What is Unraid and how to build an Unraid media server

[Jamie]

Hi Paul,

I am trying to plug the molex cables from the power supply to the back plane of the x-case. I find that I cannot fit the molex cables into the molex connectors side by side onto the x-case backplane. The backplane connections are too close together and the molex cable connector appears to be too big to fit 2 cables side by side.

Did you face this issue and how did you work around it? Can I skip every other connector on the back plane and still supply enough power to all the drives?

Jamie

[Pauven]

Yes, you can skip every other connector. That's what I did.

I don't know why they provide so many connections, and put them so close. In their videos they even say it is optional to use them all. The more you can use, the more stable your power will be (less load on a set of wires), but honestly I think what they did is overkill.

The more important thing is to try and use as many main cables as your power supply offers, and not just 6 molex connections on one cable (don't use splitters!!!!). For example, it is better to use 3 cables with 2 molex each, versus 2 cables with 3 molex each, as the more cables used spreads the load (amps) over more wires, reducing the load seen by any one wire. Hopefully that makes sense.

[Jamie]

yes, it does. Thanks

[Jamie]

Hi Paul,

What do you use for SMB permissions on an Unraid share in order for windows explorer and mymovies to have access to the share? I am a little perplexed with the export setting. I have it currently set to Yes because that is the only way I can see the share's contents via windows explorer. I have security set to private in order to require access via username and pw by my user account. What is the difference between private and secure? Any gotchas that might make it hard for mymovies, or CMC, to gain access through my user account?

Thanks,

Jamie

[Pauven]

Good questions, and certainly things I've had to deal with.

For my various movie shares, I set them to export with Public security.

I also create a user named "mymovies" to give My Movies something to log in with - so the login doesn't fail, even though the share's security is public meaning it doesn't require a login.

The last trick is to make sure that, regardless of what your server's name really is (i.e. mine is "Tower"), you only use the lowercase version of it in My Movies (I.e. "tower"). This is because My Movies secretly uses the server name as the domain for the login, and per Linux rules it can't be uppercase, and My Movies is too stupid to lowercase it before using it.

[Jamie]

Good advice! Thank you

[Jamie]

Hi Paul,

When I use a drive from a drobo, do I have to format the drive before doing the Preclear, or will the preclear take care of everything?

Jamie

[Pauven]

The honest truth is that I don't remember if the pre-clear takes care of the formatting, it's been so long since I've added a new drive that wasn't an upgrade. I'm thinking that the pre-clear does not do the format, only the writing of zeroes and the Unraid signature, which is not the same thing as formatting a file-system.

Over the past couple weeks I've been changing the file system on some of my disks from reiserfs to xfs (reiserfs use to be the only option back in the day; xfs is a more modern solution that doesn't suffer drive slowdowns near full capacity), and I have to do a format on each drive after change the file system assignment.

The format itself only takes a minute or two, so it's nothing to worry about.

[Jamie]

Okay, I guess this should clear things up a little.

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/15861-p ... at-solved/

I think that you do a format after a preclear when you assign the disk to the array?

Jamie

[Jamie]

This should clear up any preclear vs. format questions. I guess I didn't waste my time doing a preclear before format.

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/43123-r ... er-format/