[dba-VB] Unraid

Gustav,

 > For what it is - a simple fileshare (CIFS/SMB) only - the unRaid seems pretty expensive.

UnRaid is not a simple file share, but rather simple file share on top of a fairly low cost storage 
pool based "raid like" NAS system.  It is similar to WHS in that it allows you to just add any old 
drive and have it added to the storage pool, but unlike WHS it does not use 2X drives for X storage. 
  Beyond that it is just a NAS.

I have never used it but it gets good reviews.

As you probably know, everybody does RAID, but every raid that I have ever seen (other than UnRaid) 
requires manually matching drives, manually setting them up etc.  Unraid (and WHS) allow you to just 
drop in a new drive and it gets added to the storage pool automatically.  You can have hot spares 
and all that.

I have all of my family photos, music and videos as well as all of my software source disks on WHS 
at the moment.  The problem is that I have 3 gigs of video that is unprotected and in order to 
protect it I would need to do a raid or throw up my hands and give WHS its 2X storage.  Or just go 
build a NAS specifically designed to do this.

The only NAS I have found that doesn't make you do the (learn-how-to) Build-a-raid shuffle is 
UnRaid.  If there are others I am all ears.

I am not a Linux geek, nor a NAS geek and I don't wanna have to be one.  One of the promises of WHS 
was that you could just plug in a new drive when you need more storage.  No thinking, no figuring 
out how it all works.

Free is good, but any time I have to spend on it counts against the "free".

 > Using iSCSI you can set up a network connection with multiple port truncated NICs and set these 
to use Jumbo frames to obtain transfer speeds comparable to local disks.

That sounds fascinating, but what I am doing now is just for my home stuff.  Not to mention iSCSI 
appears to cost money plus tie up a windows license as the host.  If I needed that stuff then fine, 
but I don't.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com

On 10/20/2010 6:59 AM, Gustav Brock wrote:
> Hi John
>
> For what it is - a simple fileshare (CIFS/SMB) only - the unRaid seems pretty expensive. Did you study the free alternatives like FreeNAS?
>
> Also, don't you subscribe to the Action Pack? If so you should have plenty of server licenses to set up a straight Windows file share with or without AD - or even the Small Business Server. Or you could pick an old Windows 2000 license.
>
> Have you considered iSCSI for sharing and to set up a SAN? That is extremely flexible and much better if your task is not so much file sharing but rather allocating of disc space. On your server you allocate some disk space (a target) and from your client you address this (using the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator) and that disk space pops up as a local disk.
> Free options are again FreeNAS (which I haven't tested) but should be somewhat limited. Or OpenFiler (Linux based) or OpenSolaris which runs its impressive ZFS filesystem. However, for a Windows guy and speaking of experience, these represent a learning curve which you may not be tempted to pass; but Windows options are available at a cost. StarWindSoftware used to have a free entry-level version but that has been taken off-line - quite a pity as it is excellent software. Thus, the only offer at a friendly cost, I can locate, is iSCSI Cake:
>
> http://www.iscsicake.com/
>
> Using iSCSI you can set up a network connection with multiple port truncated NICs and set these to use Jumbo frames to obtain transfer speeds comparable to local disks.
>
> /gustav