FlexRaid-F or FlexRaid-T

[Blusky 1]

I have been having a little trouble deciding on which way to go on this. I am building my first server and basically what I am storing is my movie collection, recorded tv, and pictures. I will be using MB3 server on the new server I am building. Here is the hardware I have chosen:

 

 

 

Intel Core i5-3470 Quad-Core Processor 3.2 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155 - BX80637I53470

 

Samsung 250GB SSD for operating system

 

ASUS P8Z77-V LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

Kingston Technology HyperX Blu 16 GB Kit (2x8 GB) 1600MHz DDR3 PC3-12800 Non-ECC CL10 DIMM XMP KHX16C10B1K2/16X

 

 

5 Western Digital 4 TB WD Green SATA III 5400 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD40EZRX ( I know you frown on these HD's but I bought them new from a friend at a fraction of the price. to good a deal to turn down, hope I have better luck than you)

 

Silverstone Tek GD08B Aluminum Extended ATX / SSI-EEB / SSI-CEB HTPC Computer Case Cases - Black

 

Lite-On 24X SATA Internal DVD+/-RW Drive with Software, Retail (Black) IHAS324-07

 

Noctua Ultra Silent CPU Cooler Cooling NH-U9B SE2

 

5 Noctua NF-F12 PWM fans

 

WHS 2011

 

 

What I would like to know is peeps who have chosen flexRaid for their server , which version and why they chose that version.

 

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

[Airbender 113]

Hello Blusky,

 

Sorry for dealy response i been very busy, i am not even in MB3 Fourm anymore but hope i can be active again soon , anyway as far your question Raid F VS T Raid ?? well it all depends on you and what you want to do with your system. FlexRaid by defult is software based system so in short and simple way to answer your question it all depends on your need and budget.

 

I went with t-Raid because it has everything i needed and it works great once you undertand it and properly set it up.

 

Here are the video howto: http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,3300.0.html

 

Also check this : http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,3168.0.html

 

Also this : http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,3081.0.html

 

 

Once you read this and watch some of my howto videos you will be able to choice

 

 

Please feel free to ask if you still need help

 

Good Luck

[Blusky 1]

Hello Blusky,

 

Sorry for dealy response i been very busy, i am not even in MB3 Fourm anymore but hope i can be active again soon , anyway as far your question Raid F VS T Raid ?? well it all depends on you and what you want to do with your system. FlexRaid by defult is software based system so in short and simple way to answer your question it all depends on your need and budget.

 

I went with t-Raid because it has everything i needed and it works great once you undertand it and properly set it up.

 

Here are the video howto: http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,3300.0.html

 

Also check this : http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,3168.0.html

 

Also this : http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,3081.0.html

 

 

Once you read this and watch some of my howto videos you will be able to choice

 

 

Please feel free to ask if you still need help

 

Good Luck

Thank you Airbender. I will review all the videos and make my decision and post back. Appreciate the help.

[Airbender 113]

any time my friend also if you look at posts that i have created in MB3 , i think i have at lest 3 POST with so much info and pages after pages of deatil updates

[Blusky 1]

any time my friend also if you look at posts that i have created in MB3 , i think i have at lest 3 POST with so much info and pages after pages of deatil updates

Thanks Airbender. I will search for them at MB3

 

Appreciate you taking the time to post , I know finding the time to do so can be difficult at times.

[Airbender 113]

It is all good , I use to reply faster it just now for some reason life got complicated and I am not active at the forum , I don't even have my system up so no MB3 right now but hoping soon I will

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kkhan 16]

I went for t-Raid running on a standalone server as absolute data reliability was critical for me.  No regrets as it has been supremely reliable.  After setting it up, six months ago it has been up virtually 24x7 and I only ever had one problem.

 

That was a month ago when I tried to use Syncovery running on my desktop to make a mirror image of one of the libraries on the server.  It crashed the server (BSOD). I discovered that Syncovery was bypassing the Windows API in making calls to the server.  Anyway, on restarting t-Raid and the drive pool, everything was normal.  I did a integrity check and no errors so it appears to be a very robust solution.

 

It is a bit slow writing but reading, which is the most important performance criteria, is fine.

 

BTW, I run the t-Raid and Mediabrowser on an HP Microserver and CPU usage rarely rises above 50%.  My hardware is way below yours in terms of performance.  But then again the majority of my clients are windows based so I have little need for server based transcoding.  With the improvements in Redshirts Android client, the need for occasional transcoding when using a tablet has also been minimised.

[Blusky 1]

I went for t-Raid running on a standalone server as absolute data reliability was critical for me.  No regrets as it has been supremely reliable.  After setting it up, six months ago it has been up virtually 24x7 and I only ever had one problem.

 

That was a month ago when I tried to use Syncovery running on my desktop to make a mirror image of one of the libraries on the server.  It crashed the server (BSOD). I discovered that Syncovery was bypassing the Windows API in making calls to the server.  Anyway, on restarting t-Raid and the drive pool, everything was normal.  I did a integrity check and no errors so it appears to be a very robust solution.

 

It is a bit slow writing but reading, which is the most important performance criteria, is fine.

 

BTW, I run the t-Raid and Mediabrowser on an HP Microserver and CPU usage rarely rises above 50%.  My hardware is way below yours in terms of performance.  But then again the majority of my clients are windows based so I have little need for server based transcoding.  With the improvements in Redshirts Android client, the need for occasional transcoding when using a tablet has also been minimised.

 

 

Thanks KKhan for the great info and sharing your experience.

 

After giving it a lot of thought I will start with Flexraid-F and see how that goes. If I don't like it I can always try T-Raid.

 

Appreciate the Help. Before I begin I do have quite a few questions which I did not find in the Wiki.

[Scott750 29]

I'm on the other side of the coin. I went with F-raid and it's been running great 24x7 since December. I did have a couple hiccups, but they were more a learning curve on a few settings. Once I figured them out no trouble since.

 

My decision for using F-raid was the fact that once my movies were ripped to the server, I didn't need instantaneous data parity updates like in t-raid. Only weekly updates will be fine. None of my data changes every second of the day so I saved a little money doing F-raid.

 

My server is similar to your specs and it runs very fast:

 

Gigabyte z77x-ud3h

Intel i5-3750k @ 3.4Ghz

8GB G.skill ripjaws ddr3-1600

Samsung 830 128GB ssd for OS

4x 3TB WD red drives - 3 for data and 1 for parity

Whs2011

NZXT Source 210 case

[Blusky 1]

I'm on the other side of the coin. I went with F-raid and it's been running great 24x7 since December. I did have a couple hiccups, but they were more a learning curve on a few settings. Once I figured them out no trouble since.

 

My decision for using F-raid was the fact that once my movies were ripped to the server, I didn't need instantaneous data parity updates like in t-raid. Only weekly updates will be fine. None of my data changes every second of the day so I saved a little money doing F-raid.

 

My server is similar to your specs and it runs very fast:

 

Gigabyte z77x-ud3h

Intel i5-3750k @ 3.4Ghz

8GB G.skill ripjaws ddr3-1600

Samsung 830 128GB ssd for OS

4x 3TB WD red drives - 3 for data and 1 for parity

Whs2011

NZXT Source 210 case

Thanks Scott750 for your help. I came to the same conclussion for the same reasons as you. We do have very similar servers. If you don't mind me asking did you install MediaBrowser3 on your server? I now have it installed on my HTPC which does have a faster processor than my server. What I am wondering is how well the server will handle transcoding ?

 

If you don't mind Scott750, can you elaborate on what settings you had to change in Flexraid-F to get it running the way you want to?

 

 

I made a post over at Flexraid but have not gotten any answers yet, so I will post them here in the hopes that peeps who have taken this road can help out. Mods if this is not allowed please let me know.

Here goes:

 

1)After installing WHS 2011 I saw that WHS created two partitions on my 250GB SSD, C and D. On the D partition it included the Server folders. After setting up FlexRaid-F can these folders be moved to the pool and then the D partition deleted and added to the C partition? I don't want to have anything on the C drive other than programs.

 

2)Most of my Data will be Movie Backups , Photos and Music. I will be using Media Browser3 and Media center master for the metadata. My plan is to use one of the Black hard drives in my HTPC as a temporary storage for my Movie Backups till the metadata is updated then transfer to storage on the flex raid pool. Is this a viable working solution so the metadata is not constantly being updated in the pool??

3)When is the best time to start transferring my data folders to the flex raid pool?? After flexraid  install?? i noticed some peeps use TeraCopy to transfer are there other choices that work as well ??

 

4) from what I understand, you can keep folders in the Flexraid pool that you don't want flex raid to protect? If I am correct how is this accomplished??

 

5) presently I keep the recorded TV folder on my HTPC Hard drives. I use MceBuddy to detect certain shows that i remove commercials from then it places them in the tv shows folder. Is it better to keep the TV shows folder on a hard drive on my HTPC then transfer later to the pool when all the metadata is up to date just like I have planned on my Movies folder??

 

6) I have a total of 6 4TB hard drives for Flexraid pool. If I read this correctly Flexraid will fill each Hard drive evenly until all the hard drives are full?? I will make 5 hard drives DRU's and 1 Hard drive as PPU.

1PPU for every 6 Hard drives?

 

7) As far as I understand, the shares folders need to be setup in Flexraid not WHS 2011?

 

 

 

Thanks

[Scott750 29]

Thanks Scott750 for your help. I came to the same conclussion for the same reasons as you. We do have very similar servers. If you don't mind me asking did you install MediaBrowser3 on your server? I now have it installed on my HTPC which does have a faster processor than my server. What I am wondering is how well the server will handle transcoding ?

 

If you don't mind Scott750, can you elaborate on what settings you had to change in Flexraid-F to get it running the way you want to?

 

 

I made a post over at Flexraid but have not gotten any answers yet, so I will post them here in the hopes that peeps who have taken this road can help out. Mods if this is not allowed please let me know.

Here goes:

 

1)After installing WHS 2011 I saw that WHS created two partitions on my 250GB SSD, C and D. On the D partition it included the Server folders. After setting up FlexRaid-F can these folders be moved to the pool and then the D partition deleted and added to the C partition? I don't want to have anything on the C drive other than programs.

 

2)Most of my Data will be Movie Backups , Photos and Music. I will be using Media Browser3 and Media center master for the metadata. My plan is to use one of the Black hard drives in my HTPC as a temporary storage for my Movie Backups till the metadata is updated then transfer to storage on the flex raid pool. Is this a viable working solution so the metadata is not constantly being updated in the pool??

3)When is the best time to start transferring my data folders to the flex raid pool?? After flexraid install?? i noticed some peeps use TeraCopy to transfer are there other choices that work as well ??

 

4) from what I understand, you can keep folders in the Flexraid pool that you don't want flex raid to protect? If I am correct how is this accomplished??

 

5) presently I keep the recorded TV folder on my HTPC Hard drives. I use MceBuddy to detect certain shows that i remove commercials from then it places them in the tv shows folder. Is it better to keep the TV shows folder on a hard drive on my HTPC then transfer later to the pool when all the metadata is up to date just like I have planned on my Movies folder??

 

6) I have a total of 6 4TB hard drives for Flexraid pool. If I read this correctly Flexraid will fill each Hard drive evenly until all the hard drives are full?? I will make 5 hard drives DRU's and 1 Hard drive as PPU.

1PPU for every 6 Hard drives?

 

7) As far as I understand, the shares folders need to be setup in Flexraid not WHS 2011?

 

 

 

Thanks

MB3 running perfectly on my server. I built my server not to be a electricity sipping hybrid, but to have enough horsepower to do anything. So I over built it with good hardware. It can handle more than 2 1080p HD streams at once. But I at least I used 80 plus gold power supply to help a little. And make sure the cpu throttles down when idle.

 

So I was having issues with ghost folders not able to delete, errors during backups, etc. But I found Assassin's Blog where he has many step-by-step guides on how to setup FlexRaid, whs2011 and everything for your HTPC. It's been my go-to guides for everything.

 

http://assassinhtpcblog.com/server-flexraid/ '> http://assassinhtpcblog.com/server-flexraid/

 

To answer some of your questions,

 

1) you can use any drive for whs2011 but it wants a 320GB minimum. Don't know why since it creates 2 partitions, one with 60GB and the rest in another. All you need to do is delete the D: partition then expand the C: partition into the remaining space. You don't need any of those folders from the old D: drive. They aren't needed for whs2011 to run.

 

2) I just rip my movies into temp folder on the FlexRaid drives, but don't have MB3 monitor that folder. One of the issues I had with MB3 was as I was ripping a movie, the Metadata scraper was trying to download the data and most of the time it couldn't find the correct movie info. This temp folder takes care of that. This way FlexRaid keeps my files backed up the whole time.

 

3) Yes after FlexRaid is setup. Just copy and paste the data like normal files/folders.

 

4) I don't know about that. If you don't want something baked up by FlexRaid just use your OS drive. But why wouldn't you want it backed up?

 

5) The MB3 Metadata scraper is pretty good. As long as you move the file into a monitored folder at once and not top the file slowly, it will get all of your info correctly.

 

6) Yes the way you list your dru's and ppu's is correct. But theoretically you can have infinite dru's with only one ppu. But that only means that you have a tolerance for 1 drive failure. That's why some add a 2nd ppu one they get very large data pools. Like 20TB's+.

 

7) Yes share folders are setup in the FlexRaid configuration. Assassin's blog shows you how.

 

Hope this helps.

[Blusky 1]

MB3 running perfectly on my server. I built my server not to be a electricity sipping hybrid, but to have enough horsepower to do anything. So I over built it with good hardware. It can handle more than 2 1080p HD streams at once. But I at least I used 80 plus gold power supply to help a little. And make sure the cpu throttles down when idle.

So I was having issues with ghost folders not able to delete, errors during backups, etc. But I found Assassin's Blog where he has many step-by-step guides on how to setup FlexRaid, whs2011 and everything for your HTPC. It's been my go-to guides for everything. http://assassinhtpcblog.com/server-flexraid/ '> http://assassinhtpcblog.com/server-flexraid/

To answer some of your questions,

1) you can use any drive for whs2011 but it wants a 320GB minimum. Don't know why since it creates 2 partitions, one with 60GB and the rest in another. All you need to do is delete the D: partition then expand the C: partition into the remaining space. You don't need any of those folders from the old D: drive. They aren't needed for whs2011 to run.

2) I just rip my movies into temp folder on the FlexRaid drives, but don't have MB3 monitor that folder. One of the issues I had with MB3 was as I was ripping a movie, the Metadata scraper was trying to download the data and most of the time it couldn't find the correct movie info. This temp folder takes care of that. This way FlexRaid keeps my files backed up the whole time.

3) Yes after FlexRaid is setup. Just copy and paste the data like normal files/folders.

4) I don't know about that. If you don't want something baked up by FlexRaid just use your OS drive. But why wouldn't you want it backed up?

5) The MB3 Metadata scraper is pretty good. As long as you move the file into a monitored folder at once and not top the file slowly, it will get all of your info correctly.

6) Yes the way you list your dru's and ppu's is correct. But theoretically you can have infinite dru's with only one ppu. But that only means that you have a tolerance for 1 drive failure. That's why some add a 2nd ppu one they get very large data pools. Like 20TB's+.

7) Yes share folders are setup in the FlexRaid configuration. Assassin's blog shows you how.

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you Scott750,

Appreciate you answering my questions . I agree , Assassin's guides are very good. I guess the more I read over at Flexraid forum the more confusing it seemed to me with the small details in setting it up.

 

I plan to start setting it up next week. Hopefully I will find the time. Once I get it going I will post back the progress or issues so this post can help others.

 

Again, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. That was the only thing I needed to get started.

[Scott750 29]

Your welcome! I agree with you that it's sometimes hard to find info about FlexRaid. I'm on their forum and if it wasn't for Brahim, I'd be in trouble. Also I found a lot of good technical support info from their wiki page: wiki.FlexRaid. Com

[Blusky 1]

Your welcome! I agree with you that it's sometimes hard to find info about FlexRaid. I'm on their forum and if it wasn't for Brahim, I'd be in trouble. Also I found a lot of good technical support info from their wiki page: wiki.FlexRaid. Com

Found some time today to install Flexraid-F. Followed Assassin's guide and also Linus Tech Tips on the Flexraid website and all went well.

 I had a few minor issues that were resolved quickly with a little searching.

the first one was when I was deleting the Recycle bins from each volume windows would repopulate the Recycle bin. this would happen to each drive but I noticed they were not highlighted so I think it will be fine. The other small thing was when I selected Drive manager and then info and stats I would not get any info, all blank. I found that I needed to install Flash Player. Once installed , Info and stats worked perfect. 

 

As soon as I have a little more time I will create network shares in flexraid and transfer my data over to Flexraid.

 

I do have one question if I may. How do you set the settings in merge mode? do you use Auto Folder Priority or Auto Space Priority. The difference from what I have read is that Auto Folder Proiority will not evenly spread files across drives , where Auto Space Priority will fill up the drives as evenly as possible which also means the drives will wear out more evenly. Just curious to see what others chose?

[shaefurr 1337]

I use auto space priority. Others have recommended to use auto folder so that you know exactly what folders are on what drive, where as with auto space priority your folders can span multiple drives. My movies for instance are on 4 different drives, but I also use mediacenter master to keep a log of what movies I have, so it still wouldnt be too hard to figure out what Im missing if I lost a drive. Plus my movie folder is 7TB so its not like it would fit on a single drive anyway.

 

Keep in mind this is all worse case scenario when you cant recover the drive at all.

[Scott750 29]

I left mine on Auto Folder Priority. It will fill up 1 drive at a time, more or less.

[Blusky 1]

I use auto space priority. Others have recommended to use auto folder so that you know exactly what folders are on what drive, where as with auto space priority your folders can span multiple drives. My movies for instance are on 4 different drives, but I also use mediacenter master to keep a log of what movies I have, so it still wouldnt be too hard to figure out what Im missing if I lost a drive. Plus my movie folder is 7TB so its not like it would fit on a single drive anyway.

Keep in mind this is all worse case scenario when you cant recover the drive at all.

Thanks shareafurr,

I presently have maybe 6tb in my movie folder, so as you said my movies would still be spread out over several drives. Good point.

 

 

 

  

I left mine on Auto Folder Priority. It will fill up 1 drive at a time, more or less.

Thanks Scott750, so auto folder priority tries to keep the folders on one drive. Ok , I think either way will work well.

[Blusky 1]

Well, looks like everything went well. I ended up selecting Auto Folder Priority since it is more important that Flexraid-F tries to keep my folders on the same disk and that it fills the hard drives on at a time. also for me , since my server is in my den and I want it to be as quiet as possible , Flexraid only runs the one disk it is using rather than running them all at the same time as with Auto Space Priority.

 

I added all my hard drives to the Flexraid pool and set it up in Snapshot, cruise control mode.

 

The only thing left is for me to set up the shares in Flexraid and transfer my folders over. I have been taking the time to fix a few metadata issues that I have with my movies collection so once I transfer it to Flexraid all my metadata is correct.

 

After that is done I have to uninstall MB3 from my HTPC and install it on the server.

 

Will post back results when it's all done. Thanks

Edited July 11, 2014 by Blusky

[Scott750 29]

Are you sure Auto Folder Priority only spins the disks it's using? I thought once a HDD was added to the FlexRaid pool, it is always running? Have you also setup your scheduled tasks: Update, Validate & the Verify?

[ebr 14929]

In my experience, FR does not spin up any drives itself.  So, you have to actually try to access one for it to spin up.  The "spin groups" is the only feature of UnRaid that I miss as this would mean I wouldn't have potentially multiple delays when first accessing my media.

[shaefurr 1337]

In my experience, FR does not spin up any drives itself.  So, you have to actually try to access one for it to spin up.  The "spin groups" is the only feature of UnRaid that I miss as this would mean I wouldn't have potentially multiple delays when first accessing my media.

I can probably say thats true as well, I have the slower green drives, and you can tell when accessing something on another disk that it actually needs to spin up first.

[Blusky 1]

Are you sure Auto Folder Priority only spins the disks it's using? I thought once a HDD was added to the FlexRaid pool, it is always running? Have you also setup your scheduled tasks: Update, Validate & the Verify?

Well , I went back and searched some of Brahim's posts and he says that Auto Folder saves energy because all the disks are not spinning up as with auto space priority it is constantly looking for the disk with least data on it to write new data. This is the way I understood it. Yes I have set up update , validate and verify , however did not have time yet to transfer all my data .

 

 

 

 

In my experience, FR does not spin up any drives itself. So, you have to actually try to access one for it to spin up. The "spin groups" is the only feature of UnRaid that I miss as this would mean I wouldn't have potentially multiple delays when first accessing my media.

Thanks Ebr, please correct me if my understanding of this wrong.

 

I did find this quote from Brahim about Auto Folder Priority , " Your first disk will always spin in practice as it represents the root of the storage pool by default.

The root moves to a different drive only after the first drive becomes unavailable. "

Edited July 12, 2014 by Blusky