Want to build a NAS...RAID 5 ro unRAID? Also, how powerful does the PC need to be?

where did you read this and better in what sense? I found it a good middle ground, no need for expensive hardware raid cards (unless your planning to do your raid5 in software, and if that is in windows or linux, so it depends).

In raid 5 if you lose 2 drives, you lose data on all drives, unlike in unraid.
Also, expanding wise, you can add different sized disks to expand unraid, unlike raid5, where even bigger sized disks will only be able to use the same size as the smallest drive in your array.
Last, unraid was a piece of cake to implement , but prob for me, since i dunno anything about linux.

Linux is much less resource intensive so you can use a slowish CPU so it can be almost silent. The biggest heat source in my NAS is the drives. I have a 1Ghz PIII running Fedora core 4 which is quite old now but has all the functionality I require.



The drives in the above image all all close together so I think the stray drive temp is down to the sensor as it ha been like that since new.
For 1.5Tb you'd need 4x500Gb and 2Tb 5x500Gb or more expensively 750Gb/1Tb drives.
You need to think about the controller for a large number of drives.

Planning on using motherboard/CPU you've already got, or are you buying new? You're correct that you can get by fine with onboard sound and video

I picked up a D201GLY2 for what is essentially just storage (I'm also running a print server on it) for $70... threw in a stick of DDR2-533 RAM and a PCI RAID card and now I can run 2 SATA drives and 6 IDE drives for under $100 investment (I had my own drives, power supply, and case). The thing draws 3W at idle and 30W at full load, but I don't drive it at full load becuase it's just a bunch of disks. It's passively cooled, but I'd ensure some fan (even just the power supply fan) is running; the CPU hits about 70C without that.

It won't meet your needs if you're planning on more than the aforementioned 8 drives, or want more SATA. In that case I'd pick up a cheap integrated graphics motherboard and a cheaper processor. Unless you're going to be crunching data or video or something, even something as small as a 1GHz processor is way sufficient.

There's even a BSD variant called FreeNAS which gets rave reviews; had I not had the print server need I would have gone with it.

I guess I played it middle ground and just used 2 ICH8R motherboards (Intel Raid5 format) each with 2TB of storage. One of them is my gaming computer while the other is a dedicated NAS. I rather have one extra layer of redundancy (ie one drive can fail and raidset is not lost) rather then have to rip the 500+ dvd/hddvds I have again. That I'm afraid would cause me to pull my hair out...

If you are doing hardware RAID, the horsepower needed is very little as the RAID calculations are done on the RAID card. - But by your post, it doesn't seem that you are going to use hardware RAID.

Unraid - low horsepower needed. check the list of supported hardware on the Unraid forums. A caveat with Unraid is a 14 drive physical limit, and I was never quite happy with their data transfer performance. Too slow for "my" taste, but may be ok for you.

Windows software RAID - need medium level performance. A typical hardware raid card translates to about 1.2GHz in CPU power.

Onboard video and audio - Why would you choose anything else? This is a NAS, there should be no KB/Mouse/Monitor even connected to it after the initial install. (caveat: Make sure any motherboard you choose can boot without a keyboard, or atleast will let you bypass the KB error when POSTing).

That's nothing, and IMO, doesn't deserve a dedicated PC (ie unRAID). For that amount of space I'd just get a NAS box and stick a couple big HDDs in it.

If you are just planning on storing dvd rips on this system why not just buy a bunch of external USB/esata hard drives and plug them into your HTPC when you want to watch a movie thats on a particular drive? Much cheaper than having to build a dedicated box, the disks can be turned off when not in use (save power) and with the cost of external drives being just a few bucks more than internal its a no brainer.

How do you know which drive to get? What if what you want to watch is not on the drive that's connected?

Kind of defeats the purpose of ripping IMO.

stranger89,

Simple, if you don't mind the drives running all the time you connect them to a USB hub and have as many drives as you want connected to the PC at the same time. There is also s/w that will index the drives for you so you know which movie is contained on what drive. You could number all your drives as well.

If you're planning to buy new, take a look at the Celeron 420. I got one for under $40, paired it with an eVGA e-7100 mobo ($60 after rebate). I added a $25 Monuel case (down from $180) and a $45 (after rebate) 650W Antec PSU and three 750 GB WD drives at $155 each. Also $10 for a 1 GB thumbdrive to run unRAID. Under $700 (with taxes, shipping) for 1.5 GB of usable space in an unRAID server. I haven't received the stuff yet, so I hope it'll all play nicely together. I'll keep you posted if anyone cares. I have a further 4 750 GB drives that I'll add to the array eventually.

Drive limit has been raised to 16 (15 data, one parity).

You are correct, data transfers are slower than some other solutions, but since the speed is a large multiple of what even an HD movie requires, it is fast enough for most folks. My performance is roughly 5X what is needed for an HD movie, so I can comfortably handle multiple video and audio streams.

what is the transfer rate?

Hello. I'm relatively new posting to AVS forums. However, I have a couple questions about storing and retrieving movies. I understand it's possible to rip DVDs to a NAS, but I have around 600+ and am getting tired of dealing with movie retrieval from stacked Sony 400-disc changers using unnamed mftrs' interface devices. So, if there is another forum thread about this already, I won't waste any of your time with it here--just please direct me and I'll head that way. Basically, I am looking for the best way to store and retrieve my movies, preferably with some sort of indexing software/device that shows coverart/titles/synopsis/etc. and that can be integrated with my control system (IR is fine). I have the infrastructure in place to handle streaming video; Gigabit Ethernet throughout and wireless-N, but would prefer wired for many obvious reasons. Thanks for any help/suggestions in advance!

I get 35-40M/sec reads and 10-15M/sec writes.

Remember, for a media streamer writes are just not that important...I would MUCH rather have a solution that only spins up one drive when I'm pulling data to play back then one that has to spin up 5+ drives to do it.

I would also rather have a solution that is flexable and can take damn near any disk I want to add to it over one that requires the members of the array be the same.

Finally I chose unRAID mostly because of the ability to pull a disk...slap a larger disk in it's place...rebuild the data that was on the smaller drive and have the extra space for data...rather then having to rebuild an array and dealing with offloading TBs of data while I did so.

BTW: that 10-15M number is due to my parity drive being on a slower "single" SATA port on my mother board. I could move that to one of the main bus and likely get a little better performance...but I'd rather have read performance then write for this application.

Check here for the storage solution: http://www.lime-technology.com/
Here for Vista MC Movie organization: http://www.mymovies.dk/home.aspx
And here for Vista TV Show organization: http://mytv.senseitweb.com/

I love that theory, that's why I was initially excited about WHS and it's drive pooling and folder copy (until I really looked into it and it's copies, not parity).

However here's the deal killer for me with unRAID, you really can't run anything on it, it's a NAS, and it's very limited like a NAS. Problem with that is it's running on a full-up PC hardware wise. I've already got a Server that has to run Windows to support the apps I run on it, and it needs to run 24/7 (it's my PVR/media server), so unRAID would require me to run two full-up PCs 24/7.

Yes the unRAID can spin down unused disks, but it still requires powering the rest of the PC, something that's pulling on the order of 50-75W continuously (if not more).

Compare that with a RAID array (only other way to get decently-efficient redundancy) and that's the equivalent of between 6 and 10 HDDs (8W/drive). Or 12-20 WD Cavair GPs (3-4W/drive).

From a power perspective, the benefit of not running unused discs seems dubious when you take into account the fact that a PC must be powered to get that benefit.


This is probably the biggest real benefit of unRAID, but still I'd rather have a small number of matched drives and replace them than a bazillion mismatched smaller drives (again for power efficiency).


You don't have to offload data to expand RAID arrays, all the worthwhile RAID solutions offer Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) and RAID Level Migration (RLM). With these you can add drives and expand the array, or replace drives. And (I believe) in the case of the 3ware 95xx series at least, I think you can create a second volume out of the unused space on the larger drive(s), or you can expand the volume when you get them all replaced.

I'm a very happy unraid user. I've set up a large 14TB server that has worked flawlessly. I agree with previous poster, write speeds are a bit of a pain, but with the server using Intel PRO/1000 NIC, I get pretty good read speeds (enough for multiple HD movies being streamed to multiple PCs on gigabit ethernet).

I use a CM stacker case and 5 in 3 drive cages.... Couldn't be better.

Another benefit of unraid is that you can add drives as you go... and drives of different sizes and brands (provided they are smaller than the parity drive) with many RAID 5 solutions you are fixed to the number of drives you have and expansion is hard. Also, comment on 2 drive failure shouldn't be overlooked.... RAID 5 probably lost the lot, unraid... lost 2 drives worth (sinc eno stripping). Go to www.lime-technology.com and take a look... I spent many months reseraching DIY NAS and this is pretty much as good as it got.

FriarTuck (unaffiliated with unraid).

I'm simply planning to turn off my unRAID machine when I'm asleep or at work, unless I'm writing to it. I don't need media streamed to anywhere when I'm not there to enjoy it.
My unRAID machine will be strictly for playback and storage. I don't think it'll be sitting there idle with no discs spinning for very long each day.

10-15 mbytes/sec is slower than a single drive write. I may have expected that from a RAID1 running on a shared IDE bus, but on modern hardware...?

Write performance is *not* one of UnRAID's strengths.

The big thing for me is the protection from single-drive failures, much like RAID5 - but without the risk of total array loss from multi-drive (or controller) failure that goes with striped arrays. Each drive has a normal linux filesystem, and keeps working with or without the others.

For me, it's a good tradeoff for home media storage. Plus it's just darn cool that the whole OS runs on a thumb drive - no boot HD or partition required.

That's what RAID-6 is for


Ah, but I've got my music on my NAS and stream it to work via my server, so I'm actively using my server/NAS on/off mostly the whole time I'm awake, and it's usually recording something during the time I'm not.`

BUILDING A nas. IMO you need to ask yourself what do you really want it for.

Myself, I got caught up in building a Server with originally some spare parts laying around. Reading these forums and before I new it I was planning on hardware raid card and new power supply not to mention operating system.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I took one step back and realized what am I trying to acomplish. For me it was 95% going to be used as a media storage (DVR) and 5% for DVD IMG's, pics and music.

I found I did not care if I lost any content if drive fails cause everything imortant (mostly pics and home vids) are already hard copied and backed up.
I wanted to have a NAS cause I plan on getting Sage TV with the HD media Extender and wanted to be able to stream my stuff over my network to 2 tvs

Taking a look on what it out there and my price range and needs I found this D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay lhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16822155003
to fit my needs perfectly. It took 5 minutes to setup and powers hard drive down/up automatically. I run it raid 0 and it steams HD content perfectly through my gigabit network. I coupled it with 2 500gb HDD (WD SE16's on sale for $99 each at NEW-EGG)

I absoultly love it and for my needs it works perfectly. I plan on purchsing another one with 2 1tb drives once the prices come down.

If you're going to go the Linux route with unRAID, why not run a full fledged Linux distro with significantly more options, is vastly more customizeable, has much better performance, not to mention full control over your file system, ability to use LVM, etc? Most non-commercial Linux distros are free, so they've more or less achieved parity in that respect with the base offering of unRAID. I had outstanding reliability and performance with Fedora as my host for several years, but recently switched back to WinXP Pro x64 so I could have an inexpensive off-site backup provider.

I just don't understand the appeal of unRAID, I really don't. Sure it's free and relatively easy to install, but you're also limited on what you can deploy with it, not to mention the paltry performance.

I'm with Stanger89 on this.

Just retired my ReadyNAS x6 (4-bay NAS RAID 5). Why?

I already have a powerful Home Server loaded with tuners/Firewire for home PVR, media server, SlimServer for music, etc. all on a UPS.

Why do I need the horribly underpowered (for anything other than file server) separate NAS that is loud, needs a UPS too, and has severely limited expansion. It is a great appliance....if I did not already have a 24/7 server (any buyers for my x6?).

Why should I add another PC with UPS for a more flexible storage solution? More equipment, more space, more things to maintain, higher MTBF, less efficient.

OK..so I want to add RAID storage to my Home Server. The last thing I need is to put any more restrictions on operating system type and OS version, motherboard chipset, etc. etc. Getting all my "other" stuff PVR, drivers etc. etc. working properly places enough restrictions, the last thing I need is to add yet another "function" (RAID storage) that paints me into another requirement corner.

What do I do? I pay $300 for a 3Ware 9500s-12 port sata hardware RAID card off e-bay. OS independent, motherboard chipset independent, self contained web server for setup and maintenance...it places NO restrictions on my Home Server.

Oh yeah...the Home server is in a CM Stacker. I poped in two 5-in-3 drive cages, and now I can hot-swap adding drives (up to 12), auto volume expansion, raid level migration, I can create multiple units with different RAID levels, different drive sizes. So after lets say 6 drives @750gb each, I may create a new RAID 5 array with 1.5 TB drives (when they are available). I can designate a hot spare drive that will automatically add into a unit with a failed drive immediately reducing the risk of data loss for two near simultaneous drive failures.

A few days ago I had to change to a new MB in my server, No problems, just needed the 3Ware driver loaded, plug in the 3Ware card, and all my data was there.

Best decision I have made.

Today, you think you want between 1.5 and 2.0 TB. I did too, then 1.5 yrs later I wanted 3 TB, and now I am thinking about 6 TB.

As Stanger89 suggests, get a $175 NAS 2-bay RAID 1 appliance today, throw in two 750gb drives, and when you're ready, migrate your 750's to a longer term solution (and sell the NAS for $100)..net loss to get a better idea...$75.00.

But to be clear on all of this.....the compelling case is IF you already have the need in your home for a more powerful 24/7 PC for other server duties. If you really only need a dumb file server running 24/7, then NAS appliance or dedicated unRaid might be right.

The P4 is a wimp from a modern standpoint, but again: should be sufficient for what you're asking it to do.

I'm currently using NAS standalones. I have about 4 TB over 6 hard drives attached to NAS devices. It's just not enough, not to mention that since I'm doing 1:1 backups, my actual capacity is half that of my drives. If I want to expand now, I need to buy more NAS devices, which also mean I need more ports on my router/switch.
The cost of my unRAID components was way less than the cost of my 2 NAS devices, plus the additional USB connected external cases. I'll be selling my 2-bay QNAP TS-201 and recouping over half the cost of my unRAID device.

We're getting away from cheap here, but you could get (for example) a multilane SATA RAID card and an Infiniband external HDD enclosure. Or you could go SAS or eSATA too.


My server (with 8, 250s) is run by an Athlon XP 1800+.


Probably the biggest thing you should really think about today, with HDD sizes what they are, is how much space you really want, and what you want to put on it. IMO for "replaceable" content (DVD rips, mp3s, etc) if you only need 1-2TB, it would be very hard to justify doing anything as extravagant as (un)RAID. You can do 2TB by simply sticking two drives in your PC.


(In the case of a 3ware) If you've got hot-swap cages, you slap a new drive in (while the PC is up), select the array you want to add it to, pick the new drive, hit migrate, tell it what RAID level/block size and hit go. The array is "online" during the migration so you can still use it. Once the array is migrated you have to expand the partition (or create a new one).


OCE/RLM