out immediately and all the content was available.

The only weird thing was that all of the files on the new drives were marked System and Hidden, which nearly gave me a heart attack. I was able to change them back over the network.

So far I'd say this is an unqualified success. Just remember to turn DMA on.

CANNON-FODDER

11-16-05, 02:03 PM

Just wondering. Do you think the Un-RAID system could be configured to allow the user to designate one of the slots on the Un-RAID machine to a copy-from state (not in the array)? Then the user could remove the drive from the current machine, place the drive in the carriage and insert into the copy-from slot, copy to the Un-RAID data array, then either move the carriage, or redesignate and add reformat/clear/initialize the drive as a new data HHD normally?

If you were going to transition the drive over anyway, it may make things a bit faster. Is there enough call for exploring this since drives in a RAID array would not allow this to work?

v/r,
C-F

mpenton

11-16-05, 04:16 PM

BLKMGK

11-16-05, 06:34 PM

I doubt it's the cables/cards since mine's doing the same thing with different hubs/cables. At first I thought it was the the processor since I'd opt'd to run a 1.6 p4 so I swapped in a 2.8 and saw no real change to the pattern. Then I remembered that when I tried running NASLite and saw the exact same pattern. With that system running ftp transfers was a way to minimize the spikes. I don't have any real idea of what to do about it but at least the read's from the array seem to be stable.

Well, at least it's not just me - so I feel better about that :) I wonder if this is a Windows quirk or what. When I was moving data on just one drive, renaming and copying from one directory to another it seemed okay but now I'm going across drives and moving ALOT more data at a time - very weird.

I've also just come across another weird thing. My power failed today and the UPS for my box is doing me NO good just sitting unpowered next to the array (sigh). When I put a monitor on the machine I found why it hadn't properly booted - the USB key was no longer the boot device. Doh! Easily solved with Tom's instructions however :) However once properly booted I still couldn't access my drives and the WEB page simply said "Invalid Content". It's not a browser error either - the WEB source is actually coming from the server! So, thinking my WizD attempts or other things had hosed the system I recopied over my original FOB contents - and am receiving the SAME error. Very strange! I've sent Tom a plea for help just now. I'm not really stressed as all drives appear to be spinning up etc. and I'm sure it's probably just something simple. I think I'll take this opportunity to put the UPS on the system.... :rolleyes:

BLKMGK

11-16-05, 08:06 PM

<snip>I've also just come across another weird thing. My power failed today and the UPS for my box is doing me NO good just sitting unpowered next to the array (sigh). When I put a monitor on the machine I found why it hadn't properly booted - the USB key was no longer the boot device. Doh! Easily solved with Tom's instructions however :) However once properly booted I still couldn't access my drives and the WEB page simply said "Invalid Content". It's not a browser error either - the WEB source is actually coming from the server! So, thinking my WizD attempts or other things had hosed the system I recopied over my original FOB contents - and am receiving the SAME error. Very strange! I've sent Tom a plea for help just now. I'm not really stressed as all drives appear to be spinning up etc. and I'm sure it's probably just something simple. I think I'll take this opportunity to put the UPS on the system.... :rolleyes:

Okay, Tom got this one pretty quickly and on the first try!

Check your bios and make sure that Advanced -> Drive Configuration -> ATA/IDE Configuration is [Legacy]

It would seem more things than I realized got reset in my BIOS - argh!

Thomas J. Coyle

11-16-05, 08:16 PM

BLKMGK,

I have had no trouble transferring ripped DVD files from my Windows XP Pro server to the unRaid server.

I never encountered any errors during the 5 to 7 hour transfers when I moved 200GB worth of files from my Windows XP Pro server to the unRaid server.

I did notice that the transfers seemed to go in bursts. There would be five to 10 seconds of disk activity at the Windows XP Pro server and then maybe five seconds of inactivity and then another five to 10 seconds of disk activity.

The unRaid server acted the same way during the transfer process.

I averaged about 25-30GB per hour on a 10/100 LAN that originally had four switches and a router in the transfer path.

Regards,
TCIII

bkzoller

11-16-05, 09:10 PM

I noticed slow performance with both Windows Explorer and the Cygwin "cp" program. I copied the same files with "xcopy", and I got about five times faster throughput compared to Explorer and "cp". That was on my Linksys 10/100 router. Then I installed an SMC 8508T gigabit switch between the server and the client and ran the same tests. IIRC, I got similar results, 5x improvement with "xcopy" over the others. It could possibly be explained by a larger buffer in "xcopy" compared to the other programs for reading and writing. I don't know what ExplorerXP is so I don't know how it would compare.

Brian

xact

11-16-05, 09:24 PM

Eh, there's NO attraction for me to see this as a Windows device. If I wanted that I'd simply use one of a zillion other ways of setting that up. Windows has overhead and crap I don't want in this application. I can only imagine the HELL it would be to try and build a driver like this for that platform - it's not exactly a platform that invites that sort of low level development work...

I'd much rather see security enhancements and some way of seeing the drives as a single volume or folder, SATA support, and perhaps some other tweaks to the existing code.
As a storage "appliance," I could (theoretically) care less about what OS the un-Raid runs.

All we were saying is that a product (sw or hw+sw) - that runs under Windows - and provides the redundancy & amazing level of flexibility as is offered by the un-Raid software would be appealing to us (and I'm sure many others). I've done the research and I'm not familiar with one such option, much less a zillion.

This is nothing to get hung up on, and certainly not trying to start a religious war... just an opinion/suggestion. I'm sure we're not going to distract Lime Tech from their primary focus. I'll be un-Raid'ing myself once SATA support is available. As a storage appliance, I'm sure it will be great.

Enhancement-wise, I would like to see (in descending order of importance):

SATA Support
Email notification on drive failure
Simple security (read vs. read/write access)
Single-root sharing

Thomas J. Coyle

11-16-05, 10:20 PM

BLKMGK

11-16-05, 10:42 PM

As a storage "appliance," I could (theoretically) care less about what OS the un-Raid runs.

All we were saying is that a product (sw or hw+sw) - that runs under Windows - and provides the redundancy & amazing level of flexibility as is offered by the un-Raid software would be appealing to us (and I'm sure many others). I've done the research and I'm not familiar with one such option, much less a zillion.

This is nothing to get hung up on, and certainly not trying to start a religious war... just an opinion/suggestion. I'm sure we're not going to distract Lime Tech from their primary focus. I'll be un-Raid'ing myself once SATA support is available. As a storage appliance, I'm sure it will be great.

Enhancement-wise, I would like to see (in descending order of importance):

SATA Support
Email notification on drive failure
Simple security (read vs. read/write access)
Single-root sharing

The key here is "appliance" something that Windows is a bit complicated to be considered IMO. No, I'm not a Linux zealot - quite the opposite actually - but in general Windows carries alot more complexity than needed for this. On top of that it's closed source so building low level drives such as would be needed for this isn't likely to be a cakewalk - I think I already pointed that out.

My list of wishes is much the same as your's although perhaps in a different order. attempting to do that on Windows would take ALOT longer I'll bet. ;)

As to zillions of options - quite a few versions of RAID are available for Windows. Yup, not quite unRAID but for a local connected drive there's your solution.

Interesting about XCOPY. Also interesting that folks are seeing the same fits and starts. I get no errors mind you just not steady performance and it's maddening! ExplorerXP (http://www.explorerxp.com/) is a File Manager\Explorer replacement. Seems much more flexible but unfortunatly suffers the same fits and starts :(

bkzoller

11-17-05, 12:14 AM

bkzoller,

I assume that you were using "xcopy" from the DOS window in Windows XP?

If so, what did your command line look like for the transfer from the Windows PC (Source) to the unRaid server (Destination)?

Regards,
TCIII

Correct, that is under the Windows XP command prompt CMD.EXE. I have the drive on the server mounted as R: (on my self-built software RAID 5 Linux server) and the local disk is F:.

xcopy /h /e /r /d /s F:\Directory R:\Directory

If R:\Directory doesn't exist, you have to type "D" in order to create it. The way I remember the xcopy options is the word "herds". :D Type "xcopy /?" for a list.

It is supposed to be roughly the same as "cp -favu" on Linux. I want it to only copy files that have changed or were created since the last copy across the network. I'm not convinced that option actually works when copying across the network, however. It constantly asks whether I want to overwrite files that haven't changed.

Brian

Mark J. Foster

11-17-05, 09:09 AM

Hi, Shokunin!

Oops - you're absolutely correct - the Supermicro SATA-MV8's only available in PCI-X (a retailer's description led me astray). Sorry about that! Fortunately, there are other 8-channel SATA II PCI-Express alternatives. The least expensive controller that I've found is the Highpoint RocketRaid 2320 (http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=AA39710), which streets for about $260. It supports NCQ, has an open-source driver for Linux, etc - it looks good!

Cheers!
MarkF

madpoet

11-17-05, 09:22 AM

Well, all my parts are on the way so I'll be trying it out soon myself. Hoping for a couple of Black Friday drive deals to score some higher capacity drives as the basis for the array.

Mark J. Foster

11-17-05, 11:07 AM

Hi, Gang!

Well, I'd hoped to order the entire setup from Lime, but my 4.8TB worth of drives are burning a hole in my pocket! ;) I just placed an order for a high-end setup (Intel D955XBK motherboard, P4 3.2GHz w/2MBL2, 2GB DDR2-566 RAM, STC-T01 w/12 Cremax MB123SK SATA caddies, 2 slaved Highpoint Rocketraid 2320s), most likely running Fedora Core 3 for now. I'm hoping that this'll work with the unRAID SATA version, but I realize that I'm taking the risk that it may only work with plain-old hardware RAID 5 via the Highpoint controllers. I'm still willing to be a guinea pig, Tom, if you'd like me to test it on this configuration. Sorry, folks.

Best Regards,
MarkF

Richard_P_Harvey

11-17-05, 02:49 PM

leonowski

11-18-05, 12:16 AM

http://store.yahoo.com/svcompucycle/lhd-v04-uk-19.html

Form AND Function!

3-way

11-18-05, 12:27 AM

that's a hell of a sale, too! regular price is $49.99, sale price is $12.99!

jimwhite

11-18-05, 06:50 AM

I noticed that the UnRaid created drive partitions differ quite a bit from those created by my Knoppix CD.... will this affect performance???

This is how the normal(?) UnRaid partitions look:

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hdj: 300.0 GB, 300001443840 bytes
1 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9300640 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 63 * 512 = 32256 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdj1 2 9300640 292970128+ 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Command (m for help): v
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Partition 1: sector 0 greater than maximum 63
62 unallocated sectors

Command (m for help): q

And this is a partition created by Knoppix:

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hdk: 300.0 GB, 300001443840 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36473 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdk1 1 36473 292969341 83 Linux

Command (m for help): v
11339 unallocated sectors

Command (m for help): q

:confused:

erikatcuse

11-18-05, 07:13 PM

Ok

I got most of my parts today. Just need some hard drive kits and the unraid os.

I looked at the tower and I was wondering where is the power button modded at? Right now is the very top 5.25 bay of a new case.

BLKMGK

11-18-05, 07:44 PM

that's a hell of a sale, too! regular price is $49.99, sale price is $12.99!

Note that it's a drive holder and not a removable rack - ALMOST bought them too!

Thomas J. Coyle

11-19-05, 07:01 PM

Richard_P_Harvey,

I ran a ripped DVD from one of the drives attached to one of the Promise cards and did not notice any microstuttering.

I noticed the usual trailing edge blur on fast moving scenes since I am using an older LCD display for testing with my HTPC.

I used WinDVD to do the check. What DVD player are you using?

About the Linksys 1Gb switches, Linksys had a $20 MIR for up to two of most of their switches and it ended on the 15th of Nov.

As for the Jumbo Packets, I have not been able to find any reference to Jumbo Packet capability for the two residential style 1Gb switches that Linksys sells.

Regards,
TCIII

Xayd

11-19-05, 11:03 PM

why reiserFS over ext3?

not implying that one is better than the other, actually i've never used ReiserFS more than a few days while testing other distros, so don't really know how it differs or what advantage(s) it may have in this scenario.

jimwhite

11-20-05, 01:50 AM

I don't know about ext3, but "REISERFSCK --rebuild-tree -S /dev/hdx1" rescued 280gb of files for me in about 4 hours after I "accidently" formatted one of my 300gb drives!!

:eek:

erikatcuse

11-22-05, 02:18 PM

Quick question when you guys purchased the unraid os did you get an email saying it shipped? I purchased mine last week and still haven't received anything yet.

smeehrrr

11-22-05, 02:44 PM

Quick question when you guys purchased the unraid os did you get an email saying it shipped? I purchased mine last week and still haven't received anything yet.

Mine shipped the same day, I got email from Fedex with the tracking number and a note from one of the Lime Tech guys.

I think they may be on vacation or something - nobody has posted here in a while, and an email I sent to their support alias last week has gone unanswered so far.

John Spicer

11-22-05, 04:06 PM

smeehrrr

11-22-05, 04:13 PM

I hate it when threads like this go quiet and the manufacturers don't speak.

I emailed them a week or so ago about UK shipping, they read and achknowledged the email but didn't respond. I'd really like to order one of these and get my system going before the holiday season sets in.

It's Thanksgiving this week in the US, so it's a common time for people to take time off. That said, it would be nice to at least get an automated reply.

In all honesty, what Lime Tech really needs is to set up a support forum on their own site and stop relying on this thread. Then at least people could get peer support in a reasonably convenient fashion.

melechmet

11-22-05, 04:37 PM

Not sure if it was previously asked:

Any plans for two parity drives (comparable to but obviously different from RAID 6) on the forthcoming SATA?

I'd love to build a 16 drive rig with 14 drives active, possibly LVM'd, and 2 parity drives for redundancy.

Another request is: jumbo frames for throughput.

Generally speaking is there a feature request area here or elsewhere where these things should be posted?

Thanks.

erikatcuse

11-22-05, 09:07 PM

Quick question when you guys purchased the unraid os did you get an email saying it shipped? I purchased mine last week and still haven't received anything yet.

Some how I mistyped my email address and left out the o in .com. :eek: Long story short their ordering system kept the order from processing. Good news is Tom sent my order today overnight. Great service...I'll be building this weekend :cool:

Thomas J. Coyle

11-22-05, 10:14 PM

gotta5000,

Be sure to jump on this thread if you have any problems. I am on vacation this week and am taking a look at the thread at least three times a day. I also subscribe to this thread.

Regards,
TCIII

leonowski

11-22-05, 11:56 PM

Is turning on Jumbo Frames simply increasing the MTU on eth0?

I used this command on the un-Raid box:

ifconfig eth0 mtu 9014

Is Jumbo Frames working now?

shokunin

11-23-05, 02:46 AM

Is turning on Jumbo Frames simply increasing the MTU on eth0?

I used this command on the un-Raid box:

ifconfig eth0 mtu 9014

Is Jumbo Frames working now?

In addition to setting the MTU to 9K your entire network needs to support jumbo frames, your switch needs to support jumbo's at the MTU size you identified (9014) as well as all the other NICS on your network. As longs your network infrastructure supports jumbo frames you should see an increase in throughput on large file transfers.

I use a Dell PowerCOnnect 16 port gigE webmanaged switch that supports jumbo frames and port aggregation 802.11ad.

sonofdbn

11-23-05, 07:44 AM

Quick question when you guys purchased the unraid os did you get an email saying it shipped? I purchased mine last week and still haven't received anything yet.

I think the automated email response system has some glitches. I had the same problem (no email about shipping), but the company responded very quickly to an e-mail enquiry. They gave me the tracking number - and now my new toy has arrived.

Richard_P_Harvey

11-23-05, 09:14 AM

Mine shipped the same day, I got email from Fedex with the tracking number and a note from one of the Lime Tech guys.

I think they may be on vacation or something - nobody has posted here in a while, and an email I sent to their support alias last week has gone unanswered so far.

Guys please go easy on Tom as he just moved his family into a new home and he is up to his eyeballs in stuff, plus here we are with the Holiday facing us. I'm sure he will reach out to all of us shortly.

Gobble Gobble....!

erikatcuse

11-23-05, 02:06 PM

I know this has come up before but I'm looking at mobile racks and wanted to see what you guys think

KINGWIN KF-21 (Aluminum 15.99 each for 12)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121109

KINGWIN KF-20 (Plastic and Aluminum 7.99 each for 12)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121101

Genica GN210 (All plastic I think but cheap at 5.59)
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GN210&cm_ven=Pricecomparison.com&cm_cat=Shopping&cm_ite=total

Or
Cremax MB-123 (Lime Tech uses at 19.20)
http://www.censuspc.com/product.php?productid=692&cat=0&page=1

All the prices are without shipping.
I'm leaning toward the kingwin kf-21...good reviews from newegg users and looks to be good construction. Any thoughts on any of these bays would be great

Thanks
Erik

Thomas J. Coyle

11-23-05, 02:32 PM

gotta5000,

I only use the Kingwin KF-101 that has the 60mm fan in the bottom.

Tom does not like this model because he claims that the fans quit after a couple of months.

I have had several of the KF-101 mobile racks operating for over a year without any fan problems.

I am presently using the KF-101 racks in my two unRaid servers and have not experienced a fan failure yet.

You get what you pay for with mobile racks.

Regards,
TCIII

boykster

11-23-05, 11:02 PM

Definately stay away from the genica ones...they are fine for occasional removable drive usage, but they are very cheap and all plastic. I wouldn't trust my data to them.

Rich

leonowski

11-24-05, 01:23 AM

In addition to setting the MTU to 9K your entire network needs to support jumbo frames, your switch needs to support jumbo's at the MTU size you identified (9014) as well as all the other NICS on your network. As longs your network infrastructure supports jumbo frames you should see an increase in throughput on large file transfers.

I use a Dell PowerCOnnect 16 port gigE webmanaged switch that supports jumbo frames and port aggregation 802.11ad.

Thanks - my entire network (switches, NICs, and OSes) are set to use Jumbo Frames. I did not notice a dramatic increase in bandwidth (using the task manager, I saw the maximum throughput increase 2%).

I do still have the problem that others on this forum have described - in the middle of a large file copy, there will be points where nothing is actually being transferred (small bursts of inactivity). I never had this problem with my previous setup (Windows 2000 Server Software Raid 5). I guess I'll just have to wait for an update.

The problem prevents me from being able to stream a .flac file while writing a large file to the un-RAID (lot of stuttering in the music).

erikatcuse

11-25-05, 02:09 PM

Setting up my system right now and it just got bigger I'll be at 1.2 TB soon :)

Outpost.com has a 300gb Seagate for 69.99 after rebate
http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4280824

Thomas J. Coyle

11-25-05, 04:03 PM

gotta5000,

I got one today at Fry's Electronics in Manhattan Beach, CA.

As of now, I think that Segate has the best MIR response. You can preregister your MIR on their website before you mail it in. I have usually received my rebate from Segate in less than four weeks.

Regards,
TCIII

erikatcuse

11-25-05, 06:24 PM

Well my array is up and running with a 400gb parity and 300gb drive and is parity-sync right now. Just to make sure I've got it set up right is a Sync est. speed: 39,004 KB/sec good?

Looks like the array should be done in about 2 1/2 hours.

Now to just buy some racks for the other 3 drives I have :)

Also can you login to the server I don't have a username/password

J. L.

11-25-05, 06:44 PM

Also can you login to the server I don't have a username/passwordtelnet to the server over the LAN, or... if you have a display and keyboard attached at the "login" prompt you can log in as "root" no password is needed.

Joe L.

sonofdbn

11-25-05, 08:13 PM

Has anyone considered cases other than the Coolermaster Stacker? For me the big downside of the Stacker is the need to buy something to fit the drives in the 5.25 inch bays. The drive trays are nice but expensive, especially if you're buying a bunch of them. I don't see the need to remove the drives on a frequent basis.

I'm looking at something like the Chieftec cases, which have drive rails (e.g., the BX-01). Unfortunately it has "only" 6 HDD slots with drive rails, although you could probably fit another 6 HDDs in the case using the other drive bays. There's a review on Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040607/miditower-12.html) .

Is there another case which uses drive rails but has space for 12 HDDs?

Thomas J. Coyle

11-25-05, 09:13 PM

sonofdbn,

You can still use the CM Stacker without having to buy mobile racks by purchasing 5.25" to 3.5" drive adapter rails. If you shop around I am sure that they can be purchased quite cheaply. Then, all you have to do is use the front plate filters that come with the CM Stacker to close off the drive openings. If you go this way, I would put in a higher velocity 120mm fan in the back to suck more air through the case.

The BX-01 is a nice looking case and I do not think that it was designed to be a server case. Server cases are more functional/utilitarian than a flashy gaming case. I would not want to spend the money on looks that would make no difference in server performance.

My old Antec full tower cases would hold as many drives as the BX-01 and for less money I suspect.

Just a thought.

Regards,
TCIII

sonofdbn

11-26-05, 03:19 AM

musicmann

11-26-05, 08:10 AM

TCIII,
Don't get me wrong, I'm not considering Chieftec for looks but for ease of installing drives. I think generally the Chieftecs are cheaper than the Stacker.

I've used the adapter rails before, and they're definitely cheap but a pain. The ones I've used seem to have the outer access cutout deliberately placed anywhere except opposite the inner holes - if you've ever used these particular ones, you'll know what I mean.

But if all else fails....

I DEFINITELY know what you mean. I use the CoolerMaster case, and I use 3-in-2 adapters like this one (http://www.directron.com/tcistorm7.html). These have worked really well for me in the past because they gave me the density I wanted and because I was building non-OCE capable RAID 5 systems meaning that I had to max out the hard drive count from the start. It really just depends on how you are going to implement your system (i.e., a bunch of drives from the start or incrementally) and how much you are willing to put in extra work if/when you need to add drives.

Since I like the look of the CM Stacker so much, what I did with the adapter I mentioned above was remove the front bezel (leaving the fan) and moved the mounting holes forward so the adapter would sit further in the case. Then I was able to cover it with the CM 5.25" grills.

tlastrange

11-26-05, 11:40 AM

Anyone using these 4-in-3 mounts?

http://store.yahoo.com/directron/stb3t4e1.html

Thomas J. Coyle

11-26-05, 02:41 PM

tlastrange,

I am presently using the 4 into 3 sub-chassis to hold the last four drives in my CM Stacker case. It was easy to load up and install and there is enough space between the drives for good air flow from the front mounted fan.

The price of one of these sub-chassis from Directron is equal to just one of the better mobile racks!

If you don't mind the hassel of not being able to remove the drives quickly, then two more of these sub-chassis would allow you to have twelve drives with room to spare in the CM Stacker case.

Regards,
TCIII

Thomas J. Coyle

11-26-05, 02:46 PM

Hi all,

I noticed today that Fry's Electronics (outpost.com) is selling 300GB Maxtor retail hard drives for $89 without a MIR, but a limit of one per customer.

So I picked one up. I will use it to replace one of the original 200GB drives in my second unRaid server.

Regards,
TCIII

Thomas J. Coyle

11-26-05, 07:48 PM

Hi all,

When I went to install the new 300GB Maxtor in place of one of the original 200GB drives in my second unRaid server, the Management page informed me that the Maxtor was bigger than the Segate parity drive even though they are both 300GB drives.

It so happens that the Maxtor is 21MB bigger than the Segate so I had to either make the parity drive be the new Maxtor drive (a logical drive swap) or physically swap the new Maxtor with the original Segate parity drive.

Since I have no data on this array, I physically swapped the new Maxtor drive with the original Segate parity drive so that the parity drive will remain the number one drive.

Lesson learned here: Not all 300GB drives are the same size when formatted by this OS.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
TCIII

3-way

11-26-05, 10:16 PM

I've got one of these:

http://www.kricomputer.com/shop/index.php/detail1/125/ede91dc6e96100c2bd821e76cda26156

with 2 power supplies, 4 PATA drives and 8 SATA drives running XP Pro with H/W RAID 5. I want to move to the unRAID setup so my drives will spin down when not in use and so that it will be easier to add/upgrade drives one at a time.

Everyone here seems to be opting for removable drive trays. I don't really understand why. I don't see removing these drives, except to replace them after they've burned out. What am I missing -- what's the advantage of removable trays that's got everyone paying such a premium over standard $1.75 adapters?

Thanks.

Brad

erikatcuse

11-26-05, 11:10 PM

I wondered the same thing and came to the conclusion of heat. Heat can kill or at least wound hard drives. The trays each have a fan and in the cm stacker case it gives you tons of room. I was contemplating 4 4-3 modules and put 3 drives in each but figures better heat transfer with the aluminum trays. I know I won't be removing these drive but in case I do or if I want to do transfers on a different pc the trays will make it easy. BTW I ended up buying the Kingwin KF-21 from newegg. I only purchased 5 right now since thats all the drives I have. I'll keep looking for a sale or free shipping for the rest.
1x400gb Parity
4x300gb Storage --1.2TB alllll righhhht!!!!

FWIW - I got my unraid server up and running without a hitch. Thanks to all the prior posts. I had to flash the promise bios (bought my cards off ebay). Oh and no problem with the pc3200 memory

Thomas J. Coyle

11-27-05, 12:39 AM

3-way,

Check out my post just above yours.

I have both of my unRaid servers mounted in a dust proof cabinet in my garage. Since the drives are in mobile racks it was no problem to swap out the 200GB drive for the new 300GB drive and then swap the two 300GB drives.

If they were not in mobile racks, I would have had to take the front off of the cabinet and move the Stacker up to a bench where I could work on it. The CM Stacker weighs a ton with all of the drives in it so moving it around is a pain in the butt. Therefore the cost of the mobile racks is worth not messing my back up moving the Stacker around.

Also, as gotta5000 pointed out, the mobile racks do provide additional cooling and the Kingwin KF-101 aluminum racks help to dissipate the heat better.

Regards,
TCIII

3-way

11-27-05, 01:44 PM

OK, so, convenience and possibly cooling are the primary reasons? I think I'm going to stick with what I've got for the moment ( http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=8&Product_ID=92&CATID=1 ). The case is big enough that airflow isn't a problem. It's easy to access and switching drives only takes 5 minutes or so. Hopefully, I won't be doing much of that once I get it set up. Just saved myself the cost of a case or two and a bunch of removable drive cases. Not bad for a Sunday morning.

Now, if Lime-Tech would just release the SATA version....

ednigma

11-27-05, 07:33 PM

notandor

11-28-05, 02:15 AM

limetech

11-29-05, 04:23 AM

Hi limetech,

when is the sata version finally coming? in what all form it will be available, flashdrive, complete setup, starter kit etc...

i have my hard drives sitting from quite some time :-(

thanks

Hi All,

I know it's been a while since I've posted in here & I'll go back and reply to all the previous questions tomorrow.

For now, a quick update.

First, we are now accepting international orders. Unfortunately the cost to ship a complete server is rather high due to the fact that it's oversize in both weight and dimensions. I'm meeting with our packaging company this week to explore some ways to improve this. The Starter Sets and Flash drives are reasonable however, and we still don't charge any shipping for the Flash regardless of destination.

Second, software update: We'll be posting a software update on our website this week that will add a couple features and address some usability issues.

Third, SATA version: Ok... it looks like the best way for us to get all the features we want in the SATA version is to upgrade our linux kernel to 2.6. This is what we've been working on. The bad news is that we're still several weeks away from releasing this code. BUT - the software update mentioned above will have SATA support with some limitations:
- no drive spindown,
- no reporting drive temperatures

More later...

John Spicer

11-29-05, 05:42 AM

Just before I order, maybe a novice Linux question....

Will the kernal upgrade for sata be possible on an unraid thats already up and running? I might be tempted to mix and match ide and sata for now if this development will work later on as I already have a bunch of drives for this.

J. L.

11-29-05, 08:04 AM

Tom,

While you are in the "question answering mode"...

My unRaid server is apparently on Pacific Time, therefore, all the timestamps on the files are a few hours offset from the time here on the East coast.

Is there any way to set the time zone?

Do I need to connect a keyboard and monitor to set it in the bios? (I have never connected a monitor/keyboard so far)

Can it be done using the management utility web-page using some special syntax to specify the date-time as well as the desired timezone offset ie. TZ=EST5EDT?
If not, can I set it in the "go" script by hand till your maintenance screen has the ability?

If not possible now, can this be put on your feature request list to be included in the future?

Joe L.

3-way

11-29-05, 11:11 AM

Third, SATA version: Ok... it looks like the best way for us to get all the features we want in the SATA version is to upgrade our linux kernel to 2.6. This is what we've been working on. The bad news is that we're still several weeks away from releasing this code. BUT - the software update mentioned above will have SATA support with some limitations:
- no drive spindown,
- no reporting drive temperatures

More later...

So, to be clear, the software update coming later this week will add SATA drive support, but spindown and drive temps won't come until the upgrade to the 2.6 kernel?

Thanks.

Brad

Esben

11-29-05, 07:01 PM

Wow, I've just read through the entire thread. It took quite some time, but was very interesting. I think the concept used by un-Raid is great for a media server, and the support through the thread is very impressive. I hope the SATA version will support hotswap, so that e.g. the drives can be taken from a drive bay, into an external 5.25" USB2/FW enclosure, and data transfer can commit.
Drive spindown is a great feature to reduce noise and power use. I couldn't imagine having a media server in my small apartment, running with fans and 12 harddrives all the time. Hopefully, with the support of e.g. Pentium M, the system will be able to be online with a single PSU-fan running, and everything else idle.

Richard_P_Harvey

12-01-05, 06:50 PM

Question - Background Parity Check....! Is it something that get's launched on some scheduled basis or should we click that button every once in a while....?

J. L.

12-01-05, 09:04 PM

Question - Background Parity Check....! Is it something that get's launched on some scheduled basis or should we click that button every once in a while....?Richard,
Good question.

I have never clicked on my Background Parity Check button. The unRaid software did do a background parity check on its own once when the server came back online after a power interruption though.

So Tom@LimeTech... Suggested frequency to do a background parity check? Once a week? Month? Year? Second Tuesday of the week? :eek: Your thoughts?

Joe L.

notandor

12-01-05, 09:17 PM

Hi Tom,

I understand that the sata version is being delayed for kernel upgrade reasons...

But you had mentioned that you were releasing the hardware in 2U rackmount form too...
Can that 2U rackmount case be used for mix of PATA and SATA harddrives?
Also, how many harddrives does it hold and from what company/model it is based on?
And do you plan to sell the case early, in case you got it custom built?

I was looking to set up the system w/ some PATA drives for now and then use my SATA drives to extend once the flash update is available...

Thanks

madpoet

12-02-05, 09:44 AM

All my parts arrived, and I'm slowly beginning my assembly process. Lots of steps, just got to make sure I do it all right ;). Looking forward to the finished product however.

Richard_P_Harvey

12-02-05, 02:17 PM

Question - Background Parity Check....! Is it something that get's launched on some scheduled basis or should we click that button every once in a while....?
Looks like a background parity check is risky business....! I went ahead and clicked the button this morning, it kicked off the parity check as expected. Refreshed the webpage a few times over a two hour period and had made it to near 15%, shortly after the page went un-reachable and the shares were no longer accessable on the network. I waited another 30 minutes to see if it would come back but nothing, I noticed that yellow drive lights for disk10 and disk11 were soild on and never changed. Finally figured it was hosed I did a re-boot and it's alive again but has again begun a new parity check. WEIRD......!

Also if I'm to trust the time estimate this is going to take over 12 hours to complete, does that sound right to anyone...? I decided to stop the check because I need access to the system later today and now it's telling me that parity is valid and was last checked today with no errors. Why would it consider a check that only made it to 3% as completed.

BLKMGK

12-02-05, 07:21 PM

Richard - I've had my system go unreachable a couple of times now - not sure why but I've not ever lost data. I would suggest starting the Parity Check again and allowing it to finish - I believe you'll be able to access the shares while the check is ongoing - it's never stopped me.

Mine seems to lockup only when doing moves of lots of data. I also had my parity drive go bad on me - doh. Swapped the drive and th esystem locked up coming up, rebooted, and it came up fine! <shrug> It had to redo parity but no biggie. Overall it's pretty stable but it can be frustrating moving data and having this happen lol.

Thomas J. Coyle

12-03-05, 11:23 AM

BLKMGK,

I moved 200GB of data at least six times and never had the system lock up on me. Each transfer took around 6 hrs without a problem.

I suspect that the Intel motherboard is very fussy about the speed of the memory being used. I followed Intel's recommendation of using PC2100 memory modules and have not had any problems. The timing specs on PC3200 may cause a long term operation problem.

Just a thought.

Regards,
TCIII

Richard_P_Harvey

12-03-05, 12:23 PM

pischke

12-03-05, 12:53 PM

J. L.

12-03-05, 12:59 PM

Has anyone actually clicked that button and have it work without issue...?Richard,
I just pressed the button on mine to see what happens. I'll let you know what happens in about 600 minutes. (estimated sync time remaining)

The screen is refreshing itself every few seconds showing the progress.

It says "Parity-Check in progress. ... Cancel will stop the Parity-Check operation."
Unfortunately, the "Cancel" button is greyed out and disabled... Oops...

Joe L.

(Tom@LimeTechnology.. one more thing to check for the next release... I would assume the button should be enabled when the instructions say it could be pressed to "Cancel" the parity-check.)

limetech

12-03-05, 02:03 PM

What if two physical drives could be used as a single logical "parity" drive?
...

Joe,
This is a pretty good idea. Another benefit of this approach is that write performance could improve since it would be possible to have parity updates occuring on the two parity drives in parallel.

limetech

12-03-05, 02:08 PM

I stoped and then rebooted the array and now I can get to the 2 new drives. Hmmm... rebooting a linux system to get it to work. I'll bet Bill G is smiling.... :cool:
Yep, sorry about that. Yours was probably one of a few systems that shipped with version 1.050826 software where this is a known bug. Besides rebooting, you could "Stop" the array and the "Start" it again to get it to export the new disk shares. This bug is fixed in the currently shipping 1.050930 release. (The only difference between the two versions is fixing this bug.)

limetech

12-03-05, 02:13 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 02:25 PM

Try as I might, I can't seem to find the time to read thru all 20-pages; thus please accept my apologies if I am asking a repeat question.
No problem...

1. Is it possible to have slimserver running on this un-RAID server?
Should be possible. May need to install perl, but there's plenty of space on the USB to do this.

2. Please confirm that spin-down is compatible w/ all PATA drives.
I don't know of any PATA that doesn't support spin-down. Not to say they don't exist, but if you tell me what models you're concerned about, I can have someone research it.

FYI, high on my wish list is SATA support, but must include spin-down functionality,
Next release has SATA support, but no spin-down. Spin-down for SATA will have to wait until we upgrade to 2.6 linux kernel.
auto e-mail notification of failure,
coming
hot-spare support
sorry, low on the new feature list
and security.
coming
Secondly, I prefer the system to be as quiet as possible, with as few moving parts, i.e. fans. Obviously, reasonable HDD temperatures must be maintained, but I suspect that sw controlled case fans, combined with airflow optimization and removal of the 40mm? swap-tray fans will result in a quieter system. With software control, case-fans could be close to inaudible, except when required under high-load conditions.
Agreed. The best way to solve this would be through custom chassis design, but this is just not feasible for us yet.

limetech

12-03-05, 02:30 PM

Why don't you guys install SmartMonTools?

http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

I used this package with my software raid5 linux setup as well as mdadm and it would send emails to you if the temperatures varied x amount of degrees, as well as any other errors. Also, using SMART it detects drives going south before they actually get there and warn you. I don't remember all the details, I am using a 3ware card at the moment, but I thought this was a pretty decent tool and I wished there was something like it for 3ware.

Problem with smartmontools is that the drives will spin up every time it polls the disk temperatures.

limetech

12-03-05, 02:31 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 02:35 PM

One more question...right now I don't have any gigabit lan stuff. If I only have 1 maybe 2 computers accessing the server do I need the gig connection? What 4 or 8 port gig switch/hub would you recommend? Also for now could I just use a crossover cable (or does this board have mdix) to hook one pc to the server?
We use SMC8505T and SMC8508T switches.
Hooking the server directly to a PC works too. In my own set up my HTPC uses the A7N8X m/b which has both a GigE and FastE port. I connect the GigE port to the server and the FastE port to the router. In Windows I then bridge the two connections - works great.

limetech

12-03-05, 02:45 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 02:47 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 02:50 PM

This is a nice way to add the linux ext2/3 file system to Windows:
http://www.fs-driver.org/
It is a system device driver :cool:
We're adding a feature to let you select the file system to use.

limetech

12-03-05, 02:51 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 02:55 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 02:58 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 02:59 PM

It's Thanksgiving this week in the US, so it's a common time for people to take time off. That said, it would be nice to at least get an automated reply.

In all honesty, what Lime Tech really needs is to set up a support forum on their own site and stop relying on this thread. Then at least people could get peer support in a reasonably convenient fashion.
Agreed. Any suggestions on which forum system to use?

limetech

12-03-05, 03:01 PM

Is turning on Jumbo Frames simply increasing the MTU on eth0?

I used this command on the un-Raid box:

ifconfig eth0 mtu 9014

Is Jumbo Frames working now?
Yep.

limetech

12-03-05, 03:03 PM

Thanks - my entire network (switches, NICs, and OSes) are set to use Jumbo Frames. I did not notice a dramatic increase in bandwidth (using the task manager, I saw the maximum throughput increase 2%).

I do still have the problem that others on this forum have described - in the middle of a large file copy, there will be points where nothing is actually being transferred (small bursts of inactivity). I never had this problem with my previous setup (Windows 2000 Server Software Raid 5). I guess I'll just have to wait for an update.

The problem prevents me from being able to stream a .flac file while writing a large file to the un-RAID (lot of stuttering in the music).

We're working on this problem of writes overpowering reads. It's tricky because we also want to increase write prerformance as much as possible.

limetech

12-03-05, 03:19 PM

Have been slowly gathering parts to build my UnRaid server. I am using all the recommended components. I will be moving all my old 200G drives over. I started by running Maxtor's powermax diags on the drives using the low level format (not a real LLF, but does write zero's to the drive) and the diags indicate no errors. Plugged 2 drives into the server using the primary IDE port. Initially, the main page showed the two drives as unformatted with the parity drive invalid. Pressed the start array button. The Command area shows the array started (yellow) and shows a button for unformatted drives and a button for parity sync in progress. Refreshed the screen and saw that the parity sync was running. Pressed the format button and after a few seconds, the format button disappears and I just see the parity sync progress.

I was under the impression from Lime-tech's web site, the format would write zeros to the drive and would take about 1-1.5 hours to complete. As I monitor the process, I see the parity disk has about 24 million writes, disk1 has 24 million reads and 38K writes. If the sync and format are happening simultaneously, I would expect the number of writes on disk 1 to be equal to the number of writes to the parity disk so far (24M). This doesn't have anything to do with the psuedo-low level format I did with the Maxtor diagnostics-- the UnRaid s/w doesn't know that the disk is zero'ed out, right?
Right. When you set up a brand new system there are two things that must take place:
1. The array parity has to be generated and written to the parity disk.
2. The data drives have to be "formatted".

Parity generation, also called "Parity-sync" takes place in the "background". This means that it's happening while the system is on-line and you can access all the shares normally.

"Formatting" in this case refers to the process of creating a file system on the disk(s). After the file system is created, the disk is exported as a share.

Just had a thought, will the format only zero out a data disk when that disk is added to an existing sync'd array? It looks like the format just wrote the file system to disk 1 and now disk 1 is being read to generate parity and writing to the parity disk.
Exactly right. In your 2-drive config, the top disk is parity and you have only one data disk.

If you now want to add a new disk to an existing array, you have two choices:
1. (the default) Poweroff, plug in, poweron, Start the array. In this case the system will clear (write zeros to) the new disk BEFORE actually starting the array and exporting shares.
2. Poweroff, plugin, poweron, Initialize array configuration, Start the array. In this case the "Initialize array configuration" step makes the system appear as "brand new", so it will immediately start, export the shares, and start backgound parity sync.

Why are there two methods? The problem with method 2 is that suppose you have a disk failure during the parity-sync. You would not be able to rebuild the disk because parity is not valid, hence you could lose data. Method 1 is simply a way to avoid the risk in method 2 :)

Of course problem with method 1 is that system is off-line until the clear process completes.

limetech

12-03-05, 03:20 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 03:23 PM

limetech

12-03-05, 03:28 PM

Richard,
Good question.

I have never clicked on my Background Parity Check button. The unRaid software did do a background parity check on its own once when the server came back online after a power interruption though.

So Tom@LimeTech... Suggested frequency to do a background parity check? Once a week? Month? Year? Second Tuesday of the week? :eek: Your thoughts?

Joe L.
Good question! A feature "on the list" is to specify an automatic parity check schedule. Personally, I run one about every week or so just to exercise the disks that are normally always spun down.

CCMCornell

12-03-05, 03:28 PM

Agreed. Any suggestions on which forum system to use?

I suggest http://www.phpbb.com/ It's MySQL and PHP.

I've been lurking this thread for a while and I'm interested in a software only purchase for a DIY server build. I'd like to combine it with a MythTV backend and some other services. Can I use the compiled module that's available now with my own linux build using the 2.6 kernel or does your current module build only work with 2.4?

limetech

12-03-05, 03:31 PM

Hi Tom,

I understand that the sata version is being delayed for kernel upgrade reasons...
Only to support spindown (and a few other things). SATA support is added to the current code base as well.

But you had mentioned that you were releasing the hardware in 2U rackmount form too...
Can that 2U rackmount case be used for mix of PATA and SATA harddrives?
Also, how many harddrives does it hold and from what company/model it is based on?
And do you plan to sell the case early, in case you got it custom built?

I was looking to set up the system w/ some PATA drives for now and then use my SATA drives to extend once the flash update is available...

The 2U rackmount case only supports SATA drives. I'll post some pictures of it later today hopefully - wife is after me to put up the christmas lights right now :eek:

limetech

12-03-05, 03:36 PM

Attempted to run another parity check last night while sleeping, this morning AGAIN the system was un-reachable and I had to power it down and back up again to get it alive. Looks like there is no way that I can run the parity check at all. Has anyone actually clicked that button and have it work without issue...?

Tom - What gives here, lots of questions.....! Should a parity check be run ever, is it automatically run once a whatever and why can't I run one with the system locking up.
Richard, I'll send you email to try and figure this one out. BTW, I thought in some other post you mentioned something about microstutter problem reading from some drives? I couldn't find the post, but if so, please tell me again what the problem was?

limetech

12-03-05, 03:38 PM

Richard,
I just pressed the button on mine to see what happens. I'll let you know what happens in about 600 minutes. (estimated sync time remaining)

The screen is refreshing itself every few seconds showing the progress.

It says "Parity-Check in progress. ... Cancel will stop the Parity-Check operation."
Unfortunately, the "Cancel" button is greyed out and disabled... Oops...

Joe L.

(Tom@LimeTechnology.. one more thing to check for the next release... I would assume the button should be enabled when the instructions say it could be pressed to "Cancel" the parity-check.)

Joe, what browser are you using? I've noticed a problem with this using the 1.5 Firefox release.

limetech

12-03-05, 03:40 PM

I suggest http://www.phpbb.com/ It's MySQL and PHP.

I've been lurking this thread for a while and I'm interested in a software only purchase for a DIY server build. I'd like to combine it with a MythTV backend and some other services. Can I use the compiled module that's available now with my own linux build using the 2.6 kernel or does your current module build only work with 2.4?
Only supports 2.4 at present.

J. L.

12-03-05, 05:53 PM

Joe, what browser are you using? I've noticed a problem with this using the 1.5 Firefox release.Tom...
You must be psychic (or psychotic)

I'm using the 1.5 Firefox release. :D :D (My luck)

At least you can reproduce the problem in your lab :eek: :eek: :eek:

Parity check 48% complete... estimate is roughly 310 minutes left to go.

Joe L.

erikatcuse

12-03-05, 06:05 PM

Agreed. Any suggestions on which forum system to use?

Tom

I'd use http://www.phpbb.com/ and its free :)

limetech

12-03-05, 06:13 PM

Tom...
You must be psyichc (or psychotic)

I'm using the 1.5 Firefox release. :D :D (My luck)

At least you can reproduce the problem in your lab :eek: :eek: :eek:

Parity check 48% complete... estimate is roughly 310 minutes left to go.

Joe L.

You should navigate to somewhere else, say Tools menu, then back to Main and it should quit "auto updating" (or use IE). Problem is each time the page refreshes, the s/w will go read the drive temps, which is a SMART operation which causes the device queues to empty and seek back to some manufacturer-reserved cylinder - result being to slow down the Parity-check considerably :confused:

J. L.

12-03-05, 11:56 PM

You should navigate to somewhere else, say Tools menu, then back to Main and it should quit "auto updating" (or use IE). Problem is each time the page refreshes, the s/w will go read the drive temps, which is a SMART operation which causes the device queues to empty and seek back to some manufacturer-reserved cylinder - result being to slow down the Parity-check considerably :confused:Tom,
Thanks for the tip. Did as you said, went over to a neighbor's for dinner and the parity check was done when we got home. No telling how long it took, but it completed successfully. I expect you'll fix the bug with Firefox 1.5 as it is an annoyance, although the auto-refresh was kind of nice, but not at the expense of performance.

Have you considered adding a meta-refresh header on the web-page timed for about 60 seconds or so.? It would keep me from having to refresh the page to see an update on the progress.

Joe L.

Thomas J. Coyle

12-04-05, 08:37 PM

Hi all,

Just ran a parity check on my number one unRaid server which is loaded with ripped DVD files and it completed in less than 5 hours. I also completed installing the last four drives on my second unRaid server and it too completed the parity build in under 5 hours.

I am presently streaming ripped DVD files to my HTPC and to a Mediagate MG-35. For anyone looking for an inexpensive streaming media client, the MG-35 is hard to beat for the price. The GUI is a bit clunky, but it will play MP3 and ripped DVD IFO files off of my unRaid sever with no stuttering. It is manufactured by Air Link in South Korea and they seem to listen to user input as the GUI has improved substantially since the first firmware release.

Regards,
TCIII

BLKMGK

12-04-05, 11:02 PM

I'd be interested in knowing more details about this. Would it be possible to email me at tomm@lime-technology.com?
Probably what's happening is the server's memory cache gets filled up and then things pause while it flushes for a bit.

Will do tonight. Would love to figure this out :) Still having some random lockups during heavy usage but not data loss - my memory is within spec. Also, I think I may have one PATA drive that doesn't spin down. It's an older Maxtor and anytime I bring up the status page it's spun up with all others spinning down. No biggie but a data point if anyone cares.

madpoet

12-05-05, 09:46 AM

Mother of god... I now know why they charge so much for the put together version. I have hand cramps from screwing all those freaking drive trays in! Wow, was this a bitch to get setup. I still don't have it powered up. Couple of problems...

1) power supply installation... which way did you guys face the fans? And how come I can only ever get the faceplate to match 2 of the 4 screws?

2) Getting an OEM motherboard without a manual is something of a problem ;)

I will say that my "refurb" case from Ebay is perfect. And it included all the parts I could ever want or need, including the 4-3 cage.

Mark J. Foster

12-05-05, 10:04 AM

Hi, MadPoet!

It sounds like you may be like me: you don't read the manual! ;) At least with my setup, I had to remove both of the rear plates with the circular cutouts, and replace them with the power supply adapter plates that are included in the cardboard box. Once those are in place, I found that I had to mount the bottom power supply rotated 180 degrees from the top power supply (the AC outlets are both on the back, but one is towards the left-hand side, and the other is closer to the right-hand side). I've built up a pretty high-end setup here, so I'm using two 500W power supplies, for what it's worth.

Good Luck!
MarkF

Thomas J. Coyle

12-05-05, 10:31 AM

madpoet,

The Intel website for their motherboards has all of the information that you would ever want to know about the D865GLCLK.

Also, remember to check which version of the BIOS is on your motherboard. I believe that Lime Technology requires that it be release P24 or newer. One of my motherboards had a P20 version so I had to flash it up to P24. The Intel website has instructions and programs to do the BIOS upgrade.

Also be sure that the BIOS on your Promise Controller card will recognize hard drives bigger than 132GB. You can check the Promise site to see if you have the correct BIOS or not.

On both of my Antec power supplys the fan faces in towards the inside of the case if you are using power supplys with dual fans (one exhaust and one inside the case). Make sure you rotate the mounting bracket so that it mates with all four holes in the power supply.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
TCIII

Mark J. Foster

12-05-05, 10:55 AM

Hi, Thomas!

I wonder if I have a different case revision than you do? With mine, the power supply intake fans both point inwards as yours do, but the left/right flip is unavoidable, since the power supply adapter plates are keyed to the case. It is interesting that there's a picture in the manual showing both supplies having the same L/R orientation, but I'd assumed that they only used three screws in the lower power supply to take that picture! ;)

Have Fun!
MarkF

llogan

12-05-05, 11:49 AM

Any suggestions on rack mountable chassis that'll accommodate one of the two motherboards these guys have 'certified'? Ideally I'd like to be able to have redundant power supplies and have all drives in mobile racks. I'd be looking for cases that support a minimum of 8 drives, but optimally as many as possible (I don't know if the unRAID solution supports more than 12, but if it did, I wouldn't want a chassis that is any bigger than one that can support 16 drives).

thanks,
Mike

erikatcuse

12-05-05, 06:44 PM

Madpoet

I had the same problem with my ps...I bought the sparckle ones recommended. I found the problem to be I orientated the plates wrong I had to flip them over front to back..not a 180 if that helps at all :)

Also for the mobo make sure you put the memory in the right 2 slots. If its dual channel put one in a and one in b. If its single channel put them next to each other in a

I also had to upgrade the bios on my promise cards, lucky me I have a usb floppy drive I used. I also only did one card at a time to not cause any confusion.

RADIatiON

12-05-05, 08:26 PM

Just ran a parity check on my number one unRaid server which is loaded with ripped DVD files and it completed in less than 5 hours. I also completed installing the last four drives on my second unRaid server and it too completed the parity build in under 5 hours.
Hey Tom... just for ha-ha's... how much capacity are you driving now? :eek:

erikatcuse

12-05-05, 08:31 PM

Just installed 3 300gig drives and reinstalled my parity and first disk into 5 kingwin kf-21 trays. Yeah thats a lot of screws :eek: . I almost just used the black quick connects that came with the case but decided for the heat transfer the metal on metal would be a good thing :)

Now to let the drives format and I'll have 1.2tb with a 400gig parity drive.

Hmmmm....only 300 dvd's to rip

sonofdbn

12-05-05, 09:19 PM

Mark J. Foster

12-05-05, 09:41 PM

Hi, Sonofdbn!

Yup, the Cremax mobile caddy drive trays include small fans, and they don't spin down when the drives do. All in all, my system has 19 fans! 12 in the drive trays, 4 in the power supplies (two each), 2 case fans (top and rear), and 1 on my SATA drive controller (this is a different controller than other folks are using here).

It ain't exactly quiet! ;) Compared to many desktop PCs, it's not all that bad, but it isn't something that you're going to want in your living room or home theater...

Cheers!
MarkF

llogan

12-05-05, 10:55 PM

Ok, so according to lime the number of IDE drives has to max out at 12, so does anyone have recommendations for a rack mounted enclosure capable of support redundant power supplies and 12 hot swappable drive bays?

Thomas J. Coyle

12-05-05, 11:34 PM

Mark J. Foster

12-05-05, 11:54 PM

Hi, LLogan!

It depends a lot on your budget. If you're looking for a very high-quality case, the Chenbro 3U 12-bay cases are excellent. Unfortunately, you'll have to prepare to pay about $1500 for one including redundant power supplies.

Good Luck!
MarkF

J. L.

12-06-05, 01:23 AM

For those using trays: I assume they all come with fans? My (limited) experience is that the fans on the trays don't stop when the drive spins down. I'm worried that this box is going to be incredibly noisy with 12 trays in it.
I've got an unRaid server that I purchased assembled with all the trays from Tom at LimeTechnology. It sits on the floor to the right of my computer desk. I only have one power-supply in it switched on since I only have 4 disks in it so far.

It is quieter than almost any of the other PC's I have (other than the laptops) even with all the fans in the drive trays spinning. The CoolerMaster case makes a big difference. I guess they just don't put quiet fans in the budget priced cases I used for the other PCs.

Npw, don't get me wrong, it is not silent, but I have to lean towards the unRaid server and get within a few feet of it to hear the fans.

Joe L.

RADIatiON

12-06-05, 07:58 AM

RADiatiON,

For the record, the number one server has 2.8TB and the number two server has 2.9TB. The difference in capacity is due to several of the 250GBs in the number one server have been replaced by 300GB drives in the number two server.

Regards,
TCIIIHey Tom,
I think I speak for a bunch of us here... we hate you ! ;)

Seriously though... if I may quote the legendary Cartman "Sweeeeeeeeeeeet"

Thanks.

Mark J. Foster

12-06-05, 09:57 AM

Hi, LLogan!

If you're looking for other options, I just found another very high-quality alternative. The Supermicro SC933T-R760 (http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/3U/933/SC933T-R760.cfm) looks to be an outstanding case. It's a 3U rackmount, has triply-redundant 760W power, and supports 15 hot-swap SATA drive bays, including a real SATA backplane! It'll probably howl (hide it in a utility room or something), but a quick Froogle search says that it can be had for as little as ~$815, including the three power supplies.

Cheers!
MarkF

llogan

12-06-05, 10:55 AM

Pardon my ignorance, but are SATA bays capable of supporting IDE hard drives?

Mark J. Foster

12-06-05, 10:59 AM

Hi, LLogan!

Oops! Please accept my apologies if that's what you're looking for, because that won't work with "professional"-type server rackmounts that use drive backplanes. In that case, you'd be better off finding another more "DIY" type solution and building it yourself. Sorry about that.

Best Regards!
MarkF

da_hoodlum

12-06-05, 06:02 PM

Do we have ETAs on the following feature sets:

1) SATA support (to be able to use sata drives)
2) Full SATA support with spin down (as I read that the first SATA capabilites wont have the spin down

These are the two features that are stopping me from making the plunge right now.

And did I read it correctly that when Full SATA is supported that you can use SATA and ATA drives in the same unRAID?

llogan

12-06-05, 06:07 PM

Ok, despite the fact that I 'should' be working on something for a client, I've been really excited about trying to find a rack enclosure that'll work with the unRAID solution. I think I may have something but tell me if you think I'm wrong. The racks I found were located at http://www.rackmountmart.com/ The guy I spoke to there was really great and took his time explaining things and happily answered all of my questions, something to be said for that.

Anyway, my requirements in looking for this were the following:

Supports micro-ATX board
Provides a minimum of 12 hot swappable bays for IDE drives
Costs less than $1500

I didn't have a U requirement, I'm willing to sacrifice as much space as is required to make this work, however, I was looking to keep the U count to a minimum while being reasonable about space for cooling. I'd already given up my hopes of using some of the server cabinet space for my Tivos.

Ok, so what did I find?

Here's the link to the 2U (http://store.yahoo.com/rackmountmart/rm2uracchase.html) rack chassis. However, the maximum redundant power supply they sell with this chassis is 460W (both always on but supplying 230W apiece, with one module picking up for the other in case of failure)

Here's the link to the 3U (http://store.yahoo.com/rackmountmart/rm3uracchas12.html) rack chassis (this one supports a 3 module redundant power supply with two always on and a hot spare)

I will likely go with the 3U solution as it also supports front end real estate for a DVD drive, USB ports, etc. (not that I plan to use these while the chassis is being used with the unRAID solution but it at least affords me some ability to use the chassis for something else later if I'm so inclined).

Apparently the Intel D865GLCLK board that lime recommends has a 20pin + 4pin connection (whatever that means, but you'll need to know that when selecting your options at checkout). Cost for slide rails is extra too.

By no means am I saying that this is the best deal out there for a rack enclosure to work with the unRAID solution. However, given the time I've spent, the racks I've identified seem to meet the requirements necessary to support the solution.

Now after all of this, I'm STILL thinking about going with the tower solution because there'd be fewer headaches involved for me, because my rack space is at a premium, and because the price for the whole setup isn't all that bad IMHO.

Mark J. Foster

12-07-05, 09:16 AM

Hi, LLogan!

That looks like a pretty good choice. The cooling design doesn't look quite as nice as the SuperMicro or Chenbro cases, but it's probably fine. I personally would go with the 3U, 650W triple power supply version, though (the 2U box would almost certainly just crash if one of its 230W supplies croaked).

As far as motherboards go, older motherboards in general use two power supply connectors: a 20 pin primary connector, and a 4 pin auxiliary power connector for the CPU. Newer motherboards that use faster P4 or Athlon 64 processors tend to use a 24-pin primary connector and an 8-pin CPU connector, simply to support higher current levels. It's not a crucial issue, since adapter cables can usually adapt most power supplies to the appropriate motherboard connectors. What they can't do, of course, is to deliver more power! That's why you'll want to make sure that you pick a solution that offers enough system power.

If you don't go rackmount, the Stacker case that Tom chose is indeed an excellent one, and the Cremax drive trays are terrific! When I bought mine sight unseen, I hadn't realized how classy they are - they even have a hinged door so that if you pop one out, the system still has a clean, finished appearance. Kudos to Tom for selecting a truly high-quality setup! Once Tom gets the opportunity to release a rackmount version, I bet that he'll come up with something that's equally well designed! :)

Cheers!
MarkF

P.S. As much as I love the Stacker case, there is one point that bears attention, for folks that are building their own systems, rather than having Tom build one for them. On my own case, I spent a fair amount of time chasing some very strange problems until I finally realized that my case is out of spec mechanically: the PCI bracket attachment rail is too high, as compared to the motherboard mounting posts. The fix turns out to be easy: just place a couple of star washers underneath each of the motherboard mounting standoffs. Before that, I was getting some of the flakiest symptoms I'd ever seen! Not surprisingly, systems don't work very well if the expansion cards can't be fully seated in the motherboard! ;)

vitek76

12-07-05, 09:31 AM

Hi Tom,

Considering that you have not posted the suggested list of motherboards yet and the only one that you currently recommend is D865GLCLK, which I am not able to find in Canada and zipzoomfly won't ship anywhere else but the U.S., I would like to know if you could recommend (or tell me what your thoughts are with regards to my situation) what MB I should buy from the following list:

D945GCZLKR - video, Gig.Ethernet, SATA 300, micro-BTX
D915GEVLK - video, Gig.Ethernet, SATA, full ATX
D915GAGLK - video, Gig.Ethernet, SATA, micro-ATX
D915GUXLK - video, Gig.Ethernet, SATA, micro-ATX
D915GMHLK - video, Gig.Ethernet, SATA, micro-BTX
D945GNTLKR - video, Gig.Ethernet, SATA 300, full ATX
D945GTPLKR - video, Gig.Ethernet, SATA 300, micro-ATX

I am starting to build my system and the MB is where I am stuck right now.
So, it would be great if you could make a recommendation as far as newer MB's go. I am bulding a SATA version, if it makes any difference.

Thank you.

Thomas J. Coyle

12-07-05, 09:45 AM

Mark J. Foster,

I built two of the CM Stackers and never had a problem with the height of the motherboard in relation to the PCI card bracket mounting rail. Each of the Promise PCI controller cards seated correctly in the motherboard and attached without a problem to the bracket mounting rail.

Did you use the motherboard standoffs provided with the Stacker case because they are longer than the standard standoffs that usually come with a PC case? If you purchased a refurbed case, then the seller may not have had the correct mounting hardware to ship with the case.

Just a thought.

Regards,
TCIII

Mark J. Foster

12-07-05, 10:31 AM

Hi, Thomas!

Good idea! However, I didn't buy a refurb case - I purchased one brand new, and I did use the standoffs that came with it. I've had the bracket height problem with all four of the cards that I've placed in the system: an nVidia PCI video card, two different Highpoint RocketRAID 2320 PCIe/SATA2 controllers, and the Areca ARC-1230 PCIe/SATA2 RAID6 controller that I'm using for my final system configuration.

It's probably just a matter of normal production variance, but since it did pop up, I thought folks would be interested in knowing about it. In fact, I wonder if this is the cause of the unusually high number of refurbs that are available? If so, perhaps the refurbisher is just sticking longer standoffs in the box! ;)

Cheers!
MarkF

llogan

12-07-05, 01:02 PM

Here's the link to the 2U (http://store.yahoo.com/rackmountmart/rm2uracchase.html) rack chassis. However, the maximum redundant power supply they sell with this chassis is 460W (both always on but supplying 230W apiece, with one module picking up for the other in case of failure)

Here's the link to the 3U (http://store.yahoo.com/rackmountmart/rm3uracchas12.html) rack chassis (this one supports a 3 module redundant power supply with two always on and a hot spare)

Well, I found out that despite my asking about the 2U as an IDE rack mounted system, it currently only supports SATA. However, talked to Eddie at rackmountmart and he's making an inquiry about the PATA/IDE version. I'm still inclined to get the 3U anyway for better cooling.

Mark, relating to the power supplies that are in the 2U unit, there are two 460W power supplies, not 230W. The 230W is just what's being used on each of the 460W power supplies, if that makes sense (in effect, the second power supply isn't set up as a hot spare, rather both units are always working but only drawing 1/2 power on each one...unless one of the 460W fails, in which case the surviving one takes over the full load.)

BLKMGK

12-07-05, 10:22 PM

ednigma

12-08-05, 04:58 AM

vitek76

12-08-05, 06:51 AM

I may be mistaken but I think Tom sells a MB/CPU combo' on his site and I'm pretty sure he'd have no issues shipping to you. His price is fair compared to prices on the 'net. By buying OEM I only saved a few bucks <shrug>
True, but if you add shipping and duties and brokerage fees, my savings will be more than a few bucks... Besides, I am not too sure about a Celeron in my media server (I did read Tom's comments, but that's just me stubborn), and, finally, Tom's kit is PATA, and I am building a SATA version.

Tedd

12-08-05, 07:07 AM

Vitek76, I bought my D865GLCLK on Ebay after being unable to find it in Canada. After brokerage, taxes, and exchange, it came in under $150 CDN.

jimwhite

12-08-05, 08:08 AM

Had a heart-stopping experience last night.... I have a 12 drive array and disk6 needed to go back for an RMA, so I backed it (190gb on 300gb) up to a 200gb drive over the network, removed it and replaced it with the 200gb drive. Brought up the system and it said wrong disk, as expected, so I reset the array... it came up and said that the new disk6 was unformatted !!??? .... DOH!!.... the new disk6 is NTFS, not Reiser :D .... okay, remove new disk6 and restart the array with empty slot.... :eek: all sorts of processor exceptions, EID errors, etc... system halted.... :eek: :confused:.... re-installed NTFS disk6 and restarted, and all is okay again!!! Let Parity scan finish, and my "unformatted" disk6 was untouched and simply is off line... WHEW!! WTF ?????? :confused:

Thomas J. Coyle

12-08-05, 09:25 AM

ednigma,

You might have to bridge the two NICs in Windows on your main system to get the second NIC to work correctly.

Regards,
TCIII

Thomas J. Coyle

12-08-05, 09:28 AM

jimwhite,

Even though Tom at Lime Tech has said that the OS will automatically update the array when a new drive is installed or a drive is swapped, like you, I have had to reset the array to get the new drive to be formatted and the parity updated.

I have informed Tom at Lime Tech about this non-automatic update of the array when a drive is either swapped or replaced, but he has not gotten back to me concerning this issue.

Regards,
TCIII

erikatcuse

12-08-05, 10:39 AM

My main computer has a built in IntelPRO1000 network adapter that I was using to connect to my 10/100 router which is connected to my broadband modem. I want to use a xover cable to connect my unRaid server to my main system and still have my connection to the internet. I installed a spare 10/100 pci network adapter and connected my router to it. I can get to the internet through this adapter.

I connected the xover cable directly to my unRaid server. On my main system, the Intel Proset diags show a green light on the link and a speed of 1Gb. Problem is I can't seem to get to my shares. They don't show up when I try to map network drives. I can't link to the management page using IE. If I plug the unRaid server into my router, everything seems to work fine.

I've never tried to set up a computer with two network adapters before. I must be missing somthing here.

Thanks for your help!
Ed

I'm using a cross over cable to my laptop just fine. First I'm assuming your router is auto DHCP and is assinging your server all the proper numbers. Look in the network.cfg file on the unraid flash drive.

It should look like this
# Generated network settings
USE_DHCP=yes
IPADDR=
NETMASK=
GATEWAY=

You'll need to set these values

# Generated network settings
USE_DHCP=no
IPADDR=192.168.?.? I use 192.169.1.15 to be on a seperate subnet
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=

and you'll have to manually set the ip address manually in the tcp/ip setting of windows. The first time to see my shares I typed \\192.169.1.15 into run

Hope this helps

boykster

12-08-05, 11:26 AM

Besides, I am not too sure about a Celeron in my media server (I did read Tom's comments, but that's just me stubborn)

If the only role your media server is going to play is a fileserver (like unRaid) you really do only need a celeron/duron. I have a linux box that I use (not unRaid, but running Fedora Core) with 2 3-ware RAID cards that only has a 1Ghz Duron. Avg cpu usage? -> 0.5%

No need for a whiz bang fast processor. I have spare old faster cpus that would drop right in (Athlon XP1900), but there's no need....

Just my $0.02

Rich

RADIatiON

12-08-05, 04:36 PM

Well... I just found out that the D865GLCLK and it's brothers have been marked as EOL'd (End of Life) from one of my suppliers (my company buys wholesale from distributors in Ontario). I'm hoping that the one that I ordered from a place out west in canada will still be able to get it to me.

Before you ask... none of my local distributors had stock (well.. they had the Bulk pack of 10... now that's out of stock too), and the place out west said 1-3 days... plus I ordered a new Ahanix case from them... so... made sense to place the order for the mobo from them too.

I guess we are going to need some alternative mobos.

Cheers

vitek76

12-08-05, 05:05 PM

erikatcuse

12-08-05, 05:43 PM

I'm sure when the new SATA version comes out it will be a newer board. Also older boards cost less and as in a previous post you don't need huge amounts of cpu power to run a media server.

vitek76

12-08-05, 07:14 PM

I'm sure when the new SATA version comes out it will be a newer board. Also older boards cost less and as in a previous post you don't need huge amounts of cpu power to run a media server.

I am hoping that there will be one.

The point that you make about the cost is not exactly correct. If I were to order one from zipzoomfly (let's assume they ship to Canada), my total cost including shipping and duties will be around $160 Canadian. Someone mentioned earlier that he was able to get one from eBay for $150 shipped. Now, the newer boards that I mentioned in my earlier post are readily available at my local store and sell for $132-148 (plus tax) Canadian. Seems like the difference in total cost is insignificant, but I will be getting a newer board with more features. I'd rather pay for extra features than shipping and damn brokerage fees.

I hope you understand where I am coming from. I am just looking for reasonalble alternative options to the recommended configuration and that willl also be supported.

BLKMGK

12-08-05, 10:31 PM

They didn't pick an old board because it was old, they chose it because the hardware config of the board - unlike others they looked at - allowed the Gig port and the PCI bus to operate in a fashion that they didn't interfere with one another. Tom explained this fairly early on and explained that some boards shared bus\support chips in a fashion that made performance suffer when both the Gig port and HDs were heavily loaded.

In short - they had their reasons for choosing this board - it wasn't random.

Thomas J. Coyle

12-08-05, 10:39 PM

vitek76

If it does the job, then use it. I already knew that this Intel motherboard was on the way out when I bought it. However it is a mature board design that has the attributes necessary to make it an inexpensive server. There were a number of us that did not hesitate to jump on the unRaid bandwagon and were therefore able to procure the motherboard without any problems. Waiting to see what is going to transpire with the early adopters sometimes leads to availability issues later.

I do not need a dual processor Xenon or Optron motherboard and hardware raid card to have a reliable home server. I like a balanced approach in the money I spend on my AV and HTPC hardware and unRaid system fits very well.

Just a thought.

Regards,
TCIII