Time to up my storage

[soulprops77]

Hey folks,
I'm currently running a server with a mess of external USB drives attached and I'd like to class things up a bit.

The server is in a Shuttle enclosure so I have zero room for expansion in there.

I was thinking about building a small RAID 5 NAS box.

Does anyone have any suggestions? UnRAID? ReadyNA

Or should I just get myself a bigger enclosure so as not to have 2 different servers running?

Thanks,
Chris

[jptheripper]

well, given the support here, i would strongly recommend WHS. I absolutely love it.

Unlimited storage, internal and external, backup of clients, full support of both sage and mymovies, etc.. and stupid easy.

just works.

[soulprops77]

I was thinking about that. I would like to have a RAID 5 (software) set up though and I'm not sure if WHS can do this-or if so, how. . .

[graywolf]

There are many unRAID users here also and there user support forums are excellent like here.

I like it for it's set and forget. Been doing great for me for about 4 months.

[vividweb]

Can you record directly to an unRAID box? Or do you have to move recordings after?

I have 4 HD streams recording simultaneously (at peak) with usually 1 or 2 HD steams playing as well.

[graywolf]

I'll leave answering about recording HD directly for others. If I recall, some do, some don't.

I don't since I use the unRAID box mainly for stuff I'll keep (Archived/Ripped/Shows I know I want to keep but will watch much later/etc).

So I use SJQ to move from the local directories to unRAID based on the various criteria I have. Also, I only have SD for recordings.

Playback I have SD and HD and never had any issues. I even tested by pausing a movie (on unRAID) and then disconnected the cable to the drive that had the movie, them hit play...movie played (after a short initial pause) without issue. Afterwards, reconnected the cable. All was still well.

[soulprops77]

The more I dig into it, the more unRAID looks like the ticket. . .

I would like to record directly to the NAS though. SJQ hurts my head, but I'm sure I could/and should get over that. . .

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by soulprops77

The more I dig into it, the more unRAID looks like the ticket. . .

I would like to record directly to the NAS though. SJQ hurts my head, but I'm sure I could/and should get over that. . .

You could try to install the Linux SageTV software and it's dependencies on unRaid. I'm about to head down that route once I get everything setup in unRaid. Still buying parts.

[soulprops77]

I thought about that, but I run MyMovies and a bunch of other utilities on my server. I think it would get too complicated in the end. . .

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by soulprops77

I thought about that, but I run MyMovies and a bunch of other utilities on my server. I think it would get too complicated in the end. . .

Probably but I was going to try for VirtualBox integration and a VM with WHS for backups and anything Windows specific as well.

[soulprops77]

Hmmm. . . Maybe running unRAID in VirtualBox is a solution. . .

But now I'm stuck with this Shuttle box and only one spare PCI slot. . .

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by soulprops77

Hmmm. . . Maybe running unRAID in VirtualBox is a solution. . .

But now I'm stuck with this Shuttle box and only one spare PCI slot. . .

I am headed this way but I would guess that it is only a 25% chance that I will actually make it. The last linux I installed was slackware with a kernal version of 2.0.0.?. If I can't get it to work I will have separate boxes myself. The backup in WHS is just perfect for me. I just want a little redundancy in my storage without the need to duplicate all of the files and the ability to get the majority of my recordings back if I have more than one drive failure.

[soulprops77]

Now I'm thinking about ESXi running Win/Sage and unRAID, per Stanger's thread. . . I'm off to post over there and get some feedback.