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How to: Install and setup FlexRAID on your windows storage system.

looney
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In case a mod sees this, can we get this stickied? This tutorial is fantastic.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

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In case a mod sees this, can we get this stickied?

Typing stuff like @Whaler_99, @Windspeed36, @Dave :) and @Glenwing will summon the mods for stuff like this.

I don't mind if its a sticky or not, its in my signature, and its only for a very select audience anyway.

This tutorial is fantastic.

thank you very much

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Something like this may not get "stickied" because it is a very specific guide. Searching for it will bring it up, and as @looney mentioned, he has it in his sig. :)

 

We don't want to cluter the top with tons of stickied items. Typically only the most "generic" and helpful stuff will end up there...

 

For the storage section, if enough guides and such were done, we could have a stickied post like a FAQ with tons of links to things...

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Something like this may not get "stickied" because it is a very specific guide. Searching for it will bring it up, and as @looney mentioned, he has it in his sig. :)

 

We don't want to cluter the top with tons of stickied items. Typically only the most "generic" and helpful stuff will end up there...

 

For the storage section, if enough guides and such were done, we could have a stickied post like a FAQ with tons of links to things...

I agree, its to specific for a sticky, its not like everyone want's a FlexRAID system :P

 

And I do plan on making more storage related tutorials, so when there are a few more of then I'll create a post for FAQ and links.

 

 

I just wanted to show wpirobotbuilder how easy it is to attract a mods attention for something like this :P

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I agree, its to specific for a sticky, its not like everyone want's a FlexRAID system :P

 

And I do plan on making more storage related tutorials, so when there are a few more of then I'll create a post for FAQ and links.

 

 

I just wanted to show wpirobotbuilder how easy it is to attract a mods attention for something like this :P

 

lol...

 

BTW - you're fired! :D

Forum Links - Community Standards, Privacy Policy, FAQ, Features Suggestions, Bug and Issues.

Folding/Boinc Info - Check out the Folding and Boinc Section, read the Folding Install thread and the Folding FAQ. Info on Boinc is here. Don't forget to join team 223518. Check out other users Folding Rigs for ideas. Don't forget to follow the @LTTCompute for updates and other random posts about the various teams.

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Whaler_99 Links - "Green Machine" (watercooled), "Out of the Blue" (watercooled), My 4P Folding rigs, My multi GPU Folding Rigs, The Water Cooling FAQ, My 40TB Storage Server, My Folding Stats. The CM HAF XB review, the Aqualis Pro 450 review, the PrimoChill CTR Phase II Res review, the IcyDock ToughArmor 6x1 review, the 3x2 Storage Cage review, the 5x3 Storage Cage review, my Milwaukee Jobsite Backpack review, my Thermaltake Core X2 review, my CoolerMaster Storm Stryker overview. Link to DA Blogs home.

Follow me on Twitter for updates @Whaler_99

 

 

 

 

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Sweet!! thanks, now i just need to find the time to read it all

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:(

my trail key on the tutorial machine is expired, I contacted FlexRAID about getting a free license for tutorial purposes, just waiting to hear back from them.

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yes....

 

sorry.....

 

 

I'll finish it today!!!!

 

 

(where have I heard that before.... )

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About the sharing part, don't you have to set the permissions within Windows first and then clone those settings into FlexRAID?

Yes, it uses the same permissions as windows, not sure how far into detail I should go there.

It is more related to your actual network and permissions setup then it is to FlexRAID.

 

That's why I just added everyone in the tutorial, for more info they can always ask.

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Ok, thanks to this excellent guide, I followed your steps and setup a 12TB FlexRAID storage pool. I forgot to turn off Recycle Bin but not a big deal as I'm ok with rebuilding the array from scratch. It took a while but I just let it run overnight and all was well.

 

Had a question though: (and please let me know if this should be posted in another section)

 

  • I didn't really prep the folder structures before hand, so my pool isn't set up ideally. Prior to the setting up the pool, i had several folders across multiple disks with the same kind of content. (example: 5 folders with BD rips - BD1, BD2, BD3, BD4, BD3D. It appears that if, prior to setting up the pool, I renamed each to BD the storage pool would have been built with files from all 5 folders under BD. Is this correct? If so, is there any way to do this after setting up the pool, without any movement of files? My 1st thought was I can remove the drives, rename each folder to BD, then add the files back, but I'm not sure this is doable without recreating the entire array.

Tony

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Ok, thanks to this excellent guide, I followed your steps and setup a 12TB FlexRAID storage pool. I forgot to turn off Recycle Bin but not a big deal as I'm ok with rebuilding the array from scratch. It took a while but I just let it run overnight and all was well.

 

Had a question though: (and please let me know if this should be posted in another section)

 

  • I didn't really prep the folder structures before hand, so my pool isn't set up ideally. Prior to the setting up the pool, i had several folders across multiple disks with the same kind of content. (example: 5 folders with BD rips - BD1, BD2, BD3, BD4, BD3D. It appears that if, prior to setting up the pool, I renamed each to BD the storage pool would have been built with files from all 5 folders under BD. Is this correct? If so, is there any way to do this after setting up the pool, without any movement of files? My 1st thought was I can remove the drives, rename each folder to BD, then add the files back, but I'm not sure this is doable without recreating the entire array

sorry about the recycle bin thing :( still need to add that.

 

Yes if they where all named DB it would become one folder.

Quickest way to fix it now is just cut and past the content in the flexraid array.

You can remove the drive and rename the folder but you will have to rebuild which will take longer then the cut paste.

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No worries about the recycle bin. Good thing about this being a software RAID I can start from scratch without worrying about losing any data. I got a feeling copy and pasting Terabytes of data would take quite a while. As I'm still in trial and error mode, I tried this:

 

Stopped the pool, assigned 1 drive a letter in Disk Mgmt, renamed the affected folders, removed the drive letter, double checked the pool in Drive Manager, then restarted the pool. All the BDs are now in 1 folder, and all the MKV's are in 1 folder. My music was already on 1 hard drive so no worries there. My plan is to do an update overnight and hopefully the parity info will have reflected the changes.

 

Next challenge: I ran into the issue of the default folders needed to be reconstructed, now I need to figure out how to (without copy/pasting) use my existing default folders as the ones the dashboard sees.

 

Fun times... :D

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Stopped the pool, assigned 1 drive a letter in Disk Mgmt, renamed the affected folders, removed the drive letter, double checked the pool in Drive Manager, then restarted the pool. All the BDs are now in 1 folder, and all the MKV's are in 1 folder. My music was already on 1 hard drive so no worries there. My plan is to do an update overnight and hopefully the parity info will have reflected the changes.

Cool, I was expecting it to ask for a rebuild, nice.

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Just added the recycle bin part.

 

The tutorial now covers all the basics. 

I might add stuff if there is a demand for it and if I deem it helpful for a lot of people.

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Well, was all prepared to update overnight and got the dreaded error message for "invalid file.....flxr.meta. I'm guessing I'm gonna have to rebuild the array.

 

Shame cause the pool works fine, 11 TB of data used on a 12TB pool.

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I thought this was pretty cool:

 

This tutorial is the 5th hit on Google when searching "FlexRAID tutorial".

The ones above this one are all from the FlexRAID wiki.

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I thought this was pretty cool:

 

This tutorial is the 5th hit on Google when searching "FlexRAID tutorial".

The ones above this one are all from the FlexRAID wiki.

Not sure if you did this yet, but I reported the original post to admins and asked them to Sticky it. Because, honestly, this NEEDS to be a Sticky. I've seen a few different FlexRAID guides and this one is by far the best for newer users who aren't well versed in RAID type software or network sharing.

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Lol awesome. It needs to be higher though.

 

What are your thoughts on doing a Truecrypt + FlexRAID tut?

I have never set up Truecrypt + FlexRAID. 

 

Have you done it?

If so, how?

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http://wiki.flexraid.com/2013/08/11/how-to-install-and-setup-flexraid-on-your-windows-storage-system/

:) :)

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Do you have to pool your drives?  What is the benefit?  Is there a benefit to not pooling? 

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please vote in this poll to select my next tutorial:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/45842-decide-what-will-be-my-next-storage-tutorial/

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