cheap unRaid NAS build

[Rudy81]

Excellent, 5.12beta it is. Since it is a new build and I will have time test it, no harm in going with the latest build.

I have three 4 port gig-E switches. I decided to just go for the latest router since it sits near two of my machines. I figured instead of another $40 switch, I'd just get the $120 router and be fully capable of any upgrades including an N wireless router. Right now I have the 25Meg down and 5Meg up speed. Might just upgrade to 35Meg down to max out the system.

For now, I don't plan on accessing the array from the WAN, but you never know.

I decided on three 1TB WD enterprise Black drives for robust operation since I originally planned on the FreeNas RAID 5 type server. Probably overkill in an unRAID machine, but they were already purchased.

The motherboard for the unRAID system currently sits in my HTPC. So, first I have to backup my data on that system, pull the mobo, install the new Asus EM35M-1 Pro on the HTPC case, install Win7 and migrate the old board to the new unRAID case. This will take a little time. Then on to the unRAID build which should be simple enough. Build the server, install the Flash system, boot the system and then start the 'preclear' process....that process will likely take 24 hours or so with all the the drives being cleared simultanously.

I am planning on formatting all the unRAID drives in 4k sectors vs. 512bytes since the 4k is backward compatible. It seems the unRAID community is very active and there is plenty of support on the forum. Hopefully I won't into any major problems. All my hardware is in the compatibility list in one form or another. Once I get the basic free system up and running, I will then buy the key and expand the array.

If I understand the system correctly, the best thing to do from there is to load all the data without the parity and cache drives being assigned. Once the data is all there, then assign the pairty drive and let the system create the parity drive, which should take quite a bit of time. Then, it should all be running as designed.

As far as the HTPC, it will use Win 7 WASAPI and JRiver media center to access the unRAID server and stream music to my Integra......should work....I think.

[Thaddeus Smith]

Excellent, 5.12beta it is. Since it is a new build and I will have time test it, no harm in going with the latest build.

I have three 4 port gig-E switches. I decided to just go for the latest router since it sits near two of my machines. I figured instead of another $40 switch, I'd just get the $120 router and be fully capable of any upgrades including an N wireless router. Right now I have the 25Meg down and 5Meg up speed. Might just upgrade to 35Meg down to max out the system.

makes sense!

yes, do your mega-transfer first. While the parity drive makes everything safer, it also makes the system slower. The cache drive is supposed to help speed things up, both both drives should be added after your initial data dump so that you're only dealing with incremental data additions thereafter.

[cyclonecj]

Hey guys... Been watching this thread. I have been running an Unraid server for about 5 years, & have never had a problem. I only have 3 drives in it with an older HP motherboard in it. It easily outruns everything I have ever tried to do to it, so speed has never been a concern.

Something else I have been using is Subsonic. It’s a free program used for streaming to anything in your house, & you can also port it out to the internet, making your library accessible anywhere. Also works on Ipad, Iphone, android, etc. Check it out!

[Thaddeus Smith]

cool, thanks for chiming in - glad to hear of successful usage for such a long time. I've used subsonic in the past and it's definitely on my list for re-install on this new media front end server I'm putting together.

[Rudy81]

It has been a long day configuring the box, drives and motherboard. The install of 5.0 beta 14 has been flawless so far. As I type this, the drives are whizzing away in the preclear process. Overall pretty painless thus far.

[Thaddeus Smith]

sweet! i'll be getting a couple of 2tb drives this weekend and will then begin the setup/preclear process.

[holtrp]

Interesting thread.

We recently picked up a new ATV3 for the 1080p and Airplay / iTunes match compatibility. We also recently got rid of our digital television service so I went ahead and jailbroke the ATV1 and installed ATV flash "firecore" software on it to take advantage of our empty HDMI port. I have been playing around with XBMC and have to say for $40 worth of software it makes for quite a impressive media server. The customization features are almost limitless and it is well worth a look for anyone building a network media server IMHO. Obviously, running on a ATV1, it is extremely limited by the processing power, storage capacity and cumbersome interface, but it certainly has breathed new life into my ATV1 for a lossless music player, DVD / 'shared' media player. I think the obvious next step to realize XBMC''s full potential is to get a custom Linux machine. Anyone else have experience with XBMC?

[Rudy81]

I took a look at XBMC a while back and a couple of other streaming front ends. I settled on JRiver Media Center and never looked back. Their support is top notch and they constantly develop upgrades and improvements. Very responsive to their user community.

I'm almost ready to set up my array. Waiting on my last 1TB driver to finish the pre-clear process. I am also going to upgrade my LAN to Gig speed. I am currently getting about 25Meg/second on my network. I will test the entire system when I get the new Gig router set up. I have to wait until I finish the pre-clear process so I can disconnect the network. I guess I could log out of the 'screen' script and do it now, but don't want to risk anything unusual happening since I'm almost there.

[Rudy81]

While waiting for my last drive to finish pre-clearing, I decided to install my new Gig router. Before doing so, I ran some speed tests. With the old router, the speed was 75Mbps. After setting up the new router, the transfer speed is 330Mbps....[][][]

[holtrp]

That is awesome. I get around 12Mbs for transfers on my network. I am a real novice when it come to networking, but if you get a gig router, do you need to replace network cards in your computers?

[Rudy81]

That is awesome. I get around 12Mbs for transfers on my network. I am a real novice when it come to networking, but if you get a gig router, do you need to replace network cards in your computers?

I'm no expert, so take anything I say and double check it. Sure, your network card or motherboard must be Gig capable, as well as Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable. If I'm not mistaken, you don't need a router that is capable of that if you use Gig capable switches in your LAN and connet all your devices via the switches. This will come in handy when I start moving my files over to the array. I can't wait for the last pre-clear to finish. So far, other than my own mistakes, this has run very easily.....and I have no idea what I'm doing!

[Thaddeus Smith]

Great to hear Rudy - glad this solution is going to work out for your needs as well.

[Rudy81]

Update. Finally got unRaid up and running. Besides my screwups, the install and implementation of unRaid was flawless. The system is super fast and network access rocks. I have uploaded all my media files to the server and the server is fully operational at this time. I am just tweaking security, user shares, etc. I am also running parity check since I uploaded all the files before installing the parity drive.

Next on the agenda is to see if I can set up JRiver Media Center to access and stream the files from the server. Hopefully, the new installation of Win7 on my HTPC will provide bit perfect playback of my .flac files. Installing Win7 as an upgrade to WinXP is a major pain in the rear. It took me longer to update windows than it did to set up the server.

[michael hurd]

I think the obvious next step to realize XBMC''s full potential is to get a custom Linux machine. Anyone else have experience with XBMC?

I have installed XBMC on a few machines, and Ubuntu 10.04, the combination of an ATOM processor, 2gb of ram, and ION graphics rock. Plenty enough speed to watch BR rips, I have one that's 27gb with flawless playback. My television is only 720P though. If you plan to install Ubuntu or any other Linux flavor, the first step is to do some research on the parts you have. Nvidia video cards are well supported.

[Thaddeus Smith]

Besides my screwups, the install and implementation of unRaid was flawless.

any insight into what those were?

[Rudy81]

Fortunately nothing major, but you have to understand that I have never worked with Linux. I was learning as I went. The big time loser for me was a mistake I made while in a telnet 'screen' session setting up the drives to preclear. First, I had the telnet session open and was moving my laptop around. I hit some key that disconnected me and I could not for the life of me re-connect to the screen. Since then, I figured out how to handle that. Then, late in the evening, I decided to just start over with the preclear process. I was tired and somehow set one of the drives to be precleared several times. That, of course, took forever. I finally decided to stop the duplicate processes and check for the preclear signature. As it turned out, they had all passed, but I wasted a lot of time.

Tomorrow I hope to work with the HTPC and start streaming .flac files to my system.

[holtrp]

I am very impressed with XBMC also. I really enjoy all the skins and features - plus, you can't beat the price! I think anyone that likes to tinker would love XBMC. I am considering getting the 70015 Broadcom Crystal HD card and switching to Crystalbuntu on my ATV1 as it sounds like it runs well at the XBMC forums. I can wait a while before I need to build a dedicated linux machine. As long as I can hook up an external 2TB drive, I think I am going to take the plunge.

[Rudy81]

Mike, I haven't gotten into ripping my Blu Rays, but might at some point. I am using my older HTPC motherboard and memory for the unRaid server. It worked very well. I just installed an Asus E35M1-M in the HTPC case. The specs are promising. I will see how it does streaming from the server as soon as I get to that. I installed Win 7 in that machine.

[Thaddeus Smith]

Getting all of my hardware together today; I'm excited to get this project rolling into reality

[Rudy81]

Getting all of my hardware together today; I'm excited to get this project rolling into reality

Awesome! Let us know how it progresses.

I had originally planned on buying a license to be able to add other drives and in order to create a cache disk. However, the write speed without the cache is just fine and I still have 1.5T available after uploading all my files. I might just hold off on buying the license until I have the thing running for a few months. I don't need the extra space right now, so this should work out just fine in the free mode.