A first look at NZFS and replacing unRAID with NZFS’s Transparent RAID (tRAID) - Page 9

True, I'm not sure you can get that great of a trial in 14 days. Not that you are being unfair with 14 days.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=reiserfs+windows ...Couldn't resist
I think Unraid is a much better option if you are considering this. Any guides for this?

You wouldn't need to disconnect current drives(you should) as long as you don't accidentally add them to the array but yes you would need a spare drive but if you are convinced you need external storage of some sort you are going to be buying drives no matter which way you go.

The main function of the pre-clear is to eliminate a possibly faulty drive when adding a new drive / replacing another one. It just gives the drive a real work out and what a pre-clear does in like 10 hours is something equal to like weeks and weeks of real world running time. Of course there is SMART reporting checks and all that in unraid. Call it a burn-in test. All this talk about such a trivial function.

That's a plus of unraid. You really don't need to know how to work it for it to work. It just works. I have an unraid server of 20TB. I have 14 drives. It boots off an USB flash and I don't have to admin or take care of an OS with applying updates or ant-virus programs. I literally got it running in about 30 minutes. This is why I choose unraid over Flexraid at the beginning. Does FlexRaid eat a whole drive for the OS? Is is possible to setup Flexraid in 30 minutes and be up and running? I would love to try it, but when you have something that has been working good and stable for a few years it is hard to change. I've had 3 hard drive failures over a few years and never lost any data. So it does work.

This is a statement I've heard many times, but I still don't understand. It's less that you don't NEED to take care of normal OS admin stuff as much as its that you CAN'T reasonably do so with unRAID. There's still a full OS underneath, you're just not doing anything to admin it. If you're fine with that, why wouldn't you be fine with running any other unpatched, unprotected Linux or Windows operating system?

macks seems to be the only one defending unraid with his life. Maybe your marketing scheme isn't working spectrum

Yes.

I answered the question of what you do with your data if you try Unraid and don't like it. I'm not sure what is senseless about that!

Loading programs onto your Windows machine is senseless? :P

I thought I was just answering and asking questions. Except for you who just make blanket statements without providing any reason.

We need more diehard unraid fans like you to make this thread more interesting. Keep up the good work

I read the whole thread and still don't understand what switching to NZFS will do for me. I barely managed to put together an Unraid server. Had tons of trouble with MB/MCM but got them working eventually. However, the server just works. It has a preclear tool to stress test the HD before adding it to the raid which only takes seconds. It has parity drive to protect against drive failures. That is pretty much all I need. All I do is rip Blu Rays and sometimes music CDs to the server. Just going by first post, I don't think I'm the target audience.
Edited by agentpaul - 2/24/13 at 7:07pm

RELEASE MORE INFO

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Are you going to patent NZFS? Or maybe license it to NAS makers in the future?

I wish you luck, and I will keep an open mind... but I don't think 'tRAID" or "NZFS" will be anywhere in the same league as ZFS proper. I like a good boast now and then, but this last statement is just ridiculous.

Feel free to take this criticism and prove me wrong. I won't be mad.

Well one thing you could do is to provide an answer to the performance question. What is the write performance of FlexRaid (current, future whatever version) when doing online parity? People are now comparing apples and oranges when stating their current FlexRaid has superior write speed compared to UnRaid. Since currently available FlexRaid does not have online parity, you should compare it to UnRaid with cache drive setup. And you will get the almost identical, one drive maximum, performance from both solutions. And since UnRaid supports both online and delayed parity it's the superior product considering this feature. Btw, this is now the third time in this very thread when I'm presenting this question without an answer from Spectrumbx.

But moving on to something yet untouched. There are few features in UnRaid which I've become to value and I would like to know whether they exist in Flexraid (current, future versions).

Fusion file system, disk and user shares
UnRaid provides access to data through both disk and user shares. Disk shares are simply the individual drives with all their content seen through a share directory per drive (\\unraid-server\disk1, \\unraid-server\disk2). User shares by default combine root-level directories of individual disks into a single "fused" share directory through which you can access your data independent from the actual disk. For instance I have blu-ray and dvd directories on most of the disks in my array and UnRaid provides an user share for both of them (\\unraid-server\blu-ray, \\unraid-server\dvd). I can use these shares when configuring Plex media libraries. When I add a new drive to the array and create a blu-ray directory, it is automatically part of the user share and I don't have to touch my Plex configuration.

Another aspect of disk and user shares is that you can make user shares read only. And that's what I do; I do all my data management using disk shares and provide access to clients through the user shares. This prevents any unwanted changes (moving, deletion) from being happening. If you have kids accessing your music collection and perhaps using file explorer to drag-and-drop files from the library to their phones, you know there is a high chance something going awry. And it's also good to protect the data from the admin himself

There a lot other aspects to the user shares but the above two are my favorites.

Cache dirs
This is a plugin for UnRaid which is a total must have for any htpc owner (see here). It simply keeps the directory/file entries cached in memory to avoid disks from unnecessarily spinning up. For instance when you browse directories with Windows file explorer the target disk will spin up if you don't have the directory/file entries cached. This plugin works wonderfully and the disk will spin up only if you access the file contents.

Caching the directory/file entries also has a very drastic effect on Plex library updates; since the entries are stored in memory, Plex will process all the unchanged items with lightning speed and only if it finds some changed or new items it will cause that particular drive to spin up.

Energy consumption and drive strain
When reading from UnRaid, you are accessing only a single drive. With standard striped raid array all the the drives are accessed. When writing UnRaid writes to two drives (target and parity), standard striped array to all drives. With UnRaid individual unused drives spin down, with standard striped raid array only the whole array can spin down. A single drive under load uses ~10W and ~2W when idle. Anyone can do the math whether this results in a significant yearly savings in their case.

To keep it simple it would offer you two things:

Multi-parity support and support for more than 20 array drives. At about 10 drives I would start considering a multi-partiy solution.

You would give up some less important features and gain new ones, also.

OK, you got me there. I was looking at it from the perspective of setting up a server from scratch, but you're absolutely right in that you can try it on an existing Windows platform. Then again, what if your Windows PC is your only PC? You'd need at least two PCs to see how well it performs as a server over your home network. You can certainly install FlexRAID on a PC to see if you like the look and feel of it, but then I'm not sure you'd be able to access the web UI from the same PC. I'd consider that an important point since that would be the primary control interface once the server is up and running.
That depends entirely on your data. If it were me, I wouldn't place data on the drives that I was overly concerned about if I was just evaluating the product. I'd probably just rip a few movies to the server and see how well it performs. You could always transfer the data over to another drive if need be. I really don't understand the question since it's somewhat moot.

So you're basically just promoting vaporware? I've seen too many developers boasting how great their product is when it actually never sees the light of day. Until we see it, it's all BS.

Yep - making claims about being comparable to/competitive with ZFS when no actual technical details have been presented is ludicrous. Even then, ZFS has had years of solid usage and research behind it, constant improvements from a huge pool of developers, and a proven track record.

For someone who claims to be a programmer and not a marketer, all of this has read more like marketing nonsense.

I've been using unRAID for about 6 years and I just don't have reason to use anything else. New options are always great, but I read these threads and despite the various opinions, I still consider myself happier with unRAID than most do with whatever they decide on every year or two.

Yes the size matters, no the 20TB does not matter. It's the number of titles in your library that takes longer. My video library has 1450 titles, and there are 20 tv series with about 2300 individual episodes
You can run it on your server, and I've ran it both ways. Neither were a problem with performance
It takes a while to lock all of your media. Afterwards you only unlock individual titles to change something, not everything. You can keep the main "windowed" list filtered for anything unlocked. If you keep closing and reopening MCM your performance will always suck. It runs best in the background all the time
You add all of the folders as scan folders, and lock everything that is already complete. Then lock every additional title as it is completed. Unlock only a title that needs changing and it takes a trivial amount of time
It might take a long time the first scan, but after everything is loaded and locked the scan takes a trivial amount of time to run
My library is complete, and I didn't have to mess with it constantly. I have used it both across the LAN and on a single server or windows box

Yeah, I'm interested in de-bottleknecking. It's basically what I do for a living

The fact is, there is currently no possible way that anyone has come forth with to get rid of a keyboard when using makemkv. So the idea that "constantly changing" your makemkv directory slows performance doesn't hold water. I doubt you have the appropriately titled folder in your directory before ripping a movie. So much lookup and typing needs to be done as it is. If you put an extra 5% effort there, you'd get huge returns in MCM. Yes, I constantly change my makemkv directory, but to me it's no different than adding the new folder with the appropriate name which I have to do every time no matter what directory it goes into. You just click the folder icon next to the directory and point to the right location. It's literally 4 extra mouse clicks. I keep makemkv and themoviedb open side by side, and I always use the full name and year for the folder AND the title. It's a copy paste to rename the "New Folder" and I just paste one more time over Title00. I never let MCM change names. As long as it's not changing the name of your titles (which it doesn't need to if you use the correct one to begin with) it can scan while makemkv is ripping. It will have metadata added before makemkv is done ripping usually

If you had a more optimized way of ripping without using a keyboard then it would make more sense to spend your time in MCM. Since there isn't one, it makes more sense to spend minimal extra effort in makemkv then let MCM run on autopilot. If you don't like the poster you can change it manually or through the MCM interface. Every once in a while, lock all new titles and repeat

And you said you aren't good at starting flame wars.

I am very happy doing it the way I do. I did not start doing it this way. I evolved to it. I started doing it your way. I know both ways work just fine. I just prefer to rip to my scratch disc in the same folder every time and then do the media mgmt. I only copy over new media once or twice a week. Often 10-20 items at a time and often 200GB+ of data a a time.

I do name the folder the name of the movie I am ripping. That way if the actualy video file is something like Title01.mkv then if the folder is named right it still works fine. Mediacentermaster renames it perfectly as I want it.

I just like only having perfect media in my libraries. Since I can rip today and manage or finish tomorrow with my method I prefer it for that reason. I will often start a process and walk away and return later. I don't have the time to sit there all the time. That's really the whole point of this all and why I appreciate the higher performance. When I want to do a task I want to get it done as fast and efficiently as possible.

I must have an issue that you do not have. I'd be happy to set my mediacentermaster to scan a few media libraries. Just the TV shows and HD movies alone would bring it to it's knees. I am serious. It would take at least a full minute for it to even open up. My personality can not tolerate waiting a minute for a program to launch or open. It might be a personal defect, I am born this way. Happy to admit it. But- I take great effort to accommodate this personal weakness and not expose it. Patience is hard for me. Slow is frustrating for me. I'm sure someone who does not mind clicking the mouse and staring at the screen for 30+ seconds might not take as much offense as I do. I laugh sometimes when I see my dad click his laptop to open something and then just sit there and wait. I'd have smashed and replaced that old laptop years ago. lol.

Sure there is. I only use a mouse with MakeMKV. A keyboard is not necessary.
Actually, he's not. I learned quite some time ago that getting goaded into a flame war online is completely futile and non-productive. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't poke the bear from time to time with a few words of my own. The thing about public forums is that they're primarily nothing but someone's opinions. You know what they say about opinions, they're like a**holes. Everybody has one and some people are one.
Edited by captain_video - 2/25/13 at 10:26am

You only need a keyboard if you want to name or rename a folder or file. If you cool with the name it rips as then yes you do not need a mouse.
I rip on my desktop because I like precision.

I have a $100 gaming mouse on a $60 mouse pad. $120 keyboard. Nice Chair. Triple monitors. I could not do what I do on a laptop or some crap set up in the corner. It would take me twice as long.
I'm all about speed. I get satisfaction from excellence, high performance, speed and efficiency. For that you need a keyboard. I did not bother correcting him but technically you are right. I just don't see why someone would be using makemkv without access to a keyboard.

I have no keyboard on my HTPC. I have no Keyboard on my Server either.

That's the whole advantage to a media server. I do stuff on the superior machine

So, NZFS is a file system?

I really hope you are not building a new file system and just using something existing.

Patent war?

I don't use Flexraid but I'd like to have the option in the future. A patent war could easily destroy that idea though.