Overclock.net banner
Cancel
Create thread New Forums

unraid alternative?

Jump to Latest
1 - 20 of 29 Posts

Blindsay

· Back to Building
Joined
·
4,818 Posts
Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hey all,

I really like unraid for the virtualization but the write performance is killing me. I understand why it is slow but i was wondering if there was anything else out there that would give me good data protection but with better performance (in particular write)

edit: just to clarify, im just looking for a storage alternative. I am happy to keep unraid running my virtualization setup and run something separate for storage

Is FreeNAS my best bet?
 
#2 ·
Unfortunately the only RAID that will give you higher write speeds is RAID 0. Any other form of RAID will give a much higher read speed but not write as you are still stuck with the same single hard disk write speed. While you may have 20 drives in RAID when writes occur the drives need to form parity of the data, which is the advantage and strength of RAID 5, 6 and higher parity levels. RAID 5 and higher were never meant for high write but high read and redundancy, which is why they are used in data centres.

So, to answer your question: the only way to achieve higher writes while maintaining a form of redundancy is RAID 1 but that has basically been abandoned in favour of higher levels of RAID.
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
#3 ·
Do you use a cache drive? I have a 256 GB SSD from an old build that I use as a cache disk which gives me much better write (up to cache limit at least) and then I've manually invoked the mover if necessary or just let it sit and run overnight.
 
Discussion starter · #4 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by zdub303 View Post

Do you use a cache drive? I have a 256 GB SSD from an old build that I use as a cache disk which gives me much better write (up to cache limit at least) and then I've manually invoked the mover if necessary or just let it sit and run overnight.
Click to expand...
At first i was using a cache drive but i ran into an issue where the cache drive filled up (using 3x 250GB SSD's) and crashed all of my VM's.

I read after i can set a min allowed free space which should fix the issue but i just want something faster.

For example say i had a torrent (i wont go into any details since that stuff is against the rules) and it was ~400GB and inside of it it had a bunch of rar files, well if that is sitting in the mechanical disks and i do the extract, it takes FOREVER. It is actually faster for me to move it to an SSD on another machine, extract all the files and then move it back.
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

Unfortunately the only RAID that will give you higher write speeds is RAID 0. Any other form of RAID will give a much higher read speed but not write as you are still stuck with the same single hard disk write speed. While you may have 20 drives in RAID when writes occur the drives need to form parity of the data, which is the advantage and strength of RAID 5, 6 and higher parity levels. RAID 5 and higher were never meant for high write but high read and redundancy, which is why they are used in data centres.

So, to answer your question: the only way to achieve higher writes while maintaining a form of redundancy is RAID 1 but that has basically been abandoned in favour of higher levels of RAID.
Click to expand...
Yeah i know the Parity is what kills the write speeds but i would imagine not all raid 5 setups are created equal, i am sure some are faster than others. Thats why i was wondering if maybe FreeNAS would be faster.

I was tying to avoid traditional RAID as i really like the flexibility in disk setup with unraid, i can mix and match disk sizes and very easily add/expand the array down the road
 
#6 ·
Were the cache drives you were using SSD's? If you're going to be running VM's and using it as a write cache you definitely want it to be SSDs. I have two 480GB SSD's in a RAID0 BTRFS cache pool on both my UnRAID servers and they work great. You can also set the mover to run often if you feel like you're running out of space to often. Another option is to use the unassigned devices plugin to mount a spinner drive or two that are not on the protected array. You could use this for your download cache.
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blindsay View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

Unfortunately the only RAID that will give you higher write speeds is RAID 0. Any other form of RAID will give a much higher read speed but not write as you are still stuck with the same single hard disk write speed. While you may have 20 drives in RAID when writes occur the drives need to form parity of the data, which is the advantage and strength of RAID 5, 6 and higher parity levels. RAID 5 and higher were never meant for high write but high read and redundancy, which is why they are used in data centres.

So, to answer your question: the only way to achieve higher writes while maintaining a form of redundancy is RAID 1 but that has basically been abandoned in favour of higher levels of RAID.
Click to expand...
Yeah i know the Parity is what kills the write speeds but i would imagine not all raid 5 setups are created equal, i am sure some are faster than others. Thats why i was wondering if maybe FreeNAS would be faster.

I was tying to avoid traditional RAID as i really like the flexibility in disk setup with unraid, i can mix and match disk sizes and very easily add/expand the array down the road
Click to expand...
FreeNAS will not help you as it still creates a traditional RAID 5/6/7(?).
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
Discussion starter · #8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

FreeNAS will not help you as it still creates a traditional RAID 5/6/7(?).
Click to expand...
there doesnt seem to be many other options at this point
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blindsay View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

FreeNAS will not help you as it still creates a traditional RAID 5/6/7(?).
Click to expand...
there doesnt seem to be many other options at this point
Click to expand...
I'm sorry to say that RAID 0 or 1 are your only options. Personally I don't really care for write speed as a media server mostly reads but if your server writes a lot then you can look at RAID 60.

Edit: Which drives do you have and what are your write speeds?
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
#10 ·
Caching is the best way to mitigate writes to parity protected arrays. I can write to my dual parity (essentially RAID6) UnRAID array at near 10Gb (900MB/s +) speeds using SSD caching.
 
Discussion starter · #11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by PuffinMyLye View Post

Caching is the best way to mitigate writes to parity protected arrays. I can write to my dual parity (essentially RAID6) UnRAID array at near 10Gb (900MB/s +) speeds using SSD caching.
Click to expand...
I had caching but my cache drives kept filling up before the mover would run (also if the files are in use the mover wont move them anyways)
 
Discussion starter · #12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

I'm sorry to say that RAID 0 or 1 are your only options. Personally I don't really care for write speed as a media server mostly reads but if your server writes a lot then you can look at RAID 60.

Edit: Which drives do you have and what are your write speeds?
Click to expand...
Toshiba X300, 2x 4TB and 2x 5TB at the moment

write speeds seem to vary a bit but like ~45MB/s
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blindsay View Post

I had caching but my cache drives kept filling up before the mover would run (also if the files are in use the mover wont move them anyways)
Click to expand...
So don't put your downloads on the cache drive. Place them on an unassigned drive that's not part of the protected array.
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by PuffinMyLye View Post

So don't put your downloads on the cache drive. Place them on an unassigned drive that's not part of the protected array.
Click to expand...
isnt that more of a band aid though? Once it finishes i would want to move it to the array and id be back at square one
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blindsay View Post

isnt that more of a band aid though? Once it finishes i would want to move it to the array and id be back at square one
Click to expand...
if the unassigned drive is not an option then in order to say with unraid your only other option would be to get a larger cache drive.
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blindsay View Post

isnt that more of a band aid though? Once it finishes i would want to move it to the array and id be back at square one
Click to expand...
Do you use Sonarr/Radarr for downloads? If so, they will automatically move your downloads to your protected shares automatically without any intervention on your part. Sure they won't be the fastest but it will happen the moment the downloads finish so it will all be done without you even knowing it. If that's not good enough and you can't afford to buy larger cache drives than you're out of options.
 
Discussion starter · #17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by PuffinMyLye View Post

Do you use Sonarr/Radarr for downloads? If so, they will automatically move your downloads to your protected shares automatically without any intervention on your part. Sure they won't be the fastest but it will happen the moment the downloads finish so it will all be done without you even knowing it. If that's not good enough and you can't afford to buy larger cache drives than you're out of options.
Click to expand...
Havent actually heard of Sonarr/Radarr

I see you used to have FreeNAS, have you been happy with unraid since the switch to it? After reading around a bit i thought it would have better performance than unraid, but based on your old thread that doesnt seem to be the case?
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blindsay View Post

Havent actually heard of Sonarr/Radarr

I see you used to have FreeNAS, have you been happy with unraid since the switch to it? After reading around a bit i thought it would have better performance than unraid, but based on your old thread that doesnt seem to be the case?
Click to expand...
I use FreeNAS and UnRAID. FreeNAS for VM storage (all flash) and UnRAID for my bulk storage (media, surveillance, VM snapshots, software, personal data, etc.).
 
Discussion starter · #19 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by PuffinMyLye View Post

I use FreeNAS and UnRAID. FreeNAS for VM storage (all flash) and UnRAID for my bulk storage (media, surveillance, VM snapshots, software, personal data, etc.).
Click to expand...
reading your build thread is making me want to start from scratch on my build lol (Crazy setup you have)
 
#20 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blindsay View Post

reading your build thread is making me want to start from scratch on my build lol (Crazy setup you have)
Click to expand...
biggrin.gif
. I'm actually in the process of consolidating my storage a bit. I just bought 8 x 10TB WD Gold drives to replace the 8TB Seagate SMR drives in my main UnRAID server. I may wind up just moving everything to FreeNAS just to be able to put it all in one physical server and eliminate one node. I'll have to update my build log (or make a new one) once that project starts in the next few weeks
thumb.gif
.
 
1 - 20 of 29 Posts
About this Discussion
28 Replies
5 Participants
Last post:
Liranan
Overclock.net
posts
28M
members
562K
Since
2004
The premier forum for overclocking experts and enthusiasts. Discuss hardware optimization, custom builds, benchmarking, cooling solutions, and pushing the boundaries of computing performance. From beginner guides to extreme overclocking, join our technical community to master system tuning.
Full Forum Listing
Explore Our Forums
Intel CPUs Hardware News NVIDIA PC Gaming Water Cooling