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

[a3g4rd]

Great guide, will be using it soon.

 

Just a quick question, say I have 10 2tb hard drive pooled together and have a 4tb parity hard drive, does this mean I could lose upto 2 hard drives and retain all my data?

[looney]

Great guide, will be using it soon.

 

Just a quick question, say I have 10 2tb hard drive pooled together and have a 4tb parity hard drive, does this mean I could lose upto 2 hard drives and retain all my data?

Yes, but you will need to partition the 4TB into 2 2TB drives.

Though personally I would just get 2x 2TB instead to give extra redundancy.

[megadarkwood]

Didn't read through the whole thing because it is just too much! Is there a minimum drive amount?

[Gronnie]

I have 4x4TB Seagate HDD setup in FlexRaid right now, 3 DRU and 1 PPU. I just bought two more and plan to add one as DRU, and one as an additional PPU. Anything special I need to do when adding new drives?

[looney]

I have 4x4TB Seagate HDD setup in FlexRaid right now, 3 DRU and 1 PPU. I just bought two more and plan to add one as DRU, and one as an additional PPU. Anything special I need to do when adding new drives?

No, just The usual will work just fine  

 

(The usual as in disable recycle-bin)

[Gronnie]

I just thought of one more question. What happens to my array if I want to go to a fresh install of my OS?

[looney]

I just thought of one more question. What happens to my array if I want to go to a fresh install of my OS?

This worked for me when moving from server 2008 R2 to server 2012.

http://wiki.flexraid.com/2012/03/25/how-to-create-a-cruisecontrol-raid-config-using-existing-parity-data/

 

I think I will also add this to the tutorial

[Gronnie]

Thanks again for the guides. Just got around to installing the two drives I bought black Friday. Adding one as a DRU and one as a 2nd PPU. I decided to just go ahead and rebuild a whole new config. Looks like it is going to take about 16 hours to initialize..... now we wait....

[5am]

Hey guys just setting up my new Server system and am wanting to go with raid to get a little more protection (Some of the Drives are getting a few hours on them) Been running on windows sharing every drive for the past 2-3 years and just built a new system for better power saving's and to get the drives out of my main PC.

 

Drives: 

2TB

1TB

1TB

750GB

640GB

 

Anyways I'm wanting to know if this is like RAID 5 were a lot of my space will be unusable as it can only use 640GB (Smallest drive) out of each drive? (From what iv read on the web so far)

So 2.2TB out of 5.3TB is unusable. (http://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator)

 

And if it's nothing like RAID 5 and will use all my space what drive should I use as a PPU Drive?

 

Cheers guys hope iv given all the details needed to help me out!

Sam

[looney]

Hey guys just setting up my new Server system and am wanting to go with raid to get a little more protection (Some of the Drives are getting a few hours on them) Been running on windows sharing every drive for the past 2-3 years and just built a new system for better power saving's and to get the drives out of my main PC.

 

Drives: 

2TB

1TB

1TB

750GB

640GB

 

Anyways I'm wanting to know if this is like RAID 5 were a lot of my space will be unusable as it can only use 640GB (Smallest drive) out of each drive? (From what iv read on the web so far)

So 2.2TB out of 5.3TB is unusable. (http://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator)

 

And if it's nothing like RAID 5 and will use all my space what drive should I use as a PPU Drive?

 

Cheers guys hope iv given all the details needed to help me out!

Sam

FlexRAID is different, with that setup I would use the 2TB for parity (PPU) and make the following DRU's 1TB+750GB=DRU1  1TB+640GB=DRU2.

This will equal 3390GB of DRU storrage.

 

A mixed drive set-up is never ideal, but this will work.

[acegreaser]

Hi there.

 

I bought a custom built a PC with the sole purpose to run it as a NAS using FlexRAid-F.

I installed 2x2TB AGVP HDD. Unfortunately, the person who installed it created a RAID 1 setup with those drives.

I have Win 7 64bit installed in those drives.

 

I have another 2x2TB HDD with media data on it which I will install into this PC

 

My questions are.

1) Do I need RAID 1 set up? If no, then should I uninstall the RAID 1?

2) Can I remove RAID 1 without messing up the Win 7 install?

3) If I should keep RAID 1 in those drives, then should I use the RAID 1 drives as the PPU or install a new 2TB HDD as a PPU?

Thanks in advance.

[looney]

Hi there.

 

I bought a custom built a PC with the sole purpose to run it as a NAS using FlexRAid-F.

I installed 2x2TB AGVP HDD. Unfortunately, the person who installed it created a RAID 1 setup with those drives.

I have Win 7 64bit installed in those drives.

 

I have another 2x2TB HDD with media data on it which I will install into this PC

 

My questions are.

1) Do I need RAID 1 set up? If no, then should I uninstall the RAID 1?

2) Can I remove RAID 1 without messing up the Win 7 install?

3) If I should keep RAID 1 in those drives, then should I use the RAID 1 drives as the PPU or install a new 2TB HDD as a PPU?

Thanks in advance.

 

I would get a small drive and install windows on that, then you will have a total of four 2TB drives for flex raid (1PPU+3DRU)

Having the drives in raid-1 is a waste of storage if your going to use FlexRAID anyway.

 

 

looney.

[acegreaser]

I would get a small drive and install windows on that, then you will have a total of four 2TB drives for flex raid (1PPU+3DRU)

Having the drives in raid-1 is a waste of storage if your going to use FlexRAID anyway.

 

 

looney.

My problem would be that my motherboard and PC has space for 6 drives only.

I don't really want to waste space with a small drive using up a precious slot just for the OS.

Ideally, I would like to install 1 2TB PPU and 5 2TB DRU giving me 10TB of data space.

 

If you can suggest a workaround, that will be great.

If not, I will take your suggestion above.

[looney]

My problem would be that my motherboard and PC has space for 6 drives only.

I don't really want to waste space with a small drive using up a precious slot just for the OS.

Ideally, I would like to install 1 2TB PPU and 5 2TB DRU giving me 10TB of data space.

 

If you can suggest a workaround, that will be great.

If not, I will take your suggestion above.

But that would not leave a drive for windows?

I would not use your windows drive in the FlexRAID, If you do use it then partition it and use a large amount a DRU.

[Gronnie]

My problem would be that my motherboard and PC has space for 6 drives only.

I don't really want to waste space with a small drive using up a precious slot just for the OS.

Ideally, I would like to install 1 2TB PPU and 5 2TB DRU giving me 10TB of data space.

 

If you can suggest a workaround, that will be great.

If not, I will take your suggestion above.

 

Have you ever used an SSD? Using a small (compared to most HDD) SSD as an OS disc will make your experience soooooo much more enjoyable when using your system.

 

If you have to, use bigger drives when you expand. 3TB and 4 TB drives are readily available now.

[acegreaser]

But that would not leave a drive for windows?

I would not use your windows drive in the FlexRAID, If you do use it then partition it and use a large amount a DRU.

I guess what I'm asking is can I remove the "real" RAID 1 and not mess up my OS.

Since it's RAID 1, if I remove RAID 1, I should get 2 identical HDD?

Can I then just use one as my OS, partition off the OS part(say 40Gb worth of space) and use the balance as a DRU.

The 2nd HDD I can reformat and use it as a PPU?

 

 

Have you ever used an SSD? Using a small (compared to most HDD) SSD as an OS disc will make your experience soooooo much more enjoyable when using your system.

 

If you have to, use bigger drives when you expand. 3TB and 4 TB drives are readily available now.

All my other PC's run SSD. That would be an option for this dedicated NAS PC.

As I mentioned earlier, my only concern would be a loss of one SATA port to a small SSD.

 

Have you ever used an SSD? Using a small (compared to most HDD) SSD as an OS disc will make your experience soooooo much more enjoyable when using your system.

 

If you have to, use bigger drives when you expand. 3TB and 4 TB drives are readily available now.

[MG2R]

I guess what I'm asking is can I remove the "real" RAID 1 and not mess up my OS.

Since it's RAID 1, if I remove RAID 1, I should get 2 identical HDD?

Can I then just use one as my OS, partition off the OS part(say 40Gb worth of space) and use the balance as a DRU.

The 2nd HDD I can reformat and use it as a PPU?

 

 

All my other PC's run SSD. That would be an option for this dedicated NAS PC.

As I mentioned earlier, my only concern would be a loss of one SATA port to a small SSD.

 

 

Usually, you can't convert a RAIDed drives to non-RAIDed drives without data loss. The RAID controller initialises the drive with a superblock specific to its configuration, so if you turn of the RAID controller, your PC won't be able to access the drives.

My recommendation would be to buy a small SSD and perform a clean OS install. This would leave you with 4x2TB drives for data storage. You could also try booting of a USB stick. This won't work well for Windows, though. Some kind of Linux distro (FreeNAS or Debian, for example), would be better suited for that purpose.

[acegreaser]

Usually, you can't convert a RAIDed drives to non-RAIDed drives without data loss. The RAID controller initialises the drive with a superblock specific to its configuration, so if you turn of the RAID controller, your PC won't be able to access the drives.

My recommendation would be to buy a small SSD and perform a clean OS install. This would leave you with 4x2TB drives for data storage. You could also try booting of a USB stick. This won't work well for Windows, though. Some kind of Linux distro (FreeNAS or Debian, for example), would be better suited for that purpose.

Thanks for that.

Seems everyone is suggesting changing to a SSD. 

I will look into it.

 

Thanks all.

[dsr100]

Wow awesome post!!!

Firstly, seeing this will encourage me to try this product.

 

Windows 8.1 with 4 internal SSD and 2 USB3 8 bay HDD racks.

 

To explain where I am, I am currently using Drive Bender and think it is excellent for how it is intended it's perfect. But I find myself needing more, the raid part of things.

Now I have spent my life avoiding raid at home, and so, know next to nothing about it.
I currently have 6 of 4tb drives of TV shows as an unbacked up pool. And 6 of 4tb drives of Movies as an unbacked up pool.
 

I was currently stripping this down.... I was going to have 4tb of TV shows mirroed and 2Tb of Movies mirrored.

 

Now, I think maybe Flexi raid and not folder mirroring will be more efficient and not too much more risky.

 

I am a little puzzled about the snapshots and extra complexity of Flexiraid, I think it is more flexible that I am use to. I understand it's about catering for a, power loss etc before parity writes complete and having live changes recorded, EG huge databases constantly being nibbled at.

 

I think I need simpler than that? I have just TV shows and movies in two pools, I add shows and sometimes take away, but everything that is data wise and configurable is on other drives like the o/s drive and app drive and so on.

 

But, on the other hand..... my drives are in two eight bay usb caddies (Hotway 8 bay HDD USB3.0) which often I have one bank turned off. Secondly, sometimes window suspends USB and the drives disapear ungracefully. Downloading in bits, is that change, or just that the files appear and are finished.....

 

So... to my questions?

The data redundancy, on one bank, four 4tb drives, what do I need?

The data redundancy, on the other bank, two 4tb drives, what do I need?

The extra live snapshot, or sceduling of all the snapshots static, ummm I am not sure where I fit in that, lots of changes or basically non with media files arriving over time.

Is Flexiraid ok, with a bank or drives being off and then appearing when needed?

 

Thank you so much for this forum, hope this question is not too newbie for you all.

 

kind regards

DavidR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[looney]

The data redundancy, on one bank, four 4tb drives, what do I need?

The data redundancy, on the other bank, two 4tb drives, what do I need?

The extra live snapshot, or sceduling of all the snapshots static, ummm I am not sure where I fit in that, lots of changes or basically non with media files arriving over time.

Is Flexiraid ok, with a bank or drives being off and then appearing when needed?

 

Thank you so much for this forum, hope this question is not too newbie for you all.

 

kind regards

DavidR

Hi there,

First of all welcome to the LTT forum!

FlexRAID does not like it when drive disappear (as in you turning your enclosure of).

So you would have to keep them on all the time, the windows suspending thing can probably be disabled somewhere to stop windows from messing it up.

Personally I would just make one pool with all drives (5x4TB DRU 1x4TB PPU) and then just make 2 folders in that pool, one for movies and one for tv shows.

This Is also what I have done with my array, you will get a extra 4TB this way as you only need one PPU instead of 2 (one for each pool)

To my advice would be to find out how to disable windows suspending the USB and then make one large array.

Feel free to make a topic on this forum and ask how to fix the USB thing.

I would post it in either "Operating Systems and Software" or in "Troubleshooting"

If you have any questions at all then please don't hesitate.

[dsr100]

Firstly, thanks for the super quick reply, very nice of you! Greetings from Australia!!!

 

I have read your reply and think it excellent advise and will use that plan; the 6 DRU and 1 PPU. (or I might use that saving of a disk to make it 6 DRU and 2 PPU)

 

Had a couple of quick questions, 

(1) I'd aimed everything at getting transparent-raid as it seemed the better option than flexi-raid. But I'd not seen the cavet, don't use t'raid for USB disks. So.... I am must therefore use flexi-raid NOT transparent-raid?

(2) All my disks are 4tb and less than a year old, however, I have had 2 failures and 3 develop bad sectors (that's out of 13 * four TB Seagate drives). I've ordered two new Western Digital Red four TB drives, hoping they will be more reliable for me. In the plan of 6 DRU and 2 PPU, is there a better or worse place to put HDD in order of perceived relaibily? To put it more simply, if you had year old trouble some drives and new made for raid drives... where would you place the good ones, in DRU or PPU? Which is easier to reover from failure of?

 

You mention in your answer, raid doesn't like drives disappearing? I've seen that a lot around the forums. I will take your advise and post the stop windows from suspending USB (certainly I have that DIS-abled in windows power management).
 

My other plan... was aside from the ALWAYS ON bank that would be the heart of my media server. I was thinking about setting up another array, I have another 8 of 4tb drives, I was going to set-up another array that I would turn on, just when I need it. Is there no way to do this safely.....? To have a raid array for a drive bank that is normally off, you just can turn on when needed?

 

Well, have a great day, here 'tis Australia Day public holiday. 

 

kind regards

DavidR

[dsr100]

Good evening, well, I setup the 6 DRU and 2 PPU, they are 7200rpm 4tb seagate SATA drives (had only about 12Tb of data brought into the pool), but USB3 in a Hotway 8 bay enclosure. It's been 24 hours and the array's parity is 75 percent complete task one.... so one anticipates 32 hours then to build the parity array. 
Given 24 hours to read the 12tb of data from the 6 by 4tb drives and compute it to values on the 2 by 4tb parity drives. 

My question was this... what is the ball park time to recover a disk in the future? Exactly that long again, half that long???? 
I am longing for Transparent raid which seems so much more advanced and the pool would be available now? And also available through a rebuild of a disk? But... as I am bound by usb, I have two 8 bay enclosures full of 4tb drives, I had to choose Raid-f.

 

For when I am doing the snapshots.... What I will do, is download and collect media to solid state drives and once every couple of days, copy it in one cut and paste to the new array. So my snapshots need only be that often then, after I do the upload? I don't mind putting at risk some of those files, so long as I am not putting the integrity of the array at risk by taking too few snapshots if that makes sense? 

 

Roughly how long will the snapshots take again, given the 32 hours to create parity of 12tb of data? Say with 100 by 1 gig files cut and paste to the array. 

 

Dire warning about Teracopy causing drive fragmentation, was that an early copy? Does it still? I think it now pre-allocates the file?

 

Sorry, so many many questions, I am new to all this raid world, 

 

Kind regards

DavidR

[looney]

Sorry, so many many questions, I am new to all this raid world, 

 

No problem, besides I should be the one to apologize for not answering you yet.

 

I am currently at work but I will answer your questions when I'm back home (in roughly 5 hours)

[dsr100]

thank you, hope you enjoy your day at work best you can!

 

The raid parity build completed successfully overnight and I am at the start storage pool point, 

 

However, getting an 

 

Operation Failure

please run c:\program files (x86)\............\ext\usermode.cmd before attempting to start the storage pool.

 

Currently googling that and looking thru the forums....

[looney]

thank you, hope you enjoy your day at work best you can!

 

The raid parity build completed successfully overnight and I am at the start storage pool point, 

 

However, getting an 

 

Operation Failure

please run c:\program files (x86)\............\ext\usermode.cmd before attempting to start the storage pool.

 

Currently googling that and looking thru the forums....

Yes, that is a normal thing you need to do, (dont know why that isn't in the tutorial....)

Run the usermode.cmd once as administrator and the error will never appear again.

what other questions do you still have?