As I add more computer systems into my network, either via HTPC, MediaPC, music-server, or run of the mill computers for the kid's or surfing the web, I'm now starting to understand more and more the need for a robust storage backup scheme.

I thought about a simple RAID setup for the music-server, but then I started to think, what about a means for backing up my DVD collection?  I was going to install a large drive into the HTPC, but what happens if that drive goes down?  I would have to rip all my DVD's again.  That would not be fun.  Or if the music-server hard drive dies.  Currently I would have to re-rip all my albums.  All my singles would be lost.  It would be most devistating.

So in thinking of a system for data backup, I thought about the different RAID types.  I've settled on an UnRAID NAS server by Lime Technology.  Main reason, I needed something that is robust, but also won't break me in the bank.  The UnRAID system fits this to a tee.  You can use run of the mill parts, and the OS is free (for the basic RAID of 3 hard drives of various size).  What this allows is the use of 2 data drives and one parity drive.  If a data drive goes down, I can place a new drive in its place (of equal or greater size) and the data will be re-written to it...hence no data is lost.  So my new project will be to build an UnRAID server that will store the following:

DVD movies, eventual HD content, recorded TV for either the MediaPC or the HTPC, pictures, games, install software, any other files that will be deemed important for backup, including the music-server, HTPC, MediaPVR backups.

This will also mean that instead of having computers networking into other computers, and sharing directories on the network, scattering information across multiple systems, that in order to read, one would have to make sure that particular system is alive, all computers will network into the UnRAID server and can view/play all content right from the server...in one central, redundant location.

I think also that I will be able to setup specific rights for individuals so they only have access to certain files on the UnRAID server.   This functionality is offered in the Plus and Pro versions.  The Plus version also allows the use of up to 6 drives, the Pro up to 16 drives.  Don't know about getting up to the Pro version, but the Plus version will be good as my mother board has 4 SATA ports and 2 IDE ports.

Current Hardware

Case:  I found an individual throwing out a mid-size case, so I snagged it.  Actually it is pretty heavy duty in construction.  It has 4x5.25" drive bays, 2x3.5" drive bays, and is very roomy inside.  Also the 3.5" cage easily slides out, as well as there are two removable 5.25" tray converters for mounting hard drives on on slides.  I guess the previous owner was using this as a make-shift server.

Anyone interested, I pulled out of the case the following:

4.3Gig, 3.2Gig, 2.1Gig Quantum SCSI drives

Unfortunately all are untested.  The bigger drives though look very newish (very little dust on them).

Motherboard: ECS 945GCT-M/1333 Socket 775 w/video, and LAN

I picked this board up off ebay.  It wasn't too expensive, and it was one of the boards on the UnRAID Hardware Compatibility List.  From reading the forums the LAN is a little finicky on previous UnRAID versions, but I will have to see how it behaves on the more recent 4.3.3 version.  It is only 10/100 base, so it will be replaced with a plugin card when I upgrade my network for GigLAN.  The UnRAID server, HTPC, and MediaPVR will be the first computers to get this upgrade, as well as a purchase of a small switch box.  This board is a microATX form factor, it has 4 on board SATA ports that can support up to 3Gb/s transfer rates, 1 IDE connetor that can support 2 IDE drives at Ultra-ATA 100/66/33 mode, 1 PCI-Ex16 connector, 1 PCI-Ex1 connector, and 2xPCI slots.  So there should be enough slots to add a future GigLAN card and an additional SATA controller for additional drives.  Without an extra controller card, I should be able to setup an UnRAID Plus server using a 5+1 setup (5 data, 1 parity drive).  Including shipping, it cost $58.30 cdn

USB Drive:  Lexar Firefly 256M

I just recently won this stick on ebay.  It is a recommended USB Flash drive from Lime.  Including shipping it cost ~$9.00 cdn

Memory:  Kingston ValueRAM 2x512MB KVR667D2N5K2/1G

This is some of the memory recommended for the ECS board.  It also falls within the UnRAID limit of no more than 1Gig memory is required.  I got it from a local computer store selling them for $27.99 cdn a pair.  The board BIOS automatically picks up the two sticks as Dual Channel Capable.

Case Fan: Nexus and 2x Yate Loon D12SL-12 Silent Fan (both companies share the same part number)

 The Nexus fan is installed in the lower portion of the case (as shown in the pictures below) to bring in cool air into the case

 The Yate Loon fan (actual type is a black frame with red blades) is installed in front of the 5 1/4" drive bays to blow air across the main data drives to help keep them cool.

Since I was using one of the Nexus fans in my HTPC build, and was quite impressed with how quiet it was, yet still able to move adequate amounts of air, I decided to put one into the UnRAID server.  I've been pleasantly happy with the performance of the fan in the HTPC, so I would expect much the same with this one.

The Yate Loon was purchased during a sale from NCIX.  I bought three to use in multiple systems.  I ended up using two here as I noticed that Data Drive 1 was getting heated, and it is at the top of the rack.  This fan is tie-wrapped to the front of the 5 1/4" drive bays and blows cool air across both data drives.

SInce then, I had mounted the parity, disk 3 and 4 drives on on top of each other with minimal clearance between them.  Disk 3 would often exceed 40C, with the other two drives in close proximity.  I took a second Yate-Loon fan and modified the front panel to which I hot-glued the fan to.  Now all drive temps appear uniform and not exceeding 35C under load.

CPU:  Intel Celeron 440

CPU Cooler:  Artic Cooling Alpine 7 Pro

I bought an Artic Cooling Alpine 7 Pro.  This is a low end heat-sink fan but is ultra quiet.  It should be adequate for cooling a 35W CPU even at its lowest speeds.  It is cheap as the local computer store sell it for about $14.52.  A review of it can be found here: http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2234

Power Supply:  Antec EA-650

This is a 650W supply that has an instant rebate of $10 at the local computer shop.  Paying by cash, it is about $74.99 +tax.  Pretty good supply according to all the professional and personal reviews.  It should be able to supply enough juice to power the system full of drives in the future.  It is efficient and quiet and should aid in keeping the utility bill down for a system that could potentially be on 24/7.

Hard Drive Controller: Bytecc BT-PCI-SATA150 PCI Serial ATA

I had this card sitting around since the temporary music-server setup.  It didn't run to well in that system, but I figured I'd give it a go in the unRAID box.  I was extra encouraged when I read on the unRAID hardware support page that the chipset that is used on this card is indeed supported.  It's not a ending solutions, since it is only capable of 150mps (not the latest SATA standard of 300), but it gives me, in the short-term, 2 more SATA ports.

Hard Drives:  3x Seagate Barracuda ST31500341AS, 1x ST31000524AS, 1x ST3750630AS, 1x Seagate Barracuda ST3500418AS 

ST31500341AS

ST31000524AS

 ST3750630AS (note: not a pic of my system)

 ST3500418AS

Battery Backup:  APC Backup-UPS ES 350

LOG

Aug 26, 2008

The motherboard came in yesterday. I installed it into the case last night, along with the memory. No issues so far. I'm going to drill some mount holes for the 120mm fan. I also will require some rubber feet. The next purchase will need to be the CPU. Then I will be able to do an initial power-up and verify a boot from the Lexar Firefly.

Aug 28, 2008

Lexar USB stick arrived. UNRAID installed on the stick just fine. Now I just have to complete the rest of the build and get the server going.

Sept 3, 2008

Drilled mounting holes for the Nexus 120mm fan, and installed it. Should help bring in fresh cool air. It resides right below the 3.5" drive bays, so air should be sucked in and upwards and blown out the supply. I will most likely install more fans into the system, once I get an idea of how the eventual hard-drives warm up.

Sept 15, 2008

Sept 28, 2008

Sept 29, 2008

 ECS motherboard, RAM installed

 Close-up of Kingston RAM in dual channel mode

 Celeron CPU installed

 Nexus 120mm fan installed

 Overall case view

 The back IO shield

 Back of the case

 Case front with faceplate removed

Oct 13, 2008

I bought the Artic Cooling Pro cooler for the Celeron 440, and installed it.  Below are some pics:

I installed a generic power supply to try and power the system.  It powered up, I went through some of the BIOS and everything seemed in order.  I then attempted to boot off the Firefly, but was getting an error that it couldn't find the boot drive.  I re-formated/installed the UnRAID boot on the drive a few times but got the same error message.  I then found in a forum thread on the UnRAID site to add a switch command to the syslinux.  On the main site it indicates to type this:

c:\syslinux.exe f: (changing f: to whatever the USB drive is)

I found out that this may not set the USB drive with a master boot record.  The actual command should have been:

c:\syslinux.exe -ma f:

Adding "-ma" seemed to make all the difference.  Now my server is sitting and greeting me with "Tower Login".  I powered down, and changed the IP, Mask and gateway to my network, and changed the network name to "WORKGROUP" from "MSHOME".  Powered the system back up and was able to connect to it via web browser on a remote machine.  Now I just need to get some hard drives and a final power supply.

Oct 18, 2008

Picked up the Antec EA-650 650W supply.  Installed it in the UnRAID box, along with old drives (6.4Gg, and 3.2G) with hopes of trying out the system tonight and see how it works.  I will be able to check throughput, see how think operate under load, and give me a chance to work on the system, since I've never worked really on a Linux type system in the past...only briefly played with them.  Will update later with details of my first hand view of this exciting venture.

 The Antec EA-650 prior to installation

 Supply installed

 ATX Connector installed

 ATX Additional 4-pin Molex connector

Oct 20, 2008

Well, I had my first hand experience at building an UnRAID array.  Used a temporary 6.4Gig, and 3.2 Gig drive.  The larger one setup as the parity.  System built itself no problems...though I will not use for pratical use as I can't even fit on DVD on the data drive.  Though I may transfer my install software directory over to it just to try it out some more.  Good start for myself, and got me comfortable around the web server.

Oct 27, 2008

Started to run the wiring to the UnRAID's final resting place.  I'm going to install it in the dry cellar.  It's not a bad location as it stays relatively cool  year round.  It is no more damp than the rest of the house.  Finished running the CAT5e cabling, with only the end needing termination.

Oct 28, 2008

I finished running and terminating the CAT5e cabling.  I was able to verify the connection by talking to the UnRAID server via webserver.  Now I just have to run the AC to that location.

 

Oct 30, 2008

Ran some speed tests on the LAN.  I pinged the UnRAID server for about an hour and did not get one dropped packet.  Good!  I then ran some files across, and using a Net Scanner, it reported a peak of 33MB/s output to the UNRAID and 14MB input from the UNRAID.  I did notice when I was outputting, after a sudden speed burst, the system would pause.  I'm taking this as the drives in the UnRAID is the bottle neck, and once a drive buffer is full, it has to write to the server.  I'm not sure, but I think it is also writing the parity at the same time.  This issue should be eleviated once I get the proper drives in the system.  Just as an example, a 100Meg file should have copied over in 20seconds, but with this pausing, it took about 40 seconds to copy.  Next step will be to copy over a .VOB file (1 gig file) and time it, then play it back across the network on the HTPC or MediaPVR and verify that it plays correctly.  There were reports that DVD playback stuttered with this motherboard/network driver, but that was using previous versions of UnRAID, and the more recent 4.3.3 had better driver support.

Nov 1, 2008

Wired up the the AC receptacle into the area where the UnRAID server is and everything powered up fine there.  I also performed some more network tests:
Continuous Ping Test
I sent continuous ping packets to the server to see if I had any dropped frames:

And the results of the test:

I then sent a bunch of small files across the network to the UnRAID server the back from the server.  The files were MP3 of AC/DC new album "Black Ice" (which is a pretty good album I must admit).  All 15 tracks, final album size was about 127Mb.  I used AnalogX NetStat Live to monitor the transfer speed.
To UnRAID:

From the UnRAID machine:

The next test was to send/receive a moderate sized file.  I used a Ren & Stimpy video which was just under 100Mb in size.
To UnRAID:

From the server:

Finally the last test was to transfer 1 large file to and from the UnRAID server.  For this I used a 750Meg video file.
To server:

From server:

Not to bad for a 10/100 LAN.  The one thing, and I think I stated it above, and which seemed to be very evident in the large file transfer TO the UnRAID box, is the persistent pausing.  I think it can be boiled down to a couple of issues.  One being that the data drive I'm experimenting with is only 3.2Gigs in size on the IDE bus.  The parity drive also is only 6.4Gigs.  So these two drives are old, and very slow.  The other thing is that I think the parity is being written to and verified on the fly.  The first issue should be solved once I get newer drives to place into the system.  The second issue is just the way UnRAID opperates.  This shouldn't be a problem when getting files from the server, such as watching video, as was noticed in the the last "From Server" picture.  It seemed to be sustained and consistant.

 

Dec 5, 2008

I haven't been playing around with this system too much as of late.  Been busy with my other projects.  Found out that the three drives will be a Christmas gift so I'm salavitating over that.  I picked up a couple more SATA cables in prep for connecting the drives when I get them.  Nothing would drive me up the wall more than to get the drives and not be able to connect them.  So look for an update around Dec. 25th.

Dec 26, 2008

Ended up getting two Seagate 750G drives and an APC UPS for Christmas.  Installed the two drives and the UnRAID system is rebuilding now.  After the parity check, I will have to format the data drive.  Drive temps are Parity: 23 degree C, Data: 28 degree C.  So they are still running pretty cool, though granted, the room that the system is sitting in is pretty cold right now.

Dec 28, 2008

So here is the screen capture of my UnRAID main screen.  The second drive, though shows it very cool, has gotten up to a whopping 28 degrees C.  The parity drive remains relatively cool and steady at 23 to 24 degree C.  I still have an old IDE 6.4G drive which doesn't indicate temperature.  I have transferred the majority of movies, music, install files, emulators/ROMS, and some pictures over to the server and it is in full swing now.

Jan 12, 2009

Over the weekend I had a chance to really start trying out the UnRAID server and network in a possible real world situation.  My kids were watching a movie that was playing on the MediaPVR, so I decided to take the opportunity to really run things and setup the HTPC to also play a movie.  So I had two movies running from the UnRAID server, across my LAN to two different computers, and everything ran solid.  Absolutely no glitches in the video or breakup of audio.  I was very happy with the results of this test.  Now I'm going to have to try  three streams, then four, then...

Jan 15, 2009

Well, over the last little while, I've been monitoring the hard drive temperatures.  I've seen the data drive as low as 13 degree Celcius when the system spins up.  With the weather as cold as it has been, my storage area where the UnRAID server resides is pretty cool.  To play it safe, figuring that the hard drives have a lower temperature limit, I decided to leave the drives spinning.  The data drive is now sitting around 26 degree C.  The parity drive was always sitting around 22 degree C.  This makes me feel a little bit better.  I am very happy with this system.

 

Feb 8, 2009

I recently got a 3' USB extension cable, as I've wanted to move the USB flash drive to the internals of the box.  Last night I went ahead and installed that, as well as clean-up/tie-wrapped some of the other harness.  Hopefully that will increase air-flow over the components, and keep everything a little bit more cooler.  System booted up after without issues.

Feb 16, 2009

Since I was spending some time in setting up and testing two video streams on the BES box, I figured this was a pretty good test on the UnRaid server and general network throughput.  I decided to push the envelope even further by not only streaming the two movies to the BES system, I decided to stream a third movie to the MediaPVR.  Well everything ran really smooth, and I didn't notice any hiccups.  Maybe I should try for four streams ;) .

Apr 4, 2009

Finally picked up a drive to finish off the "Basic" array.  It is a Seagate ST3500418AS 500Gig drive.  Arrays rebuilding nicely as I'm typing this.  This should buy plenty of space until I start towards HD content.

Dec 26, 2009

As mentioned in the hardware discription above, I got for a Christmas gift two 1.5Tb drives.  The one is now the new parity drive, and the second is becoming the new disk1 drive.  The old parity will replace the 500G drive.  I am also going to expand from the Basic version to the Plus version which will allow for up to 6 drives.  This way I can add back in the original 750G Disk1 data drive (it will become data disk3), and can add in a couple of IDE drives, or I could pickup a SATA controller and add the 500G drive back in as well...or not.

The parity is added and currently the data on disk1 is rebuilding.

Jan 13, 2011

Finally upgraded my UnRaid from the Basic version to the Plus version.  This will now allow me to use up to 6 drives (5 data/1 parity).  I have a 750G drive in the system, unplugged, but ready to go.  When I get a chance, I will have to power down the server so I can officially plug it in.  Very excited and happy, since I was starting to run out of space on the Basic version.

Jan 14, 2011

System is up and running with the additional 750G drive.  So now all four ports on the motherboard are in use, and I have two drive spaces in the UnRAID Plus package to fill.  So I may try out that crap PCI SATA card and use the 500G drive I had sitting around.  If this works, then that drive will solely be for backups, and install software.  Basically stuff that doesn't require speedy throughput and keep all the other data drives for media storage.

Feb 5, 2011

Decided to try that crappy Bytecc card in the unRAID server, if it worked, I would have an additional 2 SATA ports to play with, though at a reduced throughput when compared to faster PCIxE bused cards.  Currently attached to it is a 500G drive.  It actually started up fine and currently the drive is refreshing and building within the array.  Hard to believe that I may actually have a use for this Bytecc board after all...I was ready to throw this junk card into the garbage...but now, I'm kinda glad I kept it.

May 25, 2011

Purchased a new 1.5T drive as I've started running low on space.  This drive replaced Data drive 3 (750G).  The drive was only $68, and was the last one available.  Hopefully I'll be able to use the 750G in the available port on the Bytecc card.

May 27, 2011

Now that I had installed the larger drive in place of the previous 750G drive in location 3, I decided to attempt to add the 750G drive to the second port of the Bytecc card.  When I started the array again, according to the web server, it couldn't find drive 4, nor recognize drive 5 (both the 500G and 750G on the Bytecc card).  I realized that the cards firmware was flashed to work as a SATARaid card, which being RAID 0/1, if using multiple drives, they had to be identical.  I ended up downloading some base firmware for the card, and the flash utility, and attempted to flash the on-board ROM so the card would work as a SATALink, or each port was independent of each other.  Well it worked.  The 500G drive was again recognized as that, and the system built up the 750G drive as the new drive 5.  So I have maxed the system for the total drives under the "Plus" plan.  Since January I've increased the server size from 3.5 Tera-byte to 5 Tera-byte.  Almost a  50% increase of hard drive space.

Hopefully that will tie me over for the next little while.

Now the only thing that concerns me is the hard drive temperatures.  Especially with Data 3.  Since it is sandwich between the Parity and Data 4 drives, during the rebuilding stage, topped out at 43 degrees Celsius.  Parity and Data 4 were at 36 degrees C and 37 degree C respectively.  The system currently has a 120mm case fan at the bottom that pulls in outside cooler air to aid in cooling the case.  I installed a second 120mm fan that blows air across Data drives 1 and 2 at the top of the box.  The power supply has a 120mm fan that is to suck out the hot air.  But the three drives in question all reside in the 3.5" drive bay around the middle of the box.  There is about an 1/8" space between the drives, so I can understand why Drive 3 is getting quite a bit warmer peaking about 43 degrees during the rebuild stage.  See the image below for how the system is currently cooled.

May 28, 2011

I contemplated about upgrading the OS from 4.3.3 which I had started with, to the most recent stable release - 4.7.  Joe L from Lime Tech, more or less indicated that 4.3.3 had a major bug in that when installing a new drive, all drives could be formatted.  Well that prompted me to update, so tonight I am now running UnRAID v4.7 final.  So far, everything has gone off without issues.  I even took the time to wrap some of the wiring a little better, and to open up the front to allow for more airflow.  We'll see if that helps some of the higher drive temperatures I was experiencing.  I also took some updated pictures of the current setup, which are shown below. 

Data 2 drive

Data 1 drive

Data 4 drive

Data 3 drive

Parity drive

 USB Flash drive tucked along the bottom

 Data 5 drive mounted to the back of the box

 Closer image of Data 4, Data 3 and Parity drives, along with 120mm Nexus cooling fan

 Front of box, 120mm fan at top cooling Data 1 and 2 drives.  Drive 4, 3, and Parity shown below the fan.

September 18, 2011

I forgot to mention this, but in August, I has disk 5 breakdown.  Don't know what really happened, because, I tried to use disk 4 and disk 5 as recovery disk for a data retrieval test.  Long story short, I had been given a drive that was almost dead, and I used a linux tool to attempt to recover the data.  The experiment wasn't successful (hence no data was recovered), and during this time, disk 5 broke down.  It appears to now have some bad/un-recoverable sectors on the drive.  When I try and copy data to it, it just stops and reports errors.  So I'm in the midst of swapping drives around.  Not to long ago, the local computer store had a sale on Seagate 1T drives.  I ended up getting one of those, which I will first use to replace drive 2, since it currently is only 750G in size.  Then I will use that spared up 750G drive as the new drive 5.

Also I noticed that the parity, drive 3 and drive 4 temperatures indicated the drives were getting a little to hot.  Especially drive 3, which is sandwiched between the other two, would hit temperatures above 40C (45C was about the worst).  The parity drive would also occasionally hit around 40C as well, with drive 4 in the high 30's.  I ended up putting another Yate Loon 120mm fan in front of them (just below the orange Yate Loon in the picture above).  It is hot-glued to the plastic front face.  I also enlarged the lower vent holes in the front face for the lower Nexus fan.  Doing this seemed to have helped, as now the three drives are reporting temperatures in the low to mid 30's...in par with the other drives in the system.

October 26, 2011

So the other night, the UnRAID server suffered a catastrophic failure to the Antec power supply.  About three years to the date, the supply just died.  No rhyme or reason for its demise.  It actually disrupted the UPS, and sent that into battery backup.  So I ended up picking up a new Antec EA650 supply to replace it.  Prior to full recovery, I went into the BIOS to verify all drives were still recognized, and the motherboard came up okay.  UnRAID startup also can do a memory check, which I ran to verify that the RAM wasn't fried.  Luckily it appeared that the power supply didn't take anything else out along with it.

Now the question...why did this happen?  The only thing I figure was during the summer, someone brought me a "dead" drive to see if I could extract any data from it.  The only system I could prove this on at the time was the UnRAID server (it had the drive availability, and capabilities).  That "test" ended up destroying one of my data drives...it now has constant errors and can't be written to.  Now I think that test also may have stressed the supply, and it finally just had enough.

Since it is a three year old supply, and I think out of warranty, I opened the old supply up with the hopes to troubleshoot and repair it.  If I can, then I will have a backup supply in the event that this should happen again.  Normally I wouldn't do this but since this is supposed to be a good supply from a pretty reputable company...

So opening it up revealed no burn marks or apparent blown components.  There was no burning electrical odour you get when a component is smoked.  One thing that others have reported on are bulging capacitors, which I didn't notice happening in this supply.  I did a voltage measurement across the bridge rectifier and it reported 0 volts (should be 120VAC).  Right next to the rectifier is a small PCB mount relay...got me thinking/wondering.  Maybe that relay went bad, since there is a mechanical element to its operation.  I recall an incident years back where my NAD Integrated amp wouldn't turn on...it happened that a delay relay went bad, and once that was replaced, the amp has been functioning ever since.

I will have to spend more time to figure this problem out, and will hopefully report back some good news soon.

October 29, 2011

I ended up getting an early B-day/Christmas gift, in being a new 1T data drive.  I'm going to use this drive to replace the 750G data 2 drive.  This will allow for an additional 250G on that drive, which will be nice to have.  The 750G drive will then be re-allocated to data drive 5, this will max out my drive usage for the license that I have, and bring me back to where I was prior to that horrendous data recovery experiment I attempted in the summer.

Other things of note on this system is that I installed the unMenu web-server.  UnMenu allows for a whole lot more of options to play with, such as power-down events, and temperature protection scripts etc.

*Update*

1T drive up/rebuilt and running, new drive 5 (750G) almost done.  The system is back to normal! Yeah!