Change is Coming

A big Thank You! to all unRaid customers, users, and forum members!  I hope you're all having a great Holiday Season!

 

Here is an update on the happenings here at Lime Tech.

 

First, 5.0-beta3 is just about ready for posting.  Highlights include:

- completely updated slack, linux, and samba.

- AFP finally working (though still issues with zeroconf)

- support unRaid partitions on sector 64 instead of 63 (but backward-compat with existing drives)

- bunch of other changes/bug fixes.

I need to finish final testing before posting, and I've been working very hard to get this done.

 

There will be some Forum changes.  For example, I want to consolidate several boards, and create some new ones, e.g., an expanded "Pimp-Your-Rig" sub-forum, and a sub-forum dedicated to "A/V install in an unRaid server environment".  Also, I will be changing the Announcement board to be non-posting - that is, it will be reserved just for announcements so that you can subscribe to the board and not get an email for every single reply.  Here we will post not only new software availability notices, but also critical bug fix notifications.

 

I want to complete these changes this week, so here's your chance to make suggestions as replies to this thread only please!

 

There will be new servers available and links to "authorized unRaid resellers".

 

That's it for now, back to work....

 

Sounds great. Thanks for all the hard work.

Great work Tom. Appreciate the hard work, especially since it's over christmas. My Macs will love AFP support. Really looking forward to this.

It's not related with unRAID itself, but maybe you can set a number of old users as moderators and/or sysop for the forum, so you don't have to take care of it all the time.

 

Any changes in the plugins management?

I would say the single most important "big change" should be Limetech feedback. A blog, TRAC, bug system, news post or anything. Something that fills the big voids with snippets of information.

 

Edit: on re-reading my post it occured to me it could look like i was asking for alot... I am not. 15 minutes of news once a week would be a VAST improvement. Failing that 15 minutes a month would still be a huge step forward

Sounds great and looking forward to more Mac features.

Sounds great. I'm looking forward to seeing how 5.0 beta 3 will be. Any chance it incorporates any of the MD driver changes to enable LSI 1068E-based cards to recognize or identify drives connected to it (in addition to mptsas module)?

Sounds great. I'm looking forward to seeing how 5.0 beta 3 will be. Any chance it incorporates any of the MD driver changes to enable LSI 1068E-based cards to recognize or identify drives connected to it (in addition to mptsas module)?

 

-beta3 no longer uses the SCST subsystem, instead uses the 'stock' mvsas driver included with the linux kernel.  AFAIK that LSI card should work...

Idea: connect the "Announcement board" to your twitter account "@limetechnology"?

Awesome news Tom, thank you very much for your hard work. I sincerely appreciate it! Happy Holidays!

Idea: connect the "Announcement board" to your twitter account "@limetechnology"?

 

Great idea but how about making a facebook account also?  I have to ask, when do you think 5 will be released, first half or second half of 2011?

Idea: connect the "Announcement board" to your twitter account "@limetechnology"?

 

Great idea but how about making a facebook account also?

 

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48632827179

- support unRaid partitions on sector 64 instead of 63 (but backward-compat with existing drives)

 

 

Does this mean drives >2TB?

- support unRaid partitions on sector 64 instead of 63 (but backward-compat with existing drives)

 

 

Does this mean drives >2TB?

no, it simply means slightly better performance on those 2TB drives that use "4k" sectors internally.  Those drives work better when multi-block selects do not cross 4k boundaries.

 

It has nothing to do with drives > 2.1TB.

If you're pushing UnRaid to be a true media storage appliance, it might be a wise idea to have the gui default to a very simple subset of information/settings, and the ability to show "advanced settings". This would be to stem any potential issues with less knowledgable customers.

 

As soon as I get unRaid 5 running as a replacement to 4, I will start creating a gui (I'm a front end designer/developer) to test. I've seen pics, think it could be more "user friendly". I can't comment too much though, as I haven't used the 5 beta gui yet.

 

Cheers for the fantastically solid product so far. 3 years, no issues.

With those of us with 4K drives are we going to have to configure anything out of the norm or just leave them jumper-ed and continue using them?

 

I'd also like you to look at the BookMark Mod for SMF.

It allows you to bookmark your favorite threads so you can come back to them no matter what machine your on. I mentioned it a while back just in case you need a refresher.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6822.0

Regarding the Advanced Format Drives (WD EARS), I have one that was written to already in Windows, but has been formatted via Windows Disk Management to NTFS.

 

Can this be mounted (in its current state) into an array using the upcoming firmware, then pre-cleared, or is there another step I should take?

Thanks Tom for the update. I'm Looking forward with the release of 5 beta 3. Good thing that we get eventually support for AFP. A very important feature for unRAID. I think Mac users gonna love this feature. Also unRAID has to support all network protocols. So with CIFS, NFS and now AFP unRAID goes in the right direction!

 

I would say the single most important "big change" should be Limetech feedback. A blog, TRAC, bug system, news post or anything. Something that fills the big voids with snippets of information.

 

I have to agree with NAS. I really think this is a good a idea. Tell the customers whats going on. A blog and bug system looks far more professional.  

Sounds awesome Tom!!

 

One suggestion:

 

- If announcements thread is read-only, consider creating an official Limetech support thread.  This could be used for bugs found in betas, for example, or people reporting issues that the forum regulars can't resolve.

 

And request

 

- Hope you can provide more details with regards to 63 sector to 64 sector operation, so that we can best decide when/if to migrate existing drives to 64 sector alignment.  For example, what is impact on (4K sector) parity drive performance of writing to 63 sector aligned data drive.

 

Still hoping, one day, for a RAID-1 cache drive.  

Still hoping, one day, for a RAID-1 cache drive.  

 

This is possible now for a small cost. monitor eBay for arc-1200 I got one for $99  and I've seen them at that price point (Takes time).

Right now they are $160 to $199.  This also provides the possibility of RAID0 Parity/RAID1 Cache.

This is possible now for a small cost. monitor eBay for arc-1200 I got one for $99  and I've seen them at that price point (Takes time).

Right now they are $160 to $199.  This also provides the possibility of RAID0 Parity/RAID1 Cache.

 

New one at NewEgg is currently $136

 

Reasonable option, but some negatives:

 

1. Dedicated slot (I have none left )

 

2. Unable to monitor individual drives with Smart

 

3. Ties you to specific hardware which may be difficult to replace in the future.  unRAID's hardware independence is much preferred.

 

4. Not sure, but does it spin down when not in use?

 

Since Linux supports software RAID, would be great to be able to use it.

It's not related with unRAID itself, but maybe you can set a number of old users as moderators and/or sysop for the forum, so you don't have to take care of it all the time.

 

Seconding this request.  You could have a set of minimum requirements, such as:

- Hero member

- Member for 1 year or more

- Submits a formal request (so you know they actually want the responsibility)

 

etc....

 

You could also assign moderators to particular subforums to spread the load a bit (hardware, motherboards, software, etc.)

 

I'm also quite excited about the dedicated Pimp Your Rig subforum.

I'm also quite excited about the dedicated Pimp Your Rig subforum.

I'm not surprised to hear you say that.  It seems that you have a PC building addiction/fettish.  Not that that's a bad thing. 

 

Hey there's an idea.  Maybe Tom needs to add a "support" section in the forums (a la Alcoholics Anonymous) for help with PC related addictions.  Perhaps just start with two sections - digital hoarding and compulsive PC construction.

Since Linux supports software RAID, would be great to be able to use it.

 

Linux software RAID is replaced by unRAID.  You can't have both.

... You can't have both.

 

You don't want both.    Awesome ideas guys.  I particularly like the idea of some kind of news feed and / or update system to keep us apprised of what is planned and what is under construction.  A timeline would be a bonus.