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[JustinChase]

I've currently got 4 1TB drives running in RAID5 on the HTPC using the Intel Matrix RAID solution.  it works fine, but it's now full.

I just ordered 4 3TB Hitachi SATA 3 drives, and don't really want to go thru all the hassle of backing up the current media to external drives, then install the new drives, then copy back over, then in a couple of years, do it all again.

so, I'd like to build a NAS or RAID server.  I've just started looking into options, and "store bought" solutions are more than I'd like to spend, plus i like to tinker.

For those that have a working solution, what are you using?

I've seen unRAID and FreeNAS mentioned, and they seem to offer similar solutions, but I've not looked hard enough to understand the differences.

I'd like the ability to hot-swap drives to allow for replacing drives with larger drives (assuming they will continue to get larger than 3TB), and to maybe use the 1TB drives in conjunction with the 3TB drives, although not necessary.  I want to get away from having to 'backup' the entire array in order to "upgrade" the drives/size of the array; which I currently need to do.

I'd like it to be separate from the HTPC box, so that it will be available to anyone at any time, without having to keep the HTPC running full time, and to keep the heat out of the HTPC.

I have a couple of old motherboard/CPU's laying around, probably 8-10 years old (not powerful), and would love to put one to use if it makes sense, but am willing to purchase something if warranted.

I'm assuming I'll need a case with 8-10 bays for hard drives, and some sort of SATA3 'controller card', but haven't even looked into that yet.

thoughts/suggestions?

[vicini]

to my understanding with RAID5 (and if you are replacing to a bigger drive ONLY) you just replace each drive 1 at a time. rebuild after you replace the first drive, rebuild after replace the 2nd drive and so on.
There should be no need in swapping files to external drives. But do some research on it just to make sure.

[fitbrit]

Justin, all I have time to say for now is that I am as big of a fanboy for unraid as I am for JRiver. You won't regret its simplicity and it, too, has an amazingly helpful crowd in their forum.

[JustinChase]

to my understanding with RAID5 (and if you are replacing to a bigger drive ONLY) you just replace each drive 1 at a time. rebuild after you replace the first drive, rebuild after replace the 2nd drive and so on.
There should be no need in swapping files to external drives. But do some research on it just to make sure.

I didn't know you could do that, thanks.  I'm afraid it will take several days to swap out the 4 drives after waiting for each rebuild, but the fact that it's possible is cool.

Justin, all I have time to say for now is that I am as big of a fanboy for unraid as I am for JRiver. You won't regret its simplicity and it, too, has an amazingly helpful crowd in their forum.

I've been looking some more, and the only real complaints I've seen are slowness, but they all seem to be a few years old, so i assume this isn't an issue any longer.  The fact that I can mix and match drive sizes seems great, but I'm not sure if all drives will be dumbed down to the slowest common denominator.

I'm looking at parts now, and will browse their forum later this evening before I buy anything.

Thanks for the input. I'm sure I'll have more questions later

[CountryBumkin]

to my understanding with RAID5 (and if you are replacing to a bigger drive ONLY) you just replace each drive 1 at a time. rebuild after you replace the first drive, rebuild after replace the 2nd drive and so on.
There should be no need in swapping files to external drives. But do some research on it just to make sure.

As mentioned, adding more drives to an array does not work for all RAID products. I origially used the built-in RAID on my MB, but it would not allow fro drive migration (adding more drives to the array or changing RAID levels). After I learned this I switched to a hardware RAID card (LSI 9650SE) and, so far, I have exapnded my array several times without a problem. I have 1TB drives in my setup - but woul dbe same for whatever you use. I went from 5 drives (RAID 5) to 6 drives, then 7, and finally 8, it took about 4 days each time I added a drive to rebuild the array. I my setup I can still use the array while the migration is taking place. I also switched from a 4 SATA RAID controller to an 8 Drive controller, by just moving the SATA cables from one controller to the other.  These are nice to have features/cababilities that you may want to ask about before deciding on which RAID product to use. It would be a shame to put all that effort into your system then discover you can't expand it.

[fitbrit]

I see no speed issues with unraid as long as you're on a gigabit network and using SATAII or better. unraid is PLENTY fast for MC use. I can play HD video in at least two rooms and music in at least three at the same time. The limit is really only the network as long as all the media you want to play at the same time isn't on the same physical drive in the array.

It's far more flexible than RAID5, and with virtually no way to lose all your data unless all drives fail simultaneously. The wiki on hardware compatibility in terms of motherboards etc. is way out of date; nowadays more or less everything will work.

If you wish to replace a drive to a bigger one, simply shut down the array. Replace the drive, turn on the server and click a confirmation to rebuild. That's it; within a few hours, even for a 2TB drive everything is ready... and you can even continue to access stuff that was on the drive that you took out while it's rebuilding. If you want to add a drive, just add it (while the server is off). Turn on the server and it's there to be assigned as additional space. If you've pre-cleared the drive, it's ready to use within 5 minutes or so.

[JustinChase]

I'm currently looking thru the old boxes of "leftovers" (previously replaced stuff) to see what I can re-use.  Sadly, i don't think either of my motherboards has onboard video.  I'm not sure if I need to install a video card to get it working/running.  I thought I saw that once it's built and connected to the network, I can manage everything from a webservice, but I don't imagine I can *get* it setup without video.  Still reading.

if I need to install a video card, the only one i currently have is a PCIe x16, which eliminates the only slot I could have installed a controller card.  plus it seems the controller cards cost about as much as a motherboard with SATA 3 onboard, so it seems I'm going to have to buy another motherboard and not use one of the 2 I already have, too bad.

to make it all the more confusing, I want to upgrade the video card in the HTPC to an nVidia to get de-interlacing and better madVR results, but I don't think my current board has 2 PCIe x16 slots next to one another, so I can't install the card I'm considering 550Ti into it.

and just to make it more interesting, the wife wants to sell her laptop, take mine, and for me to build a desktop for myself, since I never take my laptop anywhere, so I'm looking at building or changing 3 machines at the same time, and am trying to figure out what can be used where.

I got up at 5am, and I think my brain has shut down now

I'm strongly leaning towards unRAID, mainly because it allows different sized drives, and for individual drives to spin down when not in use.  but I've got to find a way to connect 4 SATA3 drives, and could re-use the 4 SATA2 1TB drives also, but don't yet know how/where to connect them all.

I suppose I'll need to build the unRAID box with the new/larger drives, then copy from teh older 1TB drives to the new ones, then I can remove the 1TB's from the HTPC and install them in the unRAID.

One question.  i think I read that unRAID Pro is up to 9 drives, does that include the install/boot drive, or is it really just installed from the USB and i don't really need a traditional boot drive?

Fun stuff.

[globetrotters1]

Justin,

you touched a very hot and difficult topic. I spent some years now to build up experience and today we run a large 18 hard disk RAID 6 system with JRiver Media Center, some 350'000 music tracks and right now around 2'000 movies.

The hardware:
- Self built server case NORCO RPC-4020 with 1 32GB SSD as a system hard disk
- Motherboard ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB 3
- AMD 1100 6-core processor
- 16GB memory
- Graphics card
- ARECA ARC-1680ix-24 RAID controller
- TV Tuner card
- Sound controller
- 8x 1.5TB hard disks (music)
- 10x 2TB hard disks (movies)

- Second SAS case NORCO RPC-4020 (backup case)
- Chenbro CK13601 SAS Expander (ideal, because it is built like a motherboard and fits into the rear motherboard connector opening!)
- 8x 1.5TB hard disks (music backup)
- 10x 2TB hard disks (movies backup)

After some little problems it runs like a charm

And please know: RAID is NOT a backup solution! RAID is meant for 24 hours readiness! So please think on a backup solution too.

If you wanna know specific details I'll be happy to respond to your questions

best and good luck, Martin

[fitbrit]

I'm currently looking thru the old boxes of "leftovers" (previously replaced stuff) to see what I can re-use.  Sadly, i don't think either of my motherboards has onboard video.  I'm not sure if I need to install a video card to get it working/running.  I thought I saw that once it's built and connected to the network, I can manage everything from a webservice, but I don't imagine I can *get* it setup without video.  Still reading.

if I need to install a video card, the only one i currently have is a PCIe x16, which eliminates the only slot I could have installed a controller card.  plus it seems the controller cards cost about as much as a motherboard with SATA 3 onboard, so it seems I'm going to have to buy another motherboard and not use one of the 2 I already have, too bad.

to make it all the more confusing, I want to upgrade the video card in the HTPC to an nVidia to get de-interlacing and better madVR results, but I don't think my current board has 2 PCIe x16 slots next to one another, so I can't install the card I'm considering 550Ti into it.

and just to make it more interesting, the wife wants to sell her laptop, take mine, and for me to build a desktop for myself, since I never take my laptop anywhere, so I'm looking at building or changing 3 machines at the same time, and am trying to figure out what can be used where.

I got up at 5am, and I think my brain has shut down now

I'm strongly leaning towards unRAID, mainly because it allows different sized drives, and for individual drives to spin down when not in use.  but I've got to find a way to connect 4 SATA3 drives, and could re-use the 4 SATA2 1TB drives also, but don't yet know how/where to connect them all.

I suppose I'll need to build the unRAID box with the new/larger drives, then copy from teh older 1TB drives to the new ones, then I can remove the 1TB's from the HTPC and install them in the unRAID.

One question.  i think I read that unRAID Pro is up to 9 drives, does that include the install/boot drive, or is it really just installed from the USB and i don't really need a traditional boot drive?

Fun stuff.

In no particular order:

I have the version of unRAID that allows up to 20 data drives, plus one parity, plus one cache drive (to speed up writes to the server). Unraid boots from a USB key.

A video card isn't required, but could be necessary for setting up the BIOS etc. the first time. You can then remove it and replace it with a SATA controller. All other confiuration can be done through a browser on another networked PC, Mac, smartphone etc.

I've done the same type of multiple PC building/component swap thing before. It can be fun!

My advice would be to think big, much bigger than you expect. To that end, you want at least a case like a Centurion 590, that can in theory hold up to 15 drives (mine has 12). I also have two 5 bay eSATA boxes, for a total of 35 TB space, soon to be 37. Or be prepared to expand space as you need it, including the physical case it comes in later.
If you post the exact models of the mobos you have I could try to come up with some solutions for you. I also have a couple of Promise TX4 4-port PCI cards that i could send you for the cost of shipping. They're slow, but the get the job done using PCI rather than PCIe slots.

[JustinChase]

thanks fitbrit, I've spent quite a bit of time today browsing newegg, and I think I've got some solutions worked out.  I'm trying to organize it a bit better, but will post my current (tentative) plan for the unRAID server, as well as the HTPC modifications either later tonight or in the morning (it's getting hard to keep my eyes open).

I'm not certain this is current, as I'm still reading and updating, and this is still "in process", but here's what I'm thinking for the unRAID box.

Sorry about poor formating, I'll fix in the morning

the motherboard, processor, memory and HDD's are in my current HTPC, and I think can be reused fine.  the motherboard has 3 PCIe slots, so room for more controller cards, and I have a PCI video card, but will probably remove that since it seems I'll only need it for setup, and can use a spare for just that.

The rest I'll need to order.  this case has room for 8 internal 3.5" drives and 3 5.25" drives, and comes with 5 120mm fans, 2 in front, 3 in the middle, and ships for about $70US.

Code: [Select]

Motherboard Foxconn    ELA                    LGA 775 Intel G33 ATX Intel Motherboard
Processor    Intel          Pentium E5200    Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core
Memory      Patriot        PVS24G6400LLKN        Patriot Viper 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Hard Drive  Samsung    Spinpoint F1        1TB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal
Hard Drive  Hitachi        Deskstar 0S03230 3TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal
Case          Rosewill      RSV-L4000        Black Metal / Steel, 1.0 mm thickness, 4U Rackmount Server Chassis 8 Internal Bays, 7 Included Cooling Fans
Power Supply XFX            PRO550W          550W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC
SATA card  HighPoint    RocketRAID 640          PCI-Express 2.0 x4 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card
Video card  HIS            H700H64P          Radeon 7000 64MB 64-bit DDR PCI Low Profile Ready

I'll update again in the morning.

thanks all for the feedback!!

[fitbrit]

A couple of points:

The three 5.25" bays can use a 4-in3 or 5-in-3 drive cage/hot swap bay box to give you up to 12 or 13 drives respectively.

If you're going to use a 3TB drive, I think you have to install a version 5 beta, not a stable release of unraid. In any case you have to buy at least two if you want to use a parity drive for protection, because the parity drive has to at least equal the size of the largest data drive. IMO, it's best to stick with 2 TB drives (price sweetspot too) for now.

Good choice of processor - powerful enough that you can probably install Air Video on this and do live conversion of streamed video to an iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch anywhere in the world where you have a wifi connection. (or even 3G). 4 GB RAM is overkill unless you plan on installing lots of add-ons to basic unraid.

I'm not sure that SATAIII cards are supported yet. It may be a waste anyway for reading/writing to the server as the gigabit ethernet might be the bottleneck. It would help for internal transfers and parity checks though. The Supermicro PCIex4 8 portcard is a great choice, though, so do look into it some time.

Power supply should be okay.

[JustinChase]

Wow, that was fast.  I tried to sleep, but couldn't shut my mind off, so I'm back.  (I hate when that happens)

I cleaned up my list, so it's more readable now.

I didn't realize I could use the 5.25" bays for more drives, that's excellent to hear.

I thought I'd read that unRAID supported 3TB drives, but I've bounced around so much, i don't really remember; so I'll take your word that I'll need the beta version.  Maybe I'd read that it works with SATA3.  I'll double-check before I get too far along

I already have the 3TB SATA3 drives; newegg had them on sale for 110/each free shipping, and I figured it'd be better to have SATA3 in the future, and they were about the same $/gig as 2TB, and less drives means more room   I bought 4 of them.  i have 4 1TB drives in there now, and only have about 100Gb free, so I'm trying to move somewhat quickly, before I have to start moving stuff to external drives.

The 4gb of memory is already in there, and I have no use for it outside of that board, so even if overkill, that's fine

I'm not familiar with Air Video, but it's done fine to convert 1080p files to stream with Gizmo, so more options are always good.

The SuperMicro PCIex4 card looks great, but it's only SATA2, and the Foxconn board already has 6 SATA2 ports, and the SATA3 card I found adds 4 ports for the new drives, so that gets me to 10, and I only have 8 1TB or larger now, so I'll hold off on that (unless I discover the SATA3 card won't work).

I've read several people say you want a single rail Power Supply, or I'd use the one I already have (Antec   EA500   Earthwatts 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC).

As for re-using parts, I'll likely use these for the new desktop. 

Code: [Select]

Case          SILVERSTONE            Grandia GD01      Silver Aluminum front panel, 0.8mm SECC body GD01S-R ATX Media Center
Power Supply Antec                  EA500                Earthwatts 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC
Video Card  XFX                    Radeon HD 5550        1024MB GDDR2, PCI-Express 2.0, DVI, VGA, HDMI
SSD          Kingston               V+ Series 64Gb      SSDNow 2.5" Internal SSD

I still need to decide on motherboard and processor, memory will likely be 8GB of something, since it's pretty cheap.  I think AMD is still cheaper/performance, but I'll need/want something powerful enough to process video (and play Diablo 3 when released), so I'll likely end up with an i5.  Will that be fast enough to process all video?  if not, maybe another nVidia card (good job ATI for not being helpful with hardware deinterlacing!!!)


Finally, the HTPC.  Since I'm not planning on using it for gaming, I'm *considering* trying to use my old SUPERMICRO   MBD-C2SBA+-O   LGA 775 Intel G33 ATX Intel Motherboard in there.  An unimpressive processor, but I'm buying a GeForce 550Ti for it, so if I can get confirmation that I really don't need any processor power for video processing (LAV CUVID and madVR), I'll find another socket 775 processor, and reuse the board.

The SuperMicro motherboard above was replaced by the Foxxcon I'll put in the unRAID box, so I'd like to put it to use, but it still sells for decent $$, so i may just sell it and get something more current.  I just don't know how powerful a processor I need, since the new GeForce should handle all video processing fine.

I hope that all makes sense, I'm still tired

sorry to somewhat derail my own thread with the other computer parts discussion, but you did offer some input

If you post the exact models of the mobos you have I could try to come up with some solutions for you.

I appreciate all the help.  I'm feeling pretty decent about the unRAID box setup, but still need to confirm SATA3 and 3TB functionality, but otherwise I should be under $250 for the new parts I'll need; which seems reasonable to me

Thanks again; I'm really going to sleep now 

[newsposter]

freenas 8.01 will be out shortly, it's in RC at the moment.

you can look at addonics.com for ideas regarding drive cages

[JustinChase]

freenas 8.01 will be out shortly, it's in RC at the moment.

you can look at addonics.com for ideas regarding drive cages

thasnk.  have you used/do you recomment freenas?  unRAID sounds simple to set up, but freenas has had some good reviews/comments also.

I'm assuming the box I build will work fine with either.  do you know if freenas works fine with 3TB SATA3 drives?

[newsposter]

freenas or any other properly built linux nas distro should support current devices as well as anything inteh past 3-4-5 years.  Probably older than that too but you don't want old drives in a nas......

I've built any number of nas machines with freenas as have other users here with unraid.

But after a while I've decided that using a software nas distro that has a) way more features I need and b) complexity that I don't want to deal with isn't worth the hassle when c) I look at the the low cost of hardware raid 1 boxes.

Every disk volume I have, in my computers and in my disk storage, is raid 1.  Drives are that cheap these days.  Way to cheap to force myself to deal with raid-anything else.

Don't be fooled by the ease of **setup** of any particular nas distro including windows home server, freenas, or unraid.  Everything is easy to set up when all of the devices involved are brand new.

The complexity comes in when you try to recover from a drive failure.  If you haven't checked that out and practiced how to recover, you're likely to NOT have a very good 'experience' when the time comes to actually change out a drive and rebuild an array.

[fitbrit]

Wow, that was fast.  I tried to sleep, but couldn't shut my mind off, so I'm back.  (I hate when that happens)

I cleaned up my list, so it's more readable now.

I didn't realize I could use the 5.25" bays for more drives, that's excellent to hear.

I thought I'd read that unRAID supported 3TB drives, but I've bounced around so much, i don't really remember; so I'll take your word that I'll need the beta version.  Maybe I'd read that it works with SATA3.  I'll double-check before I get too far along

I already have the 3TB SATA3 drives; newegg had them on sale for 110/each free shipping, and I figured it'd be better to have SATA3 in the future, and they were about the same $/gig as 2TB, and less drives means more room   I bought 4 of them.  i have 4 1TB drives in there now, and only have about 100Gb free, so I'm trying to move somewhat quickly, before I have to start moving stuff to external drives.

The 4gb of memory is already in there, and I have no use for it outside of that board, so even if overkill, that's fine

I'm not familiar with Air Video, but it's done fine to convert 1080p files to stream with Gizmo, so more options are always good.

The SuperMicro PCIex4 card looks great, but it's only SATA2, and the Foxconn board already has 6 SATA2 ports, and the SATA3 card I found adds 4 ports for the new drives, so that gets me to 10, and I only have 8 1TB or larger now, so I'll hold off on that (unless I discover the SATA3 card won't work).

I've read several people say you want a single rail Power Supply, or I'd use the one I already have (Antec   EA500   Earthwatts 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC).

As for re-using parts, I'll likely use these for the new desktop. 

Code: [Select]

Case          SILVERSTONE            Grandia GD01      Silver Aluminum front panel, 0.8mm SECC body GD01S-R ATX Media Center
Power Supply Antec                  EA500                Earthwatts 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC
Video Card  XFX                    Radeon HD 5550        1024MB GDDR2, PCI-Express 2.0, DVI, VGA, HDMI
SSD          Kingston               V+ Series 64Gb      SSDNow 2.5" Internal SSD

I still need to decide on motherboard and processor, memory will likely be 8GB of something, since it's pretty cheap.  I think AMD is still cheaper/performance, but I'll need/want something powerful enough to process video (and play Diablo 3 when released), so I'll likely end up with an i5.  Will that be fast enough to process all video?  if not, maybe another nVidia card (good job ATI for not being helpful with hardware deinterlacing!!!)


Finally, the HTPC.  Since I'm not planning on using it for gaming, I'm *considering* trying to use my old SUPERMICRO   MBD-C2SBA+-O   LGA 775 Intel G33 ATX Intel Motherboard in there.  An unimpressive processor, but I'm buying a GeForce 550Ti for it, so if I can get confirmation that I really don't need any processor power for video processing (LAV CUVID and madVR), I'll find another socket 775 processor, and reuse the board.

The SuperMicro motherboard above was replaced by the Foxxcon I'll put in the unRAID box, so I'd like to put it to use, but it still sells for decent $$, so i may just sell it and get something more current.  I just don't know how powerful a processor I need, since the new GeForce should handle all video processing fine.

I hope that all makes sense, I'm still tired

sorry to somewhat derail my own thread with the other computer parts discussion, but you did offer some input

I appreciate all the help.  I'm feeling pretty decent about the unRAID box setup, but still need to confirm SATA3 and 3TB functionality, but otherwise I should be under $250 for the new parts I'll need; which seems reasonable to me

Thanks again; I'm really going to sleep now 

To be sure, the 3TB support is right around the corner, and the version 5 betas are pretty stable anyway - for basic use you won't notice they're betas.

This is what I use to convert three 5.25" into four 3.5" bays: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817993002&Tpk=coolermaster%204-in-3

If you're an Android guy, I think a VLC variant does the same as Air Video, meaning you can watch your video library on your Android device anywhere in the world.

A single 12v rail on the PSU is desirable, yes. Not essential though, as I use a three rail 650W PSU. I did have to buy a couple of special cables to distribute the drive load evenly, so go single rail if you can.

An i5 will be sufficient, yes. And the SandyBridges are sueful in that you can always revert to the built-in video if your card ever fails. Personally for HQ video I'd stick with nVidia over ATi for now, thanks to LAVCUVID using hardware acceleration. However, your potential i5 will cover you for video decoding without hardware acceleration at the expense of some CPU cycles. Very few people multitask while watching HD video anyway, right?

For HTPC use the 550Ti will couple with any dual core 775 processor to give you a great experience in MC. There's no need to beef anything up. I've had great results with a GTS450 and a Clarkdale i3 in MC with very high bitrate 1080p video playing flawlessly with RO HQ.

[fitbrit]

Some more general info on unraid from a three year old thread of mine in another forum. All this is still true today and a lot more:

unRAID is a Linux-based media server alternative to a network attached storage (NAS) device.
From the wiki:
unRAID Server is a Network Attached Storage server operating system designed to boot from a USB Flash device and specifically designed for digital media storage. It employs a unique RAID technology, close to RAID4, but without striping, which provides for great configuration flexibility:

* Any combination of IDE and SATA hard drives may be used
* All the hard drives do not need to be the same size or speed
* Hard drives not being accessed may be spun down
* Can rebuild any single failed hard drive

Features:

It boots from a USB key: Any hard drives you put into it can be 100% used for storage.

Parity: Your data is protected from loss if a single drive fails. Just replace the drive and all your data will be restored. RAID 5 also does this.

Further protection: If a second drive fails before you replace the first failed one, you only lose the data on the two failed drives, not the whole array. RAID5 does not do this.

Expandable: Add more drives without needing to rebuild the array. Mix and match IDE and SATA drives.

Low Power: Using a Celeron 420 or other low power chip, and your power usage is going to be low, low, low... especially since any drives that are not being used can be spun down after a user-defined length of time idle.

Low Cost: Free for three drives. About $60 for up to 6 drives. $99 for up to 20 drives. Higher disk numbers will be supported soon.

Cheap to build: Just use any mobo that boots from USB. No need for a high speed CPU, and 1 GB of RAM is plenty. You can even recycle those old S939/S754 CPUs and make one cheaper than mine.

[fitbrit]

Recovering from a single failed drive is EXTREMELY easy in unraid, and as I mentioned before, you can still access the data on the failed drive, even when it's not in the server any more! Further, if more than one drive fails at the same time, you only lose the data on those drives, not the whole array.

[JustinChase]

Okay, so I'm back from Mexico, and I have all the parts to build this box.

I haven't looked yet on the unRAID forums, but I've received such good feedback here, i thought I'd start off with asking here before I go digging around over there, in case it's an easy answer

My current HTPC is running Windows 7, and I have a RAID 5 setup using the Intel Matrix Storage software.

I'm going to put this same motherboard, memory, processor, and the 4 1TB drives that make up the current RAID all into the new unRAID box.

Ideally, I would be able to keep the current RAID array intact (using all the same parts), and they just copy all the data to the new 3TB drives I'm adding to the box, then format the 1TB drives, then add them to the unRAID array/system for the extra storage capacity and be done.

The question is, how to keep the Intel Matrix Storage RAID 5 array "usable" in the new box, even if just long enough to get the data copied over.  I'm guessing unRAID won't recognize the data properly without the Intel Matrix software.

I thought about just keeping the current boot drive installed and trying to dual boot (or similar) with the unRAID software, but I'm guessing it won't be that simple.

I have a couple of 2TB external drives I can copy everything to temporarily if necessary, but avoiding the extra copying step, especially over USB 2.0 would be much faster.

Anyone have any experience with this, or suggestions on how to do it easily?

[Bizarroterl]

Unraid won't recognize the Windows/Intel array, so you will have to move all the data elsewhere, build the unraid server, and then move/copy the data onto the new unraid array.

Also note that unraid doesn't use NTFS (windows) file systems.  If you put a NTFS formatted drive into the array Unraid will ask you if you want to format/prepare it and if you do, any data on it is gone.

[JustinChase]

I figured as much

thanks for confirming.

I've got family coming for a visit this weekend, so this will have to wait another week or so, but hopefully I can report back on my success soon.

thanks again for all the help everyone

[fitbrit]

The Linux distribution that unraid uses CAN mount NTFS files, at least from an external USB device, and unRAID can co-exist on the same build as NTFS drives. You amy well be able to do what you're looking for,  but it will be a little complex. I am fairly confident it can be done. All you have to do is to make sure that the NTFS drives are not part of the array under the DEVICES tab, so do NOT assign them to any of unRAIDS 20 data, one parity and one cache slots. But, really, you should ask this question of the real unraid experts at limetech.