unRAID…for Windows?
Sort of. When I say unRAID, I speak of the technology behind the redundancy – not the actual unRAID package and features. This also has nothing to do with Lime-Technology, the company behind unRAID. So, actually, I’m just talking about multiple disk parity calculation for the Windows OS – or, disParity.
DisParity is free, first of all, and it works. Basically, all you do is extract the application, set a config file designating the drives and/or folders you want to protect and then run a disparity create from the command line and wait a few hours (depending on what you’ve chosen to protect). If you need to update your parity, you run a disparity update. Recovery works pretty much in the same manner (disparity recover [drive#] [target]).
Of course, it is not very feature rich and there is no real-time parity calculation, so you have to do it manually. I suppose you could set up a scheduled task to run the update command from a batch file, so it’s not completely hopeless when it comes to automated functionality.
Anyway, considering the majority of you aren’t adding movies to your collection on an hourly, or daily, basis, this may be an option for you. You would, optimally, need data drives, a drive specifically for the parity image (probably a good idea to have one the same size or larger than your largest data drive, but I don’t know) and a standby spare.
Check it out and let me know if any of you decide to give this a try. Website is here. There is also a forum.
Browser: Firefox 3.0.6 OS: Windows XP
I’m still holding out hope for FlexRaid. Unraid has been working ok for me but I haven’t been able to resolve the rather slow transfer rates and stuttering during drive spinups and parity checks. These are my 3 biggest headaches.
[Reply]
Jon Reply:
March 6th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I doubt there will ever be a solution to saturation during parity checks unless there is a configurable limiter set on it (like a throttle). I can play movies during parity checks, but it can take a minute or more before one starts after hitting play. I have a monthly parity check scheduled via cron to run at midnight, so I don’t really run into any issues there. I’ve learned to live with transfer rates. Transfers from unRAID have never been an issue for me since I can stream multiple files of any type without issue. Transfers to are slow, yes, but I’ve grown used to them. I don’t have any issues with drive spinup either, but that may be due to how your library is accessed.
FlexRAID looked interesting when it first came out, but it lacked in a few things I needed. I think I’ll read up some more on it now that I know it has come a long way. I’ll probably never be able to switch even if I wanted to since I’ve invested my entire media collection into unRAID, but a lateral transfer is always an option since hardware does get old…
[Reply]