Unraid build some info regarding sagetv

[Hunter69]

Ok so I decided to build an unraid server. I will integrate this into my sage setup. My setup will consist of a whs sage server (recording will take place on the whs server) and all media will be hosted on the unraid. I am looking for any hurdles that people might warn me about before I get full blown into this. One hurdle I was reading about was spinup time on the harddrives. Can anyone tell me how you are dealing with spinup time when you navigate to the media folders in sagetv?

Thanks for the info
Bill

[madpoet]

There was a v6 spinup script that I was hoping would be ported over to v7. If not... I'll try and figure it out But my coding skills suck.

[Hunter69]

I read something about this script but I was concerned due to using V7 without sagemc. When I was on 6, I used sagemc but V7 is nice without sagemc. I was hoping there was some plugin for this issue. I am looking forward to hearing any other possible work arounds.

[PGPfan]

I use the exact system config that you do (Sage for recording, unRaid for movies) and I just don't worry about the spinup. It works fine for me, the spinup is only like 5-6 seconds - nobody in the family even notices it. What issues are you worrying about?

-PGPfan

[Hunter69]

Mainly spinup issues. Anything else that I am not considering that other users bumped into. I see people talking about using a script to cache the directory structure. Do you run any type of scripts? I am ordering parts today. I really have not played with unraid, just done a ton of reading. Recently I had some drives on the verge of going bad in my WHS server. I have been running out of disk space, so I knew it was time for a more efficient easier expandable storage system.

I am a windows guy with a little bit of linux. It sounds like setting up the unraid server is not bad. Do you feel I am correct in my assumption?

Thanks
Bill

[PGPfan]

Hi Bill, you are correct in your assumption that being a 'Windows guy' will be no issue when setting up unRaid. It's really quite nice. As for scipts, I've seen some that spin up the drives (which to me defeats one of the many unRaid benefits) to avoid the initial playback delay I spoke of, but the delay doesn't throw any error messages or anything - just 6-7 seconds before you see the movie start to playback.

The one script that I plan on using is to cache the virtual directory that unRaid exports. Right now, when I do an import directory scan from Sage it causes all my unRaid disks to spin up. If that data where cached using the script in unRaid, then all Sage would do when doing an import directory scan is pull from that cache. I'll be implementing it soon, I've been wanting to upgrade my unRaid motherboard anyway and will implement the script at that point.

-PGPfan

[Hunter69]

Would you mind reviewing my list of parts and giving me your opinion on the build.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=8175.0

Before I spend the $$

Thanks for getting back to me
Bill

[reggie14]

I find the spin-up time annoying too. When I moved my DVDs on to my unRAID server I (and my girlfriend) immediately noticed the much longer wait times for movies to start. Maybe I just get impatient, but sometimes it seems like Sage gets hung up too. Every once in a while it seems like I have to press stop and start playing it again.

[davephan]

You can set up the unRAID drives for no spin down. Or, you could set the time for several hours instead of the default 1 hour. I haven't found the startup to be that much of a problem.

There's a couple links to videos demonstrating unRAID on the unRAID web site. Start with the free version to try it out. UnRAID is easy to setup and use. It takes over a day to prepare each drive to become part of the unRAID array. Some people run the preclear script on several drives at once. I setup one drive at a time. It takes a couple days to move 2 TB files over to the unRAID computer from a RAID 1 drive pair.

If you move your storage from WHS to unRAID, you can rebuild your SageTV computer on a different operating system, where you can image and easily recover your system back to a point in time when the system was working. WHS has no recovery path, other than a painful and time consuming scratch rebuild.

Dave

[Hunter69]

can a person schedule spinup and spin down? This would be a nice feature.

[davephan]

The choices in the GUI for spindown are never, 15 min, 30 min, 45 min, 1 hr, 2 hrs, 3 hrs, 4 hrs, 5 hrs, 6 hrs, 7 hrs, 8 hrs, and 9 hrs.

I thought about the scheduled spin up. I haven't seen that option. A scheduled spin up / spin down might be a nice way to setup unRAID. I don't know if it is possible. I will search around the unRAID forum for it.

Dave

[reggie14]

I couldn't find anything like that in the unRAID forums, but I'd definitely be interested if you find it.

Though, I actually think a better solution would be on the SageTV side. As was pointed out earlier, there was/is a SageMC plugin that automatically spins up the unRAID drives if you go to the imported videos screen.

[madpoet]

I looked through the code... it doesn't look that difficult to potentially move over to v7. I'm going to keep poking at it in my spare time but like I said, I am a lousy coder

[Hunter69]

Madpoet,

So do you have the capability to create a V7 plugin for the default UI versus having to use sagemc and the dynamic menus?

Thanks for looking at this
Bill

[madpoet]

That's what I am looking to do. No promises, but I'm going to try.

[Hunter69]

Thanks for taking the time to see if you can create this.

[Hunter69]

Originally Posted by madpoet

That's what I am looking to do. No promises, but I'm going to try.

Hey Madpoet,

I was wondering if you made headway with this plugin. Just thought about this and thought I might ask.

Thanks
Bill

[madpoet]

I think I am... it's been a little complicated because I am trying to piece together how the heck Sage does things with how the heck Java works It seems like a lot of effort for what should be a simple thing! Maybe by the end of the weekend I'll have something to try.

[ChuckSchick]

For my part, I put all of the drives containing movies in a "spinup group" -- don't recall how, or maybe I imagined this. I recall that this fixed the multiple spinup delays as I scrolled down through the movie library.

I'm using a 2h spin-down time.

[madpoet]

Yes, there is a way to do it on the Unraid side as well. It's a little more complicated than I wanted personally so that's why I'm trying this as a plugin.