unRAID Server Release 4.7 "final" Available

[limetech]

Download

This is exactly the same as 4.7-beta1 except for the version string changed to simply "4.7".

unRAID Server 4.7 Release Notes
===============================

Installation on a New Flash Device
----------------------------------

To make a bootable USB Flash device using Windows (XP/Vista/Win7), follow these steps:
1. Plug your USB Flash device into your Windows PC.
2. Open 'My Computer' (XP) or 'Computer' (Vista/Win7) and right-click your Flash device. Click 'Format...', set the volume label to UNRAID and then click 'Start'. Important: the volume label must be set to UNRAID (all caps).
3. Click on your Flash device (to open it) and drag then entire contents of the unRAID Server zip file to the Flash.
4. For Windows XP, click on the file 'make_bootable'.  A DOS window will open and run the 'syslinux' utility on the Flash.  For Windows Vista or Windows 7, right-click on the file 'make_bootable' and select 'Run as administrator'.
5. Once again, right-click your Flash device in 'My Computer' or 'Computer' and then click 'Eject'.  Your Flash device is now ready to boot into unRAID Server OS.


Upgrading an existing Flash Device
----------------------------------

Note: after upgrading, some changes may require additional user intervention, please refer to the Change Log below.

If you are currently running unRAID Server 4.6 or higher, please copy the following files from the new release to the root of your Flash device:
    bzimage
    bzroot

If you are currently running unRAID Server 4.5.x, 4.4.x, 4.3.x or 4.2.x, please copy the following files from the new release to the root of your Flash device:
    bzimage
    bzroot
    memtest

If you are currently running unRAID server 4.1 or 4.0, please copy the following files from the new release to the root of your Flash device:
    bzimage
    bzroot
    memtest
    syslinux.cfg
    menu.c32

This can be done either by plugging the Flash into your PC or, by copying the files to the 'flash' share on your running server.  The server must then be rebooted.

If you are currently running any version of unRAID Server before 4.0, please contact support@lime-technology.com for upgrade instructions.


Change Log
==========

Changes from 4.7-beta1 to 4.7
-----------------------------

No changes (except version string).


Changes from 4.6 to 4.7-beta1
-----------------------------

Feature: Advanced Format drive support - partition 1 may now be aligned on 4K boundry (sector 64)

This release now provides support for so-called Advanced Format (AF) drives.  AF drives are hard drives which
have native 4KB sector size instead of traditional 512-Byte sector size (though these drives typically still report
a sector size of 512-Bytes to the operating system).  Drives larger than 2TB are still not supported in this release
however.

Traditionally, when the Master Boot Record (MBR) is created on a hard drive, partition 1 is positioned to start
on sector 63.  This is due to legacy support for old drives that use cylinder/head/sector addressing instead of
Logical Block addressing.  AF drive support involves nothing more than positioning the start of Partition 1 on
sector 64 instead of sector 63, thus "aligning" it on a 4KB boundary (since 64 sectors = 32KB which is a multiple
of 4KB).

Whether to create Partition 1 starting with sector 63 or sector 64 is configurable using a new setting in the Disk
settings section of the Settings page called "Default partition format".  The default value of this setting is
"MBR: unaligned", which specifies an MBR-style partition table with partition 1 starting in sector 63.  If you
intend to install a new AF drive, you should first change this setting to "MBR: 4K-aligned", which specifies an
MBR-style partition table with partition 1 starting in sector 64.  [Note a future version may include a third
option called "GPT", or "GUID Partition Table".  This will be necessary to support drives larger than 2TB.]

For most AF drives, you will want to set "Default partition format" to "MBR: 4K-aligned" for maximum performance
(but see note about the Western Digital EARS drives below).  Also, there is no performance or storage loss in
starting Partition 1 in sector 64 for ALL drives, not just AF drives.

IMPORTANT: any drive formatted with "MBR: 4K-aligned" using this version of unRAID OS will NOT BE RECOGNIZED as
formatted in any previous version of unRAID OS.

As for WD EARS - these drives include a physical jumper which, if installed, remaps the sectors internally
so that if Partition 1 is created to start in sector 63, it gets remapped to a starting sector that is on a 4K
boundary (a hack to support Windows XP).  If you have formatted an EARS drive with a previous version of unRAID or
Windows with the jumper in place, we recommend you leave the jumper in place and do not re-format the drive; just
treat it as a non-AF drive.  There is NO performance penalty for doing this!

Finally, the MBR of any drive that already has a valid "unRAID" MBR will not be re-written, regardless of the
setting of "Default partition format".  This includes unRAID MBR with "factory-erased" signature.  Therefore, if
you use Joe L.'s excellant "preclear_disk" script, you must expclitly use the -A option to position partition 1 in
sector 64 if this is what you desire.


Other: added Cancel button when Clearing is in process.

Bug fix: fix problem causing Win7 to report "too many open files"

Bug fix: disable login on certain non-user accounts.

A bug was fixed where certain non-users were able to login via telnet. But to get this fix to apply (if you want), you must follow this procedure:
1. After booting this release, go to your flash share and delete the files 'config/passwd' and 'config/smbpassd'
2. Reboot the server
Note: you will need to re-enter any users you had created.

Bug fix: do not save HWADDR to config/network.cfg.

Previously, the ethernet MAC address (HWADDR) was being stored in 'config/network.cfg'.  Normally this causes no problems unless configuration moved to a different motherboard in which case the old MAC address could instated.
To instate this fix, you should click on 'Apply' under the Network section of the Settings page so that 'config/network.cfg' gets re-written.

[Phorte]

brilliant!! thankyou! now i can officially replace all my drives with 2Tb ones!

[BRiT]

Great news indeed. Looking forward to the 5.0 series releases next...

[smakovits]

Good news.  Thanks for the continued effort.  I will install jumpered drives this time around as the preclear is almost complete with Jumper in place.  No sense shutting down to remove jumpers to format again, so I will just run 4.7 and then install non-jumpered "-A" cleared disk next time around...

Great work!

[joshpond]

Just a typo in the change log:

Change Log
==========

Changes from 4.6-beta1 to 4.7
-----------------------------

No changes (except version string).

I think it should be 4.7-beta1 to 4.7

Josh

[Darts]

Hello!

Could someone please clarify this for me :
Can any disk currently installed in the array be converted to 4K or should we need to buy specific drives?

[prostuff1]

Hello!

Could someone please clarify this for me :
Can any disk currently installed in the array be converted to 4K or should we need to buy specific drives?

Any drive can be converted but ONLY "ADVANCED FORMAT" drives will benefit from the 4-K alignment.  You can go through the lengthy process of changing all your disks but I highly suggest that you DO NOT do that.

[limetech]

Just a typo in the change log:

Change Log
==========

Changes from 4.6-beta1 to 4.7
-----------------------------

No changes (except version string).

I think it should be 4.7-beta1 to 4.7

Josh

You are correct.

[Joe L.]

Hello!

Could someone please clarify this for me :
Can any disk currently installed in the array be converted to 4K or should we need to buy specific drives?

Any disk can be installed and partitioned to start on a 4k aligned boundary.   It will not have any effect on anything on an older disk drive that needed to be aligned to a 512 byte boundary.    (because aligning to a 4K boundary also automatically aligns it to a 512 byte boundary.)

So, you do not need to buy any special drives.  All will work.  

Your existing drives do not need to be changed in any way to use 4.7.  They will work exactly as they do today on 4.6.

If you purchase a new drive and install it you might as well use the new MBR-4k-alignment.   Just be aware... and drive partitioned for 4k-alignment will not be recognized in an older version of unRAID.

Joe L.

[Darts]

Thank you

As I already have a couple of "new" 2TB drives, is there a way to know if they will benefit from a realignment?

[Joe L.]

Thank you

As I already have a couple of "new" 2TB drives, is there a way to know if they will benefit from a realignment?

Do they say "Advanced Format" on them anywhere?  or mention 4k sectors?

If not, they probably won't benefit.  (It won't hurt, other than you cannot expect them to be recognized in older releases of unRAID as valid unRAID drives.)

General advice.  If the drives are already assigned in your array, don't mess with them. 

Joe L.

[Darts]

I'll check the drives to be sure but the general advise is indeed words of the wise

Thanks again!

[CaptainSpalding]

This is great news!

I have all my case slots full so I can only upgrade the existing hdd's.

I don't know why but the local computer shop has rised the price of the non-AF drives about a third...

I'm glad I waited. 

[peter_sm]

Hi

Did a upgrade from 4.6 , Now a have a issue with one disc, Replacement disk is too small.

I know that is the GIGABYTE issue, but how can I easily fix this ? without loosing my data on that disk?

Code: [Select]

DISK_WRONG /dev/md5 /dev/sdf SAMSUNG_HD103UJ_S13PJ1KQ612827 <-- was old disk in this slot
   SAMSUNG HD103UJ _S13PJ1KQ612827 <-- current disk in this slot
From syslog
Jan 25 17:31:36 Tower kernel: ata8.00: HPA detected: current 1953523055, native 1953525168 (Errors)

//Peter

[Joe L.]

Yes, you can do it without losing data.

Try this:
hdparm -N p1953525168 /dev/sdf

Follow it with
hdparm -N /dev/sdf
to see if it took effect.