UnRAID NAS

[Donci]

I'm planing to make an unRAID server for data storage and media streaming. An important thing will be expandability, as I dont want to pay for 8 drives up front, this also means being able to change from RAID1 to 5 to 6. (SAS drives would be used for mass storage (w/ JBOD card) but not the Cache pool, that would be 2 sata ssds in raid1) I'm wondering what file system to use, I have heard that unraid has built in paroty but it doesnt seem great. Is running BTRFS (or you can suggest a different system) over top of unraid a good option? ( when referring to RAID I always meant the equivilent in the choosen file system) Edit: I have also heard that Btrfs doesnt handle VMs well, is there a work around so I can still have VMs?

Edited February 25, 2017 by Donci

[SCHISCHKA]

What do you want VM for? VM are dying and being replaced by more efficient and productive alternatives

 

Why unRAID? I use debian because it's lighter than shit and easier for me coz I'm use to command line than pissing around in a GUI. Easier for me to customize but ive been using debian for almost a decade

 

Why not bsd instead of Linux and use the zfs file system for parity? I don't use parity myself coz my server does not require 24/7 uptime, I only power on for remote backup. All my multimedia needs are done using my cheapo laptop where I throw what I want to watch into. Old videos go to back up and to be honest gets more writes than reads and when it does need a read with a GUI I just use sshfs to mount the video folder remotely.

[Donci]

29 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

What do you want VM for? VM are dying and being replaced by more efficient and productive alternatives

 

Why unRAID? I use debian because it's lighter than shit and easier for me coz I'm use to command line than pissing around in a GUI. Easier for me to customize but ive been using debian for almost a decade

 

Why not bsd instead of Linux and use the zfs file system for parity? I don't use parity myself coz my server does not require 24/7 uptime, I only power on for remote backup. All my multimedia needs are done using my cheapo laptop where I throw what I want to watch into. Old videos go to back up and to be honest gets more writes than reads and when it does need a read with a GUI I just use sshfs to mount the video folder remotely.

1. What exactly replaces a virtual machine?

2. I want to use unRAID because its a simple and adaquite solution 

3. Expanding a ZFS system can only be done in blocks, and I could not change the parity configuration.

4. A multimedia server is important because this way the entire library can be watched any time any where from any device

 

Thank you for your reply but this definitely wasnt constructive for me.

[SCHISCHKA]

On bsd you have jail's to sandbox things. Linux has chroot but there's a ton of different ways to sandbox they are highly competitive that's why I asked what you are trying to virtualize and why you are virtualising

 

Like I said if been using debian for a decade so I have a different perspective. When a derivative shows up all I see is something i can do myself from the base system. Its all good if you use the stuff it is delivered with. Customizing a derivitive with a smaller user base and a wiki with less contributions is much harder

 

The best filesystem for vm is a raw drive or raw partition. Your original question needs more questions to probe what you are actually doing. For example I use Android VM a lot and to speed that up filesystem type doesn't make a difference, I have tested it. Another reason I use VM is to sandbox my browser, I have not done this in a while coz it's better to use Linux containers 

[Donci]

1 hour ago, SCHISCHKA said:

On bsd you have jail's to sandbox things. Linux has chroot but there's a ton of different ways to sandbox they are highly competitive that's why I asked what you are trying to virtualize and why you are virtualising

 

Like I said if been using debian for a decade so I have a different perspective. When a derivative shows up all I see is something i can do myself from the base system. Its all good if you use the stuff it is delivered with. Customizing a derivitive with a smaller user base and a wiki with less contributions is much harder

 

The best filesystem for vm is a raw drive or raw partition. Your original question needs more questions to probe what you are actually doing. For example I use Android VM a lot and to speed that up filesystem type doesn't make a difference, I have tested it. Another reason I use VM is to sandbox my browser, I have not done this in a while coz it's better to use Linux containers 

Ok so my questions is, can I use BTRFS for unRaid cache drives as well?

 

 

[SCHISCHKA]

2 minutes ago, Donci said:

Ok so my questions is, can I use BTRFS for unRaid cache drives as well?

 

 

Arch wiki says it's OK above kernel 3.19

[Donci]

1 hour ago, SCHISCHKA said:

Arch wiki says it's OK above kernel 3.19

Thanks

[dalekphalm]

5 hours ago, Donci said:

1. What exactly replaces a virtual machine?

2. I want to use unRAID because its a simple and adaquite solution 

3. Expanding a ZFS system can only be done in blocks, and I could not change the parity configuration.

4. A multimedia server is important because this way the entire library can be watched any time any where from any device

 

Thank you for your reply but this definitely wasnt constructive for me.

1. The most common replacement for VM's are something called "Jails" - they are essentially just segmented portions of the OS that share some resources. But VM's are NOT DEAD OR DYING. In some specific situations, Jails, etc, are just as good or better, but in the business world, VM's are still running strong.

2. unRAID is alright, but there are lots of other solutions out there you may want to consider. FreeNAS, Linux (Debian or Ubuntu, etc), even Windows Server.

3. ZFS expandability is simply put, not great. If you need to constantly expand, don't use ZFS. ZFS is great if you plan your entire pool ahead of time, but if you need to expand later, you're basically looking at backing up all the data and destroying the pools and then recreating them, then reloading the data.

 

For expandability, Windows Storage Spaces does that very well, but you won't be able to change RAID type. What I mean is, if you have a RAID5 pool (or RAID6) to start, you can easily add new drives as many times as you want. But you cannot move from a RAID5 to a RAID6 without destroying the pool.

 

Another option is FlexRAID - I used to use this as the basis for my media server. It uses a file level filesystem that sits on-top of your traditional file system (NTFS, ext4, etc). You can change the type of RAID level on the fly, and you can expand the pool at will, even adding more parity drives as your pool grows. It works quite differently, and isn't as good performance wise as a true RAID array though - basically, you'll get the performance of a single HDD. Not bad, just nothing special there. But because FlexRAID sits on top of your filesystem, it's nondestructive. You can add drives to a FlexRAID pool without destroying the data on the drive.

 

4. Plex is one of the best media server applications out there. It can run on just about any OS, and on most hardware. Storage wise, as long as you have decent write speeds, you don't need anything super fast.

[jj9987]

22 hours ago, Donci said:

Ok so my questions is, can I use BTRFS for unRaid cache drives as well?

 

 

Yes, you can.

[Donci]

On 2/25/2017 at 4:20 PM, dalekphalm said:

1. The most common replacement for VM's are something called "Jails" - they are essentially just segmented portions of the OS that share some resources. But VM's are NOT DEAD OR DYING. In some specific situations, Jails, etc, are just as good or better, but in the business world, VM's are still running strong.

2. unRAID is alright, but there are lots of other solutions out there you may want to consider. FreeNAS, Linux (Debian or Ubuntu, etc), even Windows Server.

3. ZFS expandability is simply put, not great. If you need to constantly expand, don't use ZFS. ZFS is great if you plan your entire pool ahead of time, but if you need to expand later, you're basically looking at backing up all the data and destroying the pools and then recreating them, then reloading the data.

 

For expandability, Windows Storage Spaces does that very well, but you won't be able to change RAID type. What I mean is, if you have a RAID5 pool (or RAID6) to start, you can easily add new drives as many times as you want. But you cannot move from a RAID5 to a RAID6 without destroying the pool.

 

Another option is FlexRAID - I used to use this as the basis for my media server. It uses a file level filesystem that sits on-top of your traditional file system (NTFS, ext4, etc). You can change the type of RAID level on the fly, and you can expand the pool at will, even adding more parity drives as your pool grows. It works quite differently, and isn't as good performance wise as a true RAID array though - basically, you'll get the performance of a single HDD. Not bad, just nothing special there. But because FlexRAID sits on top of your filesystem, it's nondestructive. You can add drives to a FlexRAID pool without destroying the data on the drive.

 

4. Plex is one of the best media server applications out there. It can run on just about any OS, and on most hardware. Storage wise, as long as you have decent write speeds, you don't need anything super fast.

FlexRaid seems like a pretty interesting option to me. Does it correct bitrot? Because I have heard that traditional RAID doesnt do that, but I have also heard that when using enterprise SAS drives and ECC ram it really doesnt occur. 

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Donci said:

FlexRaid seems like a pretty interesting option to me. Does it correct bitrot? Because I have heard that traditional RAID doesnt do that, but I have also heard that when using enterprise SAS drives and ECC ram it really doesnt occur. 

Bitrot can occur on any drive, in any configuration. SAS drives are generally more robust hardware, but they cannot prevent bitrot entirely. Bitrot can occur when the drive is just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing, and then a bit randomly flips (Due to EMI, background radiation, interference from other nearby magnetic fields, etc). Any system that does "scrubbing" will protect against bitrot. Newer enterprise storage solutions - some of which that utilize hardware RAID - do scrubbing as well, but these generally are appliance based solutions, so you're buying the whole package - hardware and OS, not just a RAID card.

 

If I recall correctly, FlexRAID can do scrubbing based on a schedule (same as ZFS/FreeNAS does).

 

ECC RAM prevents against corrupted files from getting written to the HDD at all. ECC RAM doesn't inherently protect against bitrot, because bitrot happens after the data leaves the RAM.

 

The downside to not using ECC RAM is that if a single-bit RAM error happens (one of the bits gets flipped while in RAM), it will write that incorrect bit as if it were good data. That means the hash is created using an already corrupted file, and scrubbing will NEVER be able to tell that the file is already corrupted.

 

However, single-bit RAM errors are very rare. I'm talking one every 1.5 years or so kind of rare. And most files will still work with a single bit flipped anyway, but it does depend on the specific file type.

 

ECC RAM is nice to have, and if the price is similar, or if you can still afford it after all other hardware considerations - go for it.

 

SAS HDD's, however, unless you can get them for a similar price, are totally not worth it for a Home-Based solution. Generally the only way you're gonna find SAS drives for anywhere close to the same price as SATA drives, is if they are used - and I would be reluctant to buy used SAS drives.

 

If you are going with a software RAID solution like FreeNAS + ZFS, or Windows + FlexRAID, or Linux + MDADM, then just pick up some decent quality SATA drives in the capacity you need, like Seagate barracuda's, or WD Blue/Green/Red, etc. I would pick a drive that has at least a 2 year warranty (3 to 5 year warranties are ideal though). Don't get a drive that only has a 1 year warranty.