sam9s NAS Project! powered by Unraid!!

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^^ Absolutely rock solid ..... initially I was a bit skeptical, but Unraid is rock solid when it comes to improper shutdowns ..... as is also been confirmed by few posts on Unraid forums ...... Thought I have my NAS on my, online UPS 24x7, there were quite a few instances where the box had an improper shutdown, .....some by chance and some deliberate as well. But every single time the box was up and running without any issues. The array stops automatically on any improper shut down, and you have to start it manually via management console, after you power on the NAS (which is good in a way). Apart from this no issues at all......
 
It actually checks for parity when there is a improper shutdown. Best is to have an apc ups and use the apcupsd that comes as part of unmenu package. To have it shutdown automatically when battery reaches 10% or the backup time reaches 5 mins.

BTW pretty excited about the upcoming release 5 :)
 
^^ I already am on 5 Beta .. :) .. BTW you using Unraid, hows your personal experience ....
 
It has been always great except that i have just 100 GB free of the 8 TB. Want to add another 2TB but the Hard Drive prices are too high for me to currently consider. Waiting to loan a 1 TB from my friend for the time being and replace with a 2 TB when the prices becomes comfortable.
 
Also people just configuring now, keep in mind the way that the hard drives needs to be filled. I had the default setting of high water which would fill all the drives equally. Currently my server has 100 Gig of Space but approximately 25 Gig in all the drives not currently allowing me to copy a 45 Gig of Bluray untouched as there is no single drive having 45 Gig :(

More details here

Un-Official UnRAID Manual - unRAID
 
^^ I think its not coz of High Water, its coz of the split level, which is 1 by default ....
changing it to 2 should solve this .....

Correction ::: Nope I am wrong ,,, its coz of the allocation method, you are right ... .... anyway I must have read this properly when I assembled my NAS, coz I have kept mine as Most Free and not High Water ....
 
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Hi Sam, I am considering this option for sharing my USB drives on network.

http://www.hifivision.com/media-streaming-players/26821-synology-usb-station-2-a.html

What I wonder is although in some forums it is said that read speed with this device in NTFS is slow (5mbps) it is not clear if that is over wireless or wired. On the other hand the max read speed tested on this device is 55+ mbps. So I am confused on this point. If it is 5mbps over wired / NTFS then this is a big NO as FHD videos will stutter at that bit rate.

Also I am thinking if below 10K INR i can setup a cheap PC with some open source OS like Unraid, etc that can offer similar feature but at greater speeds over NTFS.

Can you suggest something? If I build a DIY NAS then of course it will have provisions to add more rack type HDDs in future but Plaug and play USB sharing is first priority since I already have DNS323.
 
I am not sure what you are concerned about, speeds over wifi n with a DIY NAS or the plug n play feature of Unraid. Anyway will try to ans as much as I can...

Unraid server can be built below 10K as suggested by this thread, but without the HDD. The eventual cost will depend upon the number of HDD you will add.

There is no dearth of speed with unraid over Wired and Wifi n LAN. As demonstrated by me itself on THIS post, the LAN speed over a quality network (Quality Gbps NIC, Quality Cat 6 cables) , can touch as high as 80MBps. Usually it varies between 55-75 MBps. Mind you the network speed greatly depends on the read/write speed of you fastest HDD on both ends. Ofcourse there are few other factors as well that controll the speed over LAN but above are the major ones.

Situation is different on wifi n. Factors that controll this over wifi practically are far more in number than wired Gbps connection. Anyway a typical good n network over 2.5Ghz, Mixed channel mode, should touch 12MBps-15MBps.

Coming to plug n play USB over Unraid. As of unRAID v5.0-b14, USB plus n play is supported but not exactly out of the box. Its a one time process though, few config steps and then all your USB sticks that you connect, appears as a drive. (They are not a part of array)

Let me know if you need more information ... :)
 
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Hi Sam, thanks for your response.

My main requirements are below
1. Ability to make plugged in NTFS USB drives automatically available over network as shares (with optional user access restriction, nice to have)
2. Ability to act as UPNP server (for PS3, etc which will make it capable of streaming audio and video files)
3. FHD video streaming read speed from NTFS drive connected via USB

My main concern on the synology product was max copy speed over wired Gigabit network for a NTFS drive (one review said 5mbps on NTFS, but 55mbps on EXT2/3). 5 mbps will not be acceptable for me as it is less than FHD video streaming rate.

The max speed which you have got with unraid in your case was that on a NTFS drive or if not did you try that on a NTFS drive?

Also another question I have is if I go DIY route then what can be minimum mobo + proc (or fusion) + RAM combo price (cabinet and smps I may reuse existing)? USB 3.0 or eSata will be nice to have but not mandatory. I will not add any internal HDD for the time being and only boot from pendrive. But points 1,2 and 3 must be satisfied.
 
haisaikat said:
Hi Sam, thanks for your response.

My main requirements are below
Click to expand...
1. Ability to make plugged in NTFS USB drives automatically available over network as shares (with optional user access restriction, nice to have)


Can be done, as I said Unraid v5 supports Plug n Play drives, just few settings need to be done. I can provide you the exact article to do the same.

2. Ability to act as UPNP server (for PS3, etc which will make it capable of streaming audio and video files)

No issues here, Unraid acts as a UPNP server. But I wonder why would you use PS3 media server for A/V streaming. It should be XBMC all the way ....

3. FHD video streaming read speed from NTFS drive connected via USB

I stream BD ISOs from my XBMC via Unraid over my Gigabit LAN. Absolute NO issues at all. As smooth as it can be. USB should not be a problem. If you are planning to play full BD ISO over USB drive connected to Unraid. I would recommend USB 3.0

Over Wifi n BD ISOs isnt as smooth as I would like to. But I dont do BD ISOs over wifi, so its not a problem for me. But BD Rip with as high bitrate as 15mbps work just fine.

The max speed which you have got with unraid in your case was that on a NTFS drive or if not did you try that on a NTFS drive?


Unraid uses Reiser FS, so the source was Reiser, where all my movies are stored, and all my destination drives are on NTFS. So basically my data moves between these two FileSystems

Also another question I have is if I go DIY route then what can be minimum mobo + proc (or fusion) + RAM combo price (cabinet and smps I may reuse existing)? USB 3.0 or eSata will be nice to have but not mandatory. I will not add any internal HDD for the time being and only boot from pendrive. But points 1,2 and 3 must be satisfied.


My config (specs at first page), I guess are the bare min. The most expensive component is the PSU... :) ...... Any basic dual core, with a mobo with 4,5 sata II ports is all you need. Add one GB ram and a gigabit NIC and you are good to go. Rest additions can all be on requirements bases.
And I will suggest to add atleast one HDD to begin, else you are gonna defeat the very purpose of a NAS.
 
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Hi Sam,
Thanks for all the feedbacks

1. OK
2. OK, At times if I have my PS3 open I may not open HTPC separately rather I may use PS3 to play music / video / photos from shared drives. Also my Panasonic Plasma can access UPnP sources and may be for small movies / tv serials I may not want to open HTPC to playback rather directly use TV (works now from Win7 based UPnP but fails to work with the UPnP service of my DNS323)
3. OK, I will be using wired connections only.
Regarding NTFS, your destination being NTFS did you mean than you copied from Reiser FS to an NTFS drive connected to USB of the DIY NAS?
Also I may not add HDD at this point since internal HDDs are already with my DNS323 and for now I am only looking for sharing my USB drives over network.
Lastly can I use Fusion platform for low power usage? Any recommendations? And can I run a fusion based system for hours like typical NAS?
 
haisaikat said:
1. At times if I have my PS3 open I may not open HTPC separately rather I may use PS3 to play music / video / photos from shared drives. Also my Panasonic Plasma can access UPnP sources and may be for small movies / tv serials I may not want to open HTPC to playback rather directly use TV (works now from Win7 based UPnP but fails to work with the UPnP service of my DNS323)
3. OK, I will be using wired connections only.
Regarding NTFS, your destination being NTFS did you mean than you copied from Reiser FS to an NTFS drive connected to USB of the DIY NAS?
Also I may not add HDD at this point since internal HDDs are already with my DNS323 and for now I am only looking for sharing my USB drives over network.
Lastly can I use Fusion platform for low power usage? Any recommendations? And can I run a fusion based system for hours like typical NAS?
Click to expand...

1. mmm Not sure if your Plasma will be able to access Unraid UPNP. PS3 media can access Unraid, that would not be a problem.

2. No I dont connect any USB drive to my NAS. I dont have to as I already have 5TB inside, with all my media running 24x7. When I say data move between drives I mean, between my Regular PC (NTFS), or Laptop (NTFS) or my HTPC (NTFS) via gigabit LAN, or Wifi N in case of Laptop and NAS (Reiser FS)

3. Fusion I have no idea, but since the PC uses so less power, I dont think Fusion should be a problem. Though I have not seen anyone using Fusion as a 24x7 NAS. I would say try to get an old C2D or even a pentium D, with a compatible mobo. I think this would even land cheaper then Fusion.
 
Hi sam

This is the configuration I am planning for my Unraid based on the inputs/inspiration from your thread. I already have an old system with me (lent from my sister) so I do not need the case. It is an old compaq case with PSU but i felt that it is actually very old so thought of investing in a new one as the major load of hdd will rely on this. These are the items/prices from flipkart.com site. Looks reasonable for me as it is free shipping. I will be adding my current 2 TB + another couple of 2 TB from US (parents are coming back from US in Sept). I looked the specs for MB and it supports 10/100/1000 Mbps so I felt no need for a separate NIC. I believe this should support gigabit LAN.

Psu Corsair CMPSU-430CXV2UK PSU - Rs. 2536
AMD AM3 Cooler - Rs. 281
Motherboard ASUS M5A78L-M LX Motherboard - Rs. 2703
Processor AMD Athlon II 260 Processor - Rs. 3222

I have the silverstone PSU of 500w 80+ certified in my htpc and replace that with this. Also I have a gigabyte MB + GT440 + 30gb SSD in my htpc and I feel that I can manage with a PSU of less than 300w but unable to get any with this wattage. Do you think the Corsair 430w is more for my htpc needs I do not do any gaming just movies/music.

thanks
 
manniraj said:
Hi sam

This is the configuration I am planning for my Unraid based on the inputs/inspiration from your thread. I already have an old system with me (lent from my sister) so I do not need the case. It is an old compaq case with PSU but i felt that it is actually very old so thought of investing in a new one as the major load of hdd will rely on this. These are the items/prices from flipkart.com site. Looks reasonable for me as it is free shipping. I will be adding my current 2 TB + another couple of 2 TB from US (parents are coming back from US in Sept). I looked the specs for MB and it supports 10/100/1000 Mbps so I felt no need for a separate NIC. I believe this should support gigabit LAN.

Psu Corsair CMPSU-430CXV2UK PSU - Rs. 2536
AMD AM3 Cooler - Rs. 281
Motherboard ASUS M5A78L-M LX Motherboard - Rs. 2703
Processor AMD Athlon II 260 Processor - Rs. 3222

I have the silverstone PSU of 500w 80+ certified in my htpc and replace that with this. Also I have a gigabyte MB + GT440 + 30gb SSD in my htpc and I feel that I can manage with a PSU of less than 300w but unable to get any with this wattage. Do you think the Corsair 430w is more for my htpc needs I do not do any gaming just movies/music.

thanks
Click to expand...

No issues what so ever with this config, the NAS would run like a charm with this. The only thing is the onboard Realtek Gigabit port. Personally I am not a fan of on board gigabit ports, for what ever reason they do not provide that much bandwidth as against a dedicated quality gbps LAN card. Even I had an onboard gbps port, but was not satisfied, I went for a dedicated D-Link Gbps LAN card and it performed much better.


As far as PSU goes does not make much of a difference. One is 430 and other is 500 and both are decent Brands and both wattage is more than sufficient for HTPC and NAS. I'd say put corsair one in your NAS, if you are planning to run it 24x7.
 
^^ Well yes the above should work, but Digilite..??? never heard, plus I'd say if you have decided to go for combo mobos, better go for Fusion based boards then ATOM. Just my thought.
 
sam9s said:
No issues what so ever with this config, the NAS would run like a charm with this. The only thing is the onboard Realtek Gigabit port. Personally I am not a fan of on board gigabit ports, for what ever reason they do not provide that much bandwidth as against a dedicated quality gbps LAN card. Even I had an onboard gbps port, but was not satisfied, I went for a dedicated D-Link Gbps LAN card and it performed much better.


As far as PSU goes does not make much of a difference. One is 430 and other is 500 and both are decent Brands and both wattage is more than sufficient for HTPC and NAS. I'd say put corsair one in your NAS, if you are planning to run it 24x7.
Click to expand...

Thanks sam,

Even I have the gigabyte board in my htpc thought of using this board in my NAS as it has usb3.0 & 6 on-board sata ports. But after looking at your warning in the thread decided to keep this board in htpc and use the asus one. Ok then as you said let me first try with on-board lan and if I am not satisfied then sure will go with the D-Link one.
 
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