[silvine]

I'm considering getting this or a Synology. I am bit put off by the Proliant as it looks complicated to set up Unraid. What's the learning curve like?

[settings]

Unraid have a step-by-step guide that you follow, once you follow a few simple steps then you do everything from a web interface. You shouldn't need any linux experience. I use unraid and I am delighted I choose it. I'm still just using basic but will upgrade when I get another drive.

http://lime-technology.com/support/u...r-installation

[MrSparkle]

Originally Posted by Panrich

Do you mind sharing where you sourced the 3TB drives? I am looking at getting a few too.

I bought two of them from Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Dig...0311563&sr=8-1

They had only one per customer so I had to get someone else to buy the second one.

I bought the other two from dabs, they don't seem to have the Western Digital ones that I bought on the site anymore. You have these two options from them:
http://www.dabs.ie/category/components-and-storage,hard-drives,internal-hard-drives/11154?q=3tb

They were a small bit cheaper when I bought them, only around £30 cheaper. I got them just before the prices went up because of the floods in Thailand. The ones on dabs went as high as €320 at the height of it.

[silvine]

Originally Posted by settings

Unraid have a step-by-step guide that you follow, once you follow a few simple steps then you do everything from a web interface. You shouldn't need any linux experience. I use unraid and I am delighted I choose it. I'm still just using basic but will upgrade when I get another drive.

http://lime-technology.com/support/u...r-installation

Were you able to install Sabnzbd, Sickbeard or Couchpotato? I had a quick look at how to do this and there was a mention of command lines which I found off-putting. I don't mind a little bit of messing around with the command line but I'd rather not spend hours at it. Did it take you long?

Also what about the BIOS?

BIOS Setup Tips

The system BIOS can be complicated and the exact BIOS settings will vary from motherboard to motherboard.

The guide recommends a cache drive for Sabnzbd package. Does this mean I need an Unraid licence or can I use another machine?

Install the dependency package, this will add python and all the required dependencies every time unRAID boots. Log into your unRAID box and run these commands:
mkdir /boot/packages
cd /boot/packages
wget http://www.bibliognome.com/unraid/SA...486-unRAID.tgz
Now we need to download the servers and extract them. To do this we need a cache drive (you can do it without, but that's out of the scope of this How-To). You will also need to check for the latest download of SABnzbd and replace the wget below with the URL to it.

The Cache drive requires unRAID v4.3-beta4 or later, and is only available with a purchased license (Plus or Pro).

Thanks!

[settings]

Yep, I have the latest Sabnzbd and sickbeard working perfectly on unraid. I never did bother with couch potato, must check it someday tho.
Installation is easy, there is a forum for each program (sickbeard | sab). You run the OS off a usb stick (internal on the hp proliant). You can access everything from the network. On the forums first post there is a config file, download it and paste it on the usb stick into the packages folder. Then open your browser and go the the unmenu (unraids control center) and choose 'package manager' and pick install sabnzbd. At that point you can set the variables like install location, port number etc. Very simple, there will be dependancies you will need first time such as python but you can choose to install everything automatically on reboot.
I have a little 2.5" drives as my cache drive where everything is installed. Technically its not the same cache drive as the one you pay for but it can do everything. I have my unraid/sickbeard installed here so i dont have the main drives spun up all the time, I also have a temporary share here for the same reason.

I wrote a couple of scripts too that I can share. Ones moves all my sick beard stuff to the main raid (all tv shows), everything goes into the proper folders etc, very simple script (this is similar to unraids mover script). another one to move the movies from the cache drive to the main movie folder, very technical indeed

There is also a program called S.n.a.p for managing external drives, mp3 players etc. I also made script to update my external for the last x amount of days of tv and/or movies, music- itis so handy when my friend wants my latest downloads

i really like unraid, once you get setup (which is not hard) it just does what its supposed to without any problems!
The forums are pretty active too and you will never be stuck,

edit: sorry forgot to answer what you said on the bios. I think I did update the bios using that (russian?) crack. I just went to the unraid forms and followed a guide someone posted to the letter. I think it was on this thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/ind...?topic=11585.0
If you planning on using less than 5 drives then I dont think you need to use this ( dont quote me on that though)

this is how I mount my 'cache' then i go unmenu - install sickbeard and sabnzdb (im sure there is a way to automount this but i never looked) everything else is installed at boot- Sab and SB are not as they are installed on cache - which aint mounted on reboot automatically
#/bin/bash

DIR="/mnt/cache"

if [ -d "$DIR" ]
then
mount -t reiserfs /dev/sdd1 /mnt/cache
else
mkdir /mnt/cache
mount -t reiserfs /dev/sdd1 /mnt/cache

[feylya]

Originally Posted by settings

Yep, I have the latest Sabnzbd and sickbeard working perfectly on unraid. I never did bother with couch potato, must check it someday tho.
Installation is easy, there is a forum for each program (sickbeard | sab). You run the OS off a usb stick (internal on the hp proliant). You can access everything from the network. On the forums first post there is a config file, download it and paste it on the usb stick into the packages folder. Then open your browser and go the the unmenu (unraids control center) and choose 'package manager' and pick install sabnzbd. At that point you can set the variables like install location, port number etc. Very simple, there will be dependancies you will need first time such as python but you can choose to install everything automatically on reboot.
I have a little 2.5" drives as my cache drive where everything is installed. Technically its not the same cache drive as the one you pay for but it can do everything. I have my unraid/sickbeard installed here so i dont have the main drives spun up all the time, I also have a temporary share here for the same reason.

I wrote a couple of scripts too that I can share. Ones moves all my sick beard stuff to the main raid (all tv shows), everything goes into the proper folders etc, very simple script (this is similar to unraids mover script). another one to move the movies from the cache drive to the main movie folder, very technical indeed

There is also a program called S.n.a.p for managing external drives, mp3 players etc. I also made script to update my external for the last x amount of days of tv and/or movies, music- itis so handy when my friend wants my latest downloads

i really like unraid, once you get setup (which is not hard) it just does what its supposed to without any problems!
The forums are pretty active too and you will never be stuck,

edit: sorry forgot to answer what you said on the bios. I think I did update the bios using that (russian?) crack. I just went to the unraid forms and followed a guide someone posted to the letter. I think it was on this thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/ind...?topic=11585.0
If you planning on using less than 5 drives then I dont think you need to use this ( dont quote me on that though)

this is how I mount my 'cache' then i go unmenu - install sickbeard and sabnzdb (im sure there is a way to automount this but i never looked) everything else is installed at boot- Sab and SB are not as they are installed on cache - which aint mounted on reboot automatically
#/bin/bash

DIR="/mnt/cache"

if [ -d "$DIR" ]
then
mount -t reiserfs /dev/sdd1 /mnt/cache
else
mkdir /mnt/cache
mount -t reiserfs /dev/sdd1 /mnt/cache

#/bin/bash

DIR="/mnt/cache"

if [ -d "$DIR" ]
then
mount -t reiserfs /dev/sdd1 $DIR
else
mkdir -P $DIR
mount -t reiserfs /dev/sdd1 $DIR

Probably makes a bit more sense

[silvine]

Originally Posted by km991148

Sorry folks.. forgot to update this.. The deals I was talking about before were from ServersPlus.

4TB NAS Option (£370)
http://www.serversplus.com/servers/s...8553421-4tbnas

4GB Standard Option (219£)
http://www.serversplus.com/servers/s.../658553421-4gb

Bog Standard (199£):
http://www.serversplus.com/servers/t...ers/658553-421

Right I've decided to get this. Which one should I buy?

I've 1TB of media and I want to use this as a backend to my HTPC. I want it to run Plex media server, Sabnbzd, Couchpotato and Sickbeard.


Is Unraid easier to run/set up than FreeNas? I take it I can log in remotely from my browser? I want to put the server behind my couch.

Also can you recommend a memory stick and HDD?

Cheers.

[mcgovern]

Originally Posted by silvine

Right I've decided to get this. Which one should I buy?

I've 1TB of media and I want to use this as a backend to my HTPC. I want it to run Plex media server, Sabnbzd, Couchpotato and Sickbeard.


Is Unraid easier to run/set up than FreeNas? I take it I can log in remotely from my browser? I want to put the server behind my couch.

Also can you recommend a memory stick and HDD?

Cheers.

Haven't tried Unraid, I have Sabnbzd, Couchpotato and Sickbeard (and Headphones) running on FreeNas, took me quite a while to get it working. However FreeNas 8.2, which should be out soon (Beta is out at the moment), will let you add these all as plugins which should simplify things enormously.
The web interface for FreeNas is nice, but no access to the file system, it allows you to configure your shares, services etc. If you want to mess around with the data on the drives, you'd need to login using Putty or similar, or access the drive (assuming you have it shared) from a remote computer.

Note: I'm far from an expert on these things, had never really used Linux until I got my MicroServer.

[settings]

here is the unraid interface
http://www.ebabble.net/wp-content/uploads/unRAID.png

here you can do stuff like make shares. ie. make a Movie share here, set what disks in the server you want to use (say disk1+2) etc. Once you apply it you can see the share on your network. Copy movies to this folder over the network, delete, rename etc. - its the same as if it were an external harddrive. personally I copy movies from my cache disk to the main raid so i use ssh and a script for speed - I actually rename/clean movies on the server using windows explorer though before I copy em

here is a look at unmenu - where you can do installation etc
http://www.insomnihack.com/wp-conten...ads/unmenu.png
so after you get the sabnzbd conf file and paste it onto the usb (over the network, v simple) go in here and click package manager and follow the steps.

I haven't seen my server in months only to go in and plug an external usb in and out. you can reboot etc from the first menu.

A reason i like unraid is that it will only spin a disk up that you are using. So if you are watching a movie on disk 1 it will be the only one spun up. Other servers use stripping which divides a movie over a few disks so it can access it faster- but unraid will stream 2x1080 movies to 2 different htpcs here no problem. Its not a big deal but its saves power/easier on disks. I also use a program called "cache dirs" which stores the directory structure in ram so you can browse folders without them spinning up.
that is just my preference of course

edit:
your links aren't working by the way

I bought one of the recommended usb drives as I wanted to be 100% sure it would work straight away - they have an offical list but if you look at the forums people are using all sorts of random usb sticks fine. I bought mine off ebay from hong kong, its a sony micro vault (?)

as for plex im pretty sure you can get an addon for it

[silvine]

I got that Server Plus link from a few pages back. They were selling them this am but they don't seem to be selling them at the moment (hence the dead link).

Should I just buy off dab.ie or hp?

http://www.eurieka.ie/products.asp?partno=658553-421

http://www.dabs.ie/products/hp-proli...roliant&src=16

[frash]

Originally Posted by silvine

I got that Server Plus link from a few pages back. They were selling them this am but they don't seem to be selling them at the moment (hence the dead link).

Should I just buy off dab.ie or hp?

http://www.eurieka.ie/products.asp?partno=658553-421

http://www.dabs.ie/products/hp-proli...ant&src=16

I bought one from dabs today after getting confirmation that offer was still valid.
My earlier post about the dates turned out to be unfounded.

[VenomIreland]

If I was to order one of these now, how would I avail of the cashback offer?

[frash]

Originally Posted by VenomIreland

If I was to order one of these now, how would I avail of the cashback offer?

Claim form here

Ignore bit about delivery by end of Feb - that's an error - have email from HP saying as much

[VenomIreland]

Originally Posted by frash

Claim form here

Ignore bit about delivery by end of Feb - that's an error - have email from HP saying as much

That's great, thanks.

Now to just find some cheap drives to go along with it.

[silvine]

For unraid , is it ok to just buy one drive with the hp machine or do I have to buy two for it to work ?