New Server - SageTV+unRAID under ESXi 4.1

[ehfortin]

Hi,

Originally Posted by broconne

Chiming in here..

I have been running ESXi 4.1 with a SageTV partition since June using HDHRs without issues. This month I added the HDPVR - I have it set to max and have not had any USB issues.

This is running on a core i7 860, 8GB of ram, with a RAID 1 setup for the VM drives. I don't record directly to the machine, instead I have it record on my NAS which runs OpenSolaris(RIP), and the drives are in a raidz2 config.

Just a quick question. On your HDPVR, do you record from component and optical port? That's what I do so I just want to make sure there is not a difference at this level that could change the result of my test.

For the rest, I don't have a core i7 but a Q9400 with 8 GB of ram as well. I don't think the CPU is undersized

Thanks.

ehfortin

[broconne]

Originally Posted by ehfortin

Hi,



Just a quick question. On your HDPVR, do you record from component and optical port? That's what I do so I just want to make sure there is not a difference at this level that could change the result of my test.

For the rest, I don't have a core i7 but a Q9400 with 8 GB of ram as well. I don't think the CPU is undersized

Thanks.

ehfortin

I record from component and optical.

[jayman]

First off, sorry in advance for the long post.

I'm considering combining separate UnRaid and Sage/Win7 boxes on the same physical machine. Allow me to describe my current setup and hardware, and what I think I'd like to do with it going forward.

Sage Server in basement (all functions noted below working beautifully)
1.Core i7 870, Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3-rev2 mobo, 2x2GB DDR3 1600, 600W Antec modular PSU
2.Win7-Pro x64 on 2x60GB SSD RAID-0; Sage 7.0.17
3.1xHD-PVR (Directv HR23 Component + SPDIF and native resolution output; Paterson Serial Changing on Serial port; HD-PVR on mobo’s NEC USB3 controller at USB2.0 speed; using v1.57 HD-PVR drivers; 5000ms tuning delay…NO LOCKUPS); 2xHDHR (4-OTA tuners)
4.1x750GB and 1x1TB SATA2 recording drives
5.Plugins/Add-ins: up to 3 instances of Comskip (donator’s version) via tmiranda’s Commercial Detector; Playon server and plug-ins; SRE, and SMM
6.LG SATA BD drive (shared) in Vantec USB 2.0 enclosure in family room connected directly to Sage server in basement via this cable. This is routed through wall and floor joist. AnyDVD HD is running in background. This saves trip to basement for watching Netflix BD/DVD’s via the extender in the family room.


UnRaid Server in basement
1.Athlon 5050e dual core, 780G mobo, 2x2GB DDR2, Antec 500W PSU; original CoolerMaster CM stacker case with 3x4-in-3 drive cages
2.UnRaid PRO licence on Sony microvault USB
3.2TB WD Black Parity Drive, 3x2TB WD Green, 1x1TB WD Green all on mobo SATA2 ports
4.User shares and cache drive not in use

On 1000W UPS: Sage Server, UnRaid server, Directv HR23, HD-PVR

Playback: 3xHD300’s

Network: All of the above (both servers via onboard GbE NIC’s , both HDHR’s, and all 3 HD300’s hardwired on 8-port D-LINK 10/100/1000 “green” switch

Media Storage: All BR/DVR rips, music, photos, home videos, software/files and TrueImage backups on UnRaid. Recordings on Sage Server. Recordings over 2 months old to be moved/archived to UnRaid via robocopy script. Most of our recordings are watched once then deleted.


With all of the above going on, the Sage Server is barely breaking a sweat. I thought for sure it would with up to 3 instances of comskip running, including HD-PVR processing. It seems to me that the Sage Server hardware should also be able to handle my storage needs.

If I went to ESXi 4.1 to combine both servers on one physical machine (Sage Server's innards and PSU in the UnRaid's chassis with all drives from both servers), then how would I do it?

1.Could I install ESXi on the SSD array and set separate partitions/VM’s on that 111GB volume for Win7 and UnRaid VM’s, or does ESXi and all VM’s need to be on their own physical drives?
2.My UnRaid Server Pro licence is tied to that Sony MicroVault flash drive. Can I boot UnRaid from this flash drive (USB passthrough?), or will I need to do this from a HDD or SSD attached via SATA as a virtual drive?
3.Is it best to use “direct passthrough” or “virtual disks” for the UnRaid VM? Is it best to use “direct passthrough” or “virtual disks” for the Sage/Win7 VM?
4.Is it best for VM have access to it’s own dedicated 10/100/1000 NIC or is ESXi + all VM’s OK on one? My board has onboard Realtek GbE, so I plan on getting at least one Intel 10/100/1000 PCIe NIC if I do this.
5.With bracket and cables, I think this is a good card to add extra storage. I'll have 9 drives (2 SSD's and 7 HDD's) in this setup with only 8 ports on the mobo, so I'll need something. Any thoughts on this card in UnRaid, especially under ESXi?
6.Ehfortin, you previously mentioned “some of the recordings had problems with playback where it is starting with no audio and in some fast forward mode. Doing a pause/play or a skip forward would sometime fix the problem. Some recordings were just "loosing" the first 10-20 seconds, some other were going for a few minutes.”
QUESTION: Are you recording to a drive(or drives) in your UnRaid VM or is/are your recording drive/s within the Sage VM? If the recording location is within the UnRaid VM, do you think that may be your problem?
In my case, I’d be recording to a drive within the Sage/Win7 VM and not the UnRaid VM, given that recovery of recordings due to single drive failure is of minimal importance to me.

Any other comments or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Jay

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jayman

1.Could I install ESXi on the SSD array and set separate partitions/VM’s on that 111GB volume for Win7 and UnRaid VM’s, or does ESXi and all VM’s need to be on their own physical drives?

IIRC ESXi doesn't give you any paritioning options, it takes over the whole drive you install it on. For my part, I installed it to a USB stick. From there you can use pretty much any local drive as a datastore (or passthrough) for your VMs.

2.My UnRaid Server Pro licence is tied to that Sony MicroVault flash drive. Can I boot UnRaid from this flash drive (USB passthrough?), or will I need to do this from a HDD or SSD attached via SATA as a virtual drive?

In theory, I think you can, not 100% sure on that though.

3.Is it best to use “direct passthrough” or “virtual disks” for the UnRaid VM? Is it best to use “direct passthrough” or “virtual disks” for the Sage/Win7 VM?

Personally I like passthrough because you can then go back and forth between real and virtualized unRAID.

4.Is it best for VM have access to it’s own dedicated 10/100/1000 NIC or is ESXi + all VM’s OK on one? My board has onboard Realtek GbE, so I plan on getting at least one Intel 10/100/1000 PCIe NIC if I do this.

For our sort of use I don't see much advantage in dedicating NICs to VMs.

[jayman]

Originally Posted by stanger89

IIRC ESXi doesn't give you any paritioning options, it takes over the whole drive you install it on. For my part, I installed it to a USB stick. From there you can use pretty much any local drive as a datastore (or passthrough) for your VMs.

First off, thanks for the point-by-piont answers. Very helpful!

Two more quick questions....

1. How big of a memory stick in terms of capacity does one need for an ESXi installation? I take it that this USB stick with ESXi is set as the 1st boot device in the BIOS to get into ESXi?

2. Once in ESXi, will I have to reinstall windows within a new VM (or redeploy an image), OR can I create a new VM and add an existing Windows installation that's already on an SDD or HDD (via passthrough)? Will there be any benefit to a clean install if my current install is only 2 weeks old?

Thanks!

Jay

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jayman

First off, thanks for the point-by-piont answers. Very helpful!

Two more quick questions....

1. How big of a memory stick in terms of capacity does one need for an ESXi installation? I take it that this USB stick with ESXi is set as the 1st boot device in the BIOS to get into ESXi?

I just used a spare I had lying around, think it happened to be about 4GB. I want to say though that I think 1GB is enough.

2. Once in ESXi, will I have to reinstall windows within a new VM (or redeploy an image), OR can I create a new VM and add an existing Windows installation that's already on an SDD or HDD (via passthrough)? Will there be any benefit to a clean install if my current install is only 2 weeks old?

You can add it through passthrough, but there could be some significant hardware differences so I'd say do a backup and be prepared to reinstall if Windows throws a fit from the hardware changes.

[jayman]

Thanks again Stanger!

I have a spare 1GB flash drive lying around. I found the following link which shows 2 methods for creating the ESXi install...

http://blog.jargontech.com/installin...b-flash-drive/

This link may be useful for others looking to setup ESXi on a bootable thumb drive and would like to see a "how-to"

Since I'm only 2 weeks into my Windows install, I may just nuke n pave. I haven't even activated the copy yet. I have my Windows 7 installation disk on a bootable 4GB flash drive. Installing from the flash drive onto an SSD raid 0 is ridiculously fast! I don't have anything installed on the system other than Sage, AnyDVD, MyMovies, drivers, Sony Vegas (video editing) and Windows Updates. Thankfully, utilities like comskip are command line exe's just sitting in folders. This way, I'll have Win7 images pre and post ESXi. If I don't like ESXi/Win7/UnRaid in one box, then I can easily recover to where things are now.

I take it that this Intel NIC is the PCIe version of the one everyone seems to like for this sort of thing?

Ehfortin or broconne: your machine specs are similar to mine. Why the 8GB of RAM? Do you guys (or anyone else) think 4GB dual channel DDR3 on a Core i7 870 platform for ESXi/Win7x64/Unraid on the same phyical machine is sufficient, or will I see significant benefit bumping up to 8GB?


Jay

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jayman

I take it that this Intel NIC is the PCIe version of the one everyone seems to like for this sort of thing?

Well it's listed here, so you're probably good:
http://www.vm-help.com//esx40i/esx40...x_HCL.php#NICs

[ehfortin]

Hi,

Originally Posted by jayman

If I went to ESXi 4.1 to combine both servers on one physical machine (Sage Server's innards and PSU in the UnRaid's chassis with all drives from both servers), then how would I do it?

1.Could I install ESXi on the SSD array and set separate partitions/VM’s on that 111GB volume for Win7 and UnRaid VM’s, or does ESXi and all VM’s need to be on their own physical drives?

As told by Stanger89, ESXi will use the whole disk where you install it. However, the rest of the disk is available to create VM. That's what I've done as it is faster then USB and... even if you decide to boot on USB, the first thing you have to do is to assign a disk as a datastore to put your VM (or at least the metadata that define those). Going the USB route has the advantage of being easy to upgrade (just plug a new USB with ESXi on it) but... I had issue making sure it would boot (BIOS is playing trick on me when I move around my disks so... never sure it will boot the USB first). ESXi on a disk is a lot faster to boot based on my experience. I would think both approach as usable for now, just pick the one you like most.

2.My UnRaid Server Pro licence is tied to that Sony MicroVault flash drive. Can I boot UnRaid from this flash drive (USB passthrough?), or will I need to do this from a HDD or SSD attached via SATA as a virtual drive?

Well... if it is doable, I've not got success doing so. There is a how-to that explain how to create an unraid VM with Virtualbox (but it work the same with ESXi). It will boot from disk but will access the config and the serial number from the USB once your thumb key is configured as USB device passthrough. That work well for me. And again... faster to boot anyway

3.Is it best to use “direct passthrough” or “virtual disks” for the UnRaid VM? Is it best to use “direct passthrough” or “virtual disks” for the Sage/Win7 VM?

As noted by Stanger89, using RDM will allow you to move your disk around. I've put all my OS in standard VMDK. Only my Unraid disks are RDM (RAW Device Mapping) so... that's how I've been able to test my setup under Virtualbox, in physical and under ESXi without ever reformatting any disks. I should mention that it is risky to move the disks around as... the ID of the disk change between the various VM hypervisor, direct physical hardware and... even from one SAS/SATA controller (at least, a LSI1068 is not reporting drive the same as my SATA ports on the motherboard). So... stress level was high something when playing around as... I can't backup that much recordings. Always have a backup of my data but not of my PVR recordings which is the large chunk.

4.Is it best for VM have access to it’s own dedicated 10/100/1000 NIC or is ESXi + all VM’s OK on one? My board has onboard Realtek GbE, so I plan on getting at least one Intel 10/100/1000 PCIe NIC if I do this.

I've done both. But I think that because I actually use the VNET3 driver both in Windows and Unraid, nothing is actually going through the physical NIC anyway. I may be wrong but that's my impression. What I've done for sure is separate my firewall on a different NIC for the internal network (and, obviously, on a second independant NIC for the external network). This reduce the load on my firewall as it was checking all the packets even if they were not meant to be sent over the Internet...

5.With bracket and cables, I think this is a good card to add extra storage. I'll have 9 drives (2 SSD's and 7 HDD's) in this setup with only 8 ports on the mobo, so I'll need something. Any thoughts on this card in UnRaid, especially under ESXi?

That's the card I have and it work very well under just about anything. Windows, Linux, OpenSolaris and ESXi. You just have to know that the bracket will be on the wrong side of it (SuperMicro is handling card a little differently). I remove the bracket completely so the card is just hanging in the PCIe x16 slot between 2 Intel NIC.

6.Ehfortin, you previously mentioned “some of the recordings had problems with playback where it is starting with no audio and in some fast forward mode. Doing a pause/play or a skip forward would sometime fix the problem. Some recordings were just "loosing" the first 10-20 seconds, some other were going for a few minutes.”
QUESTION: Are you recording to a drive(or drives) in your UnRaid VM or is/are your recording drive/s within the Sage VM? If the recording location is within the UnRaid VM, do you think that may be your problem?
In my case, I’d be recording to a drive within the Sage/Win7 VM and not the UnRaid VM, given that recovery of recordings due to single drive failure is of minimal importance to me.

I was recording to the Unraid VM directly. I wanted to do some testing with an internal virtual disk directly into the Windows/SageTV VM but I had problem the way I was doing it (using a shared folder) as SageTV was unable to start anymore with this setup. I have a SageTV Client that can't access anything that is not on a shared folder on the NET contrary to an extender that will access anything that SageTV server can see. If I'm not able to test it with a shared folder, I may test it without that and just copy the recording to Unraid once they are completed which will make them accessible on my SageTV Client.

Is the problem coming from there? My feeling is mixed. Broconne is having a SageTV VM and is recording on a physical box outside of ESXi without issue. I'm doing the inverse right now, going from a physical SageTV server (used to be an Atom motherboard but just being upgraded to have a little bit more power for conversion and comskip) to my Unraid VM without issue (even with the Atom, yes).

So... why it is not working from SageTV VM to Unraid VM? I'm not sure. I can be because there is slight delay on the USB side of the SageTV VM + slight delay on the Unraid VM to pick up the recordings... It seems that only doing half of this is working (whichever is the VM).

In a sense, I kind of think it is on the USB side of the equation. The Unraid VM can't in my opinion just catch the video and drop a few audio bits. It is writing the whole blocks it gets. On the HD-PVR side, it is doing the whole job of creating the H264 stream. The SageTV server is only receiving the stream and redirecting it to disk (the Unraid VM). So... my guess is that the combo HD-PVR/USB in a VM (under ESXi 4.1) is border line because of some latency or some memory buffer between the USB/ESXi/Windows in the VM and SageTV which end with some minor corruption.

Is there something to do at the ESXi level to help? Maybe. I'm not an ESXi guru and don't know one so... I've not changed anything at this level up to now.

As per your other post, why 8 GB of ram? Just because I planned to do more then just Unraid and SageTV VM. At this moment, assuming SageTV server may stay on physical hardware, I will have at least Unraid and my firewall running on ESXi. I also have a Ubuntu VM that offer me the linux services that I can't easily run on Unraid. Then, I have about a dozen VM that are sitting there for when I want to test something. Snapshot is very useful in ESXi. You can have a basic VM for just about any OS and when you want to test something, you create a snapshot and install the stuff you want. Once the test are done, you just go back to the first snapshot and you are done without reinstalling anything.

At first, this server was on OpenSolaris as the NAS with VirtualBox for the VM. With 8 GB of RAM, OpenSolaris was using anything available as cache for the CIFS server which allowed very fast write up to the memory limit and little bit further (while the disks where unload the memory). If I started a VM, the cache was just reduced. The memory was always available for apps but... if not used, it was not wasted.

Hope this give you some useful information. Let me know if you have success having both Unraid and SageTV as VM and recording HD content with HD-PVR without issue. I had success but just not 100% of the time (was varying between 30-60% of good recording which is not stable enough for me).

Have fun!

ehfortin

[jayman]

Ehfortin/Stanger69:

Thanks for all the info!

Ehfortin:


I think I will try this out this weekend and proceed as follows:
1. Wait for my Intel NIC to arrive and install it in the P55 board
2. Install ESXi to a thumb drive (my system seems to boot fine from thumb drives). With USB boot, do I have to assign a disk as a datastore for the VM's each time I boot or just the first time I boot with the initial config?
3. Set all disks including OS's as RDM passthrough
4. As far as UnRaid pro goes, is this the procedure you followed to get the pro license to work?
http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7914.0

The key differences in my setup will be:
1. Recording in Sage rather than UnRaid
2. Playback on HD300 extenders


I want to say that I'm glad to be back with Sage. I went the Directv DVR route for the last 1.5 years (did MRV in the beta "cutting edge" program before national release), but the experience felt extremely lacking on many fronts, and I was reluctant back then to try the HD-PVR. Also, I missed the integration of ALL MEDIA into a single interface, but back then I needed more access to HD content with somewhat reliable playback. But things are good with Win7/Sage7, the HD-PVR (E3 with latest drivers) and the HD-300's with bitstreaming to the AVR and downmix at the locations without the AVR.

Thanks again
Jay

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jayman

With USB boot, do I have to assign a disk as a datastore for the VM's each time I boot or just the first time I boot with the initial config?

Just once, all your settings are saved to the thumbdrive.

[ehfortin]

Hi,

Originally Posted by jayman

I think I will try this out this weekend and proceed as follows:
1. Wait for my Intel NIC to arrive and install it in the P55 board
2. Install ESXi to a thumb drive (my system seems to boot fine from thumb drives). With USB boot, do I have to assign a disk as a datastore for the VM's each time I boot or just the first time I boot with the initial config?
3. Set all disks including OS's as RDM passthrough
4. As far as UnRaid pro goes, is this the procedure you followed to get the pro license to work?
http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7914.0

As posted by Stanger89, assigning a disk to act as a datastore is done once. You can add other disks as datastore but it is with the admin client and... optional.

Regarding the procedure, the URL you have is not the one I used but... from what I've seen in there, it should work. I've basically created a VMDK that I mounted in a Linux VM and formatted as FAT32. I've copied the content of the USB key on it and ran the sysimage command to make it bootable. I've then detached it from the Linux VM and used it as the VMDK in a new VM created just for Unraid.

As the other procedure is well documented, just go with it. It should get you running quickly.

I'll try to use a local disk to the SageTV VM as well to see if it helps or not.

How do you plan to move the file to Unraid? Even if you record on a disk under the SageTV VM, I assume you will move those to Unraid as a larger repository, right?

Let us know your results. I'll do the same probably tomorrow or friday with my latest test

Thanks for reading.

ehfortin

[Fuzzy]

How does the UnRaid registration work in a VM? I thought the registration was tied to the serial number of the thumbdrive it's installed on, so copying it to the VMDK doesn't seem like it would work (or perhaps UnRaid's licensing system isn't that complex?)

[ehfortin]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

How does the UnRaid registration work in a VM? I thought the registration was tied to the serial number of the thumbdrive it's installed on, so copying it to the VMDK doesn't seem like it would work (or perhaps UnRaid's licensing system isn't that complex?)

Starting with VMware ESXi 4.1, you can now assign a USB device to a VM. Unraid is looking for a device that is labeled "UNRAID" and that return a USB serial number. So, even if you boot on the hard disk copy of Unraid in your VM, it will keep looking for a device with the proper label and then, ask it for it's USB serial number.

That's why it work anyway.

ehfortin

[ehfortin]

Hi,

I've tested recording directly in the SageTV VM instead of trying to do it on the Unraid VM that sit just beside. After the 4th recording I got the problem with the audio not playing and the video being in fast forward (not twice as fast, just maybe 10% faster then usual). That's always the same problem.

I don't see any other testing I can do with this setup at this time. So, I guess I will go back to my physical SageTV server which never had this issue.

Jayman, let us know if you have success with your setup.

ehfortin

[stanger89]

OK, this is getting frustrating. I played a very little bit with FlexRAID with virtual drives. A little enough that I thought I knew how it worked. So I started deploying it "for real".

Got all my data copied over (easier said than done unfortunately) and setup in a new FlexRAID array with View setup. So then...

Suprise surprise, I've got two of every subfolder, well not every subfolder, but most of them. I did a little research and found that this is by design. View doesn't merge folders unless you explicitly tell it to. And beyond that, when you write to the View, if the logic kicks in to fall over to another drive and the folder you're writing to isn't an explicit import, it doesn't get written to the same folder on the other drive, it goes into some hidden directory structure.

I'm going to have to think about this, but this just doesn't seem acceptable to me, at least not for my use and the way I want to use it.

So now, sort of back to the drawing board....

[ehfortin]

Hi,

Originally Posted by stanger89

OK, this is getting frustrating. I played a very little bit with FlexRAID with virtual drives. A little enough that I thought I knew how it worked. So I started deploying it "for real".

I guess this is the strange reason why we like to pursue goals that are futile to the rest of the world... I tried FlexRAID while I was evaluating Unraid and... never had success to make it work. Either I was not understanding the concept or there was a problem in my environment. Anyway, that's when I decided to go with Unraid. Coming from OpenSolaris with ZFS raid group, I knew Unraid was not as fast but... it protect my data and... I can mount any disk to any linux VM if something bad happens on 2 disks at once, contrary to usual RAID which may cope with 2 disks (RAID-6 or RAID-Z2) but... you can't hope to be able to read back a disk from a corrupted RAID set.

In the end, Unraid also have advantages that are not common to traditional RAID. For exemple, even if single read/write performance may be slower then my ZFS RAID was, it can be faster if I have multiple read/write going on at the same time if those are on different disks (which happens most of the time now that I have recordings distributed on at least 8 disks). If you use Unraid on physical hardware, it can also power-off disks that are not used which help keeping the temperature of the computer down and reduce the electricity cost (even if SATA disk consumption is not that high).

All in all, I'm happy with my decision which give me kind of a Drobo but at a way cheaper price... and offer me more flexibility as, after all, it is Linux under the hood

Let us know where you are heading now that your first attempt at FlexRAID was not what you expected. And... have fun!

ehfortin

[dcardellini]

Originally Posted by stanger89

OK, this is getting frustrating. I played a very little bit with FlexRAID with virtual drives. A little enough that I thought I knew how it worked. So I started deploying it "for real".....
..

Following this thread with great interest, as having only one "server" running 24/7 has been an obsession of mine.....and this server needs to perform WEB server duties, PVR duties, Media server duties, SSH-server duties, along with massive file sharing duties. Many of these duties are optimized (or impossible) on different operating systems.....and having VM capability seems like the holy grail for these multi-purposed servers.

To the point, though, I do like the promise of Unraid, but somewhere along this thread I lost where you shifted to playing with Flexraid? Where you unsuccessful with Unraid? Or was this a temporary step?

If Unraid is still your goal, I just read (somewhere) that Advanced Format Drives are not compatible with Unraid, and you did mention the WD20EARS drives (which are Advanced Format).

I am battling WD now on warranty replacements for the WD20EADS (not Advanced Format). They want to replace with WD20EARS's, which really messes with my 17-drive (WD20EADS) RAID6 array with a hardware raid 3Ware 9650SE-24. After running this server flawlessly (with Sagetv for 12 months, 24/7 and rebooting ONCE), I lost two drives within a day of each other, could not find a local replacement WD20EADS, and held my breath for three days.

I will never do RAID5 again (hey anybody want a 9500s-12 gathering dust?), and now the thought of losing everything with three drives gone in RAID6 doesn't seem so statistically improbable when you have a very large number of drives. Unraid DOES look attractive.

[jayman]

Ehfortin:

That's a bummer about the "recording in Sage VM" experiment. I'm reluctant to pull the trigger on ESXi

Here's where I stand as I'm reading and thinking:
1. Sage is working beautifully in a Win7x64 host...why change?
2. One physical machine should be able to do everything I need (record TV, store and serve media, comskip, encode and transcode video, rip and decrypt etc.
3. Data should have redundancy and/or true backup.
a) My photos, home videos, and certain software and text doc containing license keys are also burnt to DVD's and stored in a safe deposit box. These irreplaceable or hard-to-replace things are truly backed up in an offsite location.
b)Music and BD/DVD's rips can be restored from their original disks, but I'd hate to have to do so. This is the area where I'd like to protect against single drive failure. If the house goes up in smoke, insurance $$ can replace this stuff. Some level of protection against single drive failure would limit the likelihood of having to spend the time to re-rip things, given that time is of value..but I could if I absolutely had to.
c) Recordings. Don't care about redundancy in any form. Most things can be re-recorded (most things on Directv above CH 200 are often replayed multiple times). Lost network shows could be found online if necessary...amny of which will eventually end up on Netflix or Hulu.
4. Mirroring of ALL DATA seems like a waste.
5. I'd like to have access to 4GB or more ram if and when necessary, so whatever platform I use (hypervisor, host os, etc) should be 64bit

So, I think I'm going to try UnRaid within Virtualbox. I figured out how to get my pro license usb stick to work properly (made vmdk, un-named USB unraid stick then renamed to "UNRAID") with usb passthrough. So it probably won't hurt to try this out as a VM with passthrough on the disks on the Win7 host. Hopefully I won't get the disk renumbering issue in the host device manager. This seems easy enough to try.

Or I could try a Perc 5i to Raid 5 the BD/DVD content. However I have an intel board, so I'd likely ahve to fix the SM bus issue by putting electrical tape on the appropriate pins of the PCIe card.

Decisions...decisions....

Jay

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by dcardellini

If Unraid is still your goal, I just read (somewhere) that Advanced Format Drives are not compatible with Unraid, and you did mention the WD20EARS drives (which are Advanced Format).

Actually the recomended way to USE WD20EARS is to put the jumper on 7/8 on the Unraid forums. With the jumper they are fully supported since Unraid only uses one partition.