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FreeNAS or unRAID

M

Mjg1675

Gawd
Joined
Oct 14, 2009
Messages
512
I can't decide which one I want to go with an am looking for the opinions/input of others.

Thank you!
 
I've been using unRaid for 4+ years and am very happy with it.

Mjg1675 - you would best served to try to identify your needs/wants, prioritize those needs/wants and see what solution fits you best. When it comes to unRaid, FreeNAS, FlexRaid, WHS, or whatever, not a single one is best for all. Each has their pros/cons.

The things that sold me on unRaid are
1) I was able to use my existing desktop and a couple blank hard drives and a flash drive and in 20 minutes had an unRaid server available/visible on my network,
2) Drive space efficient, 1 parity drive, the rest are for your data, boots off flash so you don't use drive(s) for the OS
3) Drive size flexible - only limit is parity drive has to be as big as your biggest data drive,
4) Data not tied to hardware - it is very straightforward to move all unRaid disks from one server to another,
5) File format is not proprietary and not dependent on hardware - it is possible to pull an unRaid disk and attach it to any Windows on linux box and get at the data,
6) Energy efficient - drives not in use can be spun-down
7) Data availability - if you have to replace a failed drive, you do not have to wait for a rebuild to finish to get at the data on the failed drive,
8) Multiple drive failure - if multiple drives fail simultaneously, you do not lose the rest of the array.
9) Very easy to expand.
10) Fairly active community.
 
Agree with JRS, you need to be more specific about what you plan to use it for, what hardware you have to run it on, etc etc.
 
Here's what I have and am ready to deploy as soon as the Norco bays get here.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Intel Mobo (4 Sata ports)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115114

4 x Seagate 2TB 7200 Drives
Norco SS-500 Hotswap bays

Can't do hardware raid as the raid card doesn't support it.

I'm using it for a network backup (Windows Backup) as well as some movie storage and whatnot.
 
JRS said:
I've been using unRaid for 4+ years and am very happy with it.

Mjg1675 - you would best served to try to identify your needs/wants, prioritize those needs/wants and see what solution fits you best. When it comes to unRaid, FreeNAS, FlexRaid, WHS, or whatever, not a single one is best for all. Each has their pros/cons.

The things that sold me on unRaid are
1) I was able to use my existing desktop and a couple blank hard drives and a flash drive and in 20 minutes had an unRaid server available/visible on my network,
2) Drive space efficient, 1 parity drive, the rest are for your data, boots off flash so you don't use drive(s) for the OS
3) Drive size flexible - only limit is parity drive has to be as big as your biggest data drive,
4) Data not tied to hardware - it is very straightforward to move all unRaid disks from one server to another,
5) File format is not proprietary and not dependent on hardware - it is possible to pull an unRaid disk and attach it to any Windows on linux box and get at the data,
6) Energy efficient - drives not in use can be spun-down
7) Data availability - if you have to replace a failed drive, you do not have to wait for a rebuild to finish to get at the data on the failed drive,
8) Multiple drive failure - if multiple drives fail simultaneously, you do not lose the rest of the array.
9) Very easy to expand.
10) Fairly active community.
Click to expand...

So in RAID5, parity is spread across the drives, and makes it so that if you lose a drive, it can be rebuilt. RAID6 allows for two failures.

What I want to know is what happens to unRAID if the parity drive dies? That and cost prevent me from really looking at this option.
 
Kelvarr said:
So in RAID5, parity is spread across the drives, and makes it so that if you lose a drive, it can be rebuilt. RAID6 allows for two failures.

What I want to know is what happens to unRAID if the parity drive dies? That and cost prevent me from really looking at this option.
Click to expand...

Nothing. With unRaid, you don't even need a parity drive for the array to run and your data to be available. Of course without a parity drive you have no data protection.

Should you lose the parity drive, just plug in a replacement drive, kick-off a parity check/rebuild and shortly after starting that your array is available. This is one thing I like about unRaid vs. many other traditional RAID configuraitons as I understand it (never had one) they often require a full rebuild before you can get at anything on the array.

Should you lose the parity drive and a data drive (or multiple data drives), you lose the data on the lost drives, but you do not lose data on any other remaining drives. RAID6 does have the advantage for tolerating two failures, but three and you lose all of a RAID6 array (afaik). Should you lose three+ drives on a 20 drive unRaid setup, you only lose the data on those drives.

I don't sweat multiple drive failures as the chances are slim. Plus any critical data on my unRaid is also backed up elsewhere, which I think is a must for whatever you choose.

The three drive setup for unRaid is free - try it before you go yay/nay. As I mentioned before, from scratch, I had unRaid available on my home network in 20 minutes. I did not buy parts, I did not have to install a special OS on a hard disk. I did not assemble any parts other than connect a couple extra blank drives to my desktop. I did this without any hardware configuration other than getting the unRaid boot USB configured and changing the boot priority on my desktop and disconnecting the optical drive and my Windows boot drive (just to make sure I didn't have any boot order issues or screw up my boot partition). unRaid by far was the absolute quickest I ever had a new (to me) OS installed, booted up and available on a home network.
 
Sorry for bumping up old thread, but question about the unRAID parity.

Say I want to get 3x 4TB harddrives. If 1 of the 4TB is a parity drive, what happens when I use more than 4TB of the 8TB remaining?
 
Nothing, the parity works across the drives, its not added up.

The first bit of each drive is XOR'd and then stored on the parity disk. Then the second bit is XOR's the same way and stored on the parity disk. You only need parity space equal to the largest single disk in the array.

The problem with unRAID is that it is only limited to a single parity disk and with consumer drive reliability and how large drives are getting these days you are likely to encounter a second issue during a rebuild and that is not good when you only have 1 parity disk as you will have no parity while rebuilding.
 
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