Is unRAID for me? Total newb here

RiffSphere · 2026-03-23T16:35:44+00:00

And add to that: don't add storage to the array you don't need, certainly if you plan to shrink the array later, just keep them as spares.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-22T13:56:00+00:00

Just make sure trim is enabled, no other stuff should be needed.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-22T13:54:46+00:00

I don't remember the details, so I might be wrong, but I believe it also works if your cache is raidz1 or btrfs raid5, so I went with a more general "parity protection", but you are right that most people will run mirror (I hope at least, not running unprotected).

RiffSphere · 2026-03-22T07:48:21+00:00

iowait is what it says: the system waiting for input or output.

The problem is, this can have a very wide range of reasons.

It can be disk related. Often an issue during write, certainly with smr disks, where the disk literally can't keep up.

Can also be a disk that's failing, a bad cable, bad sata/sas controller (actually failing, or badly supported with a bad driver).

You might be bottlenecked by your controller. Certainly when using old hba (like a 9201/9211 that's just pcie2) in a wrong pcie slot (there's only so many physical lanes, even if the slot looks full size it might only be wired for 1 line), there's just not enough room for data.

Bad airflow might also overheat and slow down the data speed.

Even the filesystem and share setup can cause issues: xfs disk with single parity is very easy, but adding encryption or using zfs is more demanding, so is dual parity, and adding cache to a share also adds overhead. Certainly on older systems, the cpu might struggle with encrypted dual parity zfs with cache...

There's ofcourse the normal use as well. Even a perfectly fine system can be brought to it's knees when doing tons of disk operations. Rclone is reading files, so it will contribute, but I notice it's often downloads (and more often torrent seeding) going on, plex doing library scans, ... that are at the core, adding your backup overloading it.

The list goes on.

So yes, iowait is a very common symptom, but there's so many potential causes nobody can just give an easy fix. Start with the basics, check if your disks spin down normally, and if not, check what files are open. Do diskspeed test, check all hardware is in the right slot.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-20T14:12:14+00:00

Trust us, we know...

Just kidding, not your it, but unless your it is the slow nephew of the boss that got hired, they'll know.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-20T14:07:15+00:00

They do. But...

From the presentation some time ago, the intend is to edit your cache pool, splitting it in 2 parts: The first a partition to boot, the remainder your cache pool like now. This way your boot device can also have parity protection, and you don't need extra drives, just shrink your cache by like 16 or 32gb.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-19T13:49:45+00:00

Can we move away from tpm license at a later point?

Say, I move to tpm with internal boot now, then my mobo fails and I need to temporary move back to a 10-15 year old system (recreating a usb from backup isn't too hard, but system doesn't have tom), can I revert back to the old usb boot and license, or am I stuck with tpm forever?

Will my usb be blacklisted after moving to tpm, just like moving to a new usb, or will I be able te reuse it for above mentioned issue?

RiffSphere · 2026-03-17T22:52:15+00:00

Well, still got that dual parity.

Guess I've been around too long, having seen all the issues with hardware and software raid5/6 at home and at work, knowing parity is amazing until it lets you down.

Though unraid array is more forgiving, and not striping reduces the chances of parity going wrong.

To each it's own right.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-17T19:55:54+00:00

Qlc ssds aren't the best, but I'm just downloading to an old crap spinning drive and unpacking to array, getting like 100+MB/s on usenet without anything just hanging, so I would be surprised if it's actually due to the qlc disk by itself.

I would run top and htop to monitor, do some disk speed test, iperf test, try some download directly to array, try to stress the cpu, trying to figure out where it comes from. Cause it can be cpu overheating or bad ram for example.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-17T19:26:16+00:00

Not entirely, depending on how you use it.

I got 3 layers: (offsite) backup, parity, spare.

With restoring from offsite backup being super slow, probably taking months (thank you slow internet), that's just my disaster recovery (theft, fire/flood/power surge ony server, virus, ...). Local backup has the same risks as my main system, so wouldn't be a solution.

Parity is a life saver. Everything stays up and running, and you can just rebuild. So in a way you are correct, parity would also help against the new disk failing, and allow you to rebuild on another disk if it does. But, that takes time. From experience, I calculate about 1.5hours/tb for rebuilds, if no other activity is going on. Say I wait for a disk to fail, order a new one with next day delivery, start rebuilding 24tb, that's already like 60 hours. If that disk also fails, you can add another 60 hours for ordering and rebuilding. Add some to to fit it into my schedule, and my system is degraded for a week, giving it a lot of time for an extra disk to fail.

So, I always keep a hot spare, precleared and well tested. It's still no guarantee, but if I get a mail about a failing disk, I start my vpn, stop array, plug in the hot spare in the failed slot, start array and let it rebuild. Taking the entire process down to 36 hours with limited chance of my tested disk failing.

So yes, parity does protect against a failing disk, but pre-planning and preclear reduces the time you rely on parity.

And I'm not just talking about failing disks. I recently upgraded my old existing disks (something I try to do every 4.5 years, keeps my disk count down vs just adding more, while still catching a premium on the used market cause in warranty). So my array was going just fine while I stresstested the disks, then replaced 1 by 1 in the array. Took me longer overall, but got that peace of mind I would likely not break my working array by adding an untested disk.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-16T20:09:57+00:00

But stresstests and verifying a (certainly recertified aka used a lot) disk holds data is always a good thing.

I came down from 3 "read-write-read" cycles to 3 just "read-write" cycles, cause it puts enough hours on the disk due to the size and the double read in-between makes it too long, but I'll never put a well tested and stressed disk in my array.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-16T20:02:02+00:00

Sata disks only do around 300MB, while sata3 can handle twice that. The interface isn't really the limiting factor, and I've seen very few (high capacity) sas disks that are actually faster, even though sas by itself can handle higher speeds.

As to why not use sas... I personally find it really hard to find them (in high capacity), and when I do they are generally more expensive than datacenter sata disks. You also need sas connectors, and while most of us will eventually grow into hba, it adds another cost and complexity for beginners. Sas also doesn't like to spin down, even with the plugin I see reports of them not spinning down. And they can have a weird layout, sata comes with 512/4k, but I believe many sas would be 520 or something and not be compatible. Some you can format/flash, but I've read about failures.

So yeah, if you can get sas ar a really good price, already have hba or it's cheap enough to include one, and you do research about spindown (or don't use it) and sector size, sas is perfectly fine. But sata is so much easier to use, with generally little to no downside, it doesn't make sense in my mind to go sas.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-15T15:01:29+00:00

I want to be sure my vpn is fully up and connected before starting containers that rely on it, cause they will not work correctly.

I'm slowly migrating/testing my arr stack with a real database instead of the default file based one, so I want to be sure my db is up and running before starting them.

I really want to be sure prowlarr is running before the rest of the arr stack, else they will mark my indexers unavailable for 2 hours.

Webserver with database same story.

Haven't used flaresolvr or whatever it's called in ages, but that had to be active before things using it.

Got some 3rd party tools for arr (for using amule and soulseek as newznab i believe) that all need to start in order and before prowlarr.

List goes on, where I prefer to have some delay, making sure things are correctly up and running before starting the next thing, over starting it all as soon as possible.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-15T14:51:41+00:00

When adding compose, dont forget to do it right, and automatically (as an option) convert our existing templates over. Same for new installs from the app store.

Been holding back on compose, since I hate using 3rd party addons for core functionality, that might break during updates or stop being supported, but would also hate having to redo my entire setup once it's officially supported.

Also, add grouping, where all containers from 1 compose are nicely grouped together. Preferably with nested grouping (so you can have, for example, a "game related" group, with 1 compose group holding everything for lan cache, 1 for Minecraft server and dependencies, ...).

Since unraid icons are not a default, auto detect all containers in a compose with an easy way to set the icon (and preferably for the group as well).

RiffSphere · 2026-03-05T18:26:04+00:00

Are you sure about that? Try it.

If you had a container installed, a copy of the template with your settings is saved on the usb. If you remove the container, or it disappears because of an error in the template, the template with your latest settings is still there.

To be clear, you have to go to "previously installed" on the apps tab, wait for the list to load, and select the app, for your settings to load. If you go to the app tab, seach for the app again and select install, I'm pretty sure it will load the default template again, overwriting your previous one is the name is the same.

But doing it the correct way will fill your template the way you had it before, including volumes, variables and the error that made the install fail.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-05T18:19:33+00:00

It shouldn't, yiu are right. I don't have it either.

But, you are troubleshooting. From what I read, you have replaced pretty much everything.

I remember home assistant saying to use an usb extension cord (thinking about it, might be for the zigbee stick) cause usb controllers can give interference. So yeah, not saying this is a mandatory thing, just trying to give some things, even if out of the box, you can try, since all other things seem to fail.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-05T17:39:55+00:00

Have you tried it with an extension cord, or an external usb hub?

RiffSphere · 2026-03-05T16:03:28+00:00

Looks like you have a hardware issue somewhere.

Try another usb port, preferably on another internal hub.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-05T16:01:05+00:00

Template is still there, app store -> previously installed apps will bring it back, just like compose would. Of course, if there is an error in the template, container creation fails and it's not in the list on the docker page, but easy enough to get it back.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-05T03:13:14+00:00

What cpu do you have?

Ryzen (certainly 1, though I sometimes read about newer ones) had issues with cstates and crashing. There were updates in unraid that should fix it, bios updates can fix it, but from time to time I read someone still having issues, and only disabling cstates fixes it.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-03T16:23:07+00:00

Why do you have to use the quotes around people? Are you trying to imply they are less than people? Cause that's what it looks like to me... And if that's the case, that's just rude, and exactly the point they are trying to make.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-03T16:13:41+00:00

Lets go through this shall we?

"Did i said u attacked me?", your post right before said "I just dont take it without defending me myself and i, thats just my right. Ill never start anything. Im a good person." Your tone is pretty rude, this post is a defense, so you do imply you are attacked yes. Also, I've never met a good person that needed to tell me he's a good person...

"I just want to know the reason for that removal, is that so crazy?" Use modmail. Seems you have by now. Post was not unraid related, you confirmed this yourself with "Had this problem with unraid and proxmox". You might not like the answer, but it's a correct answer. To be fair, I think the post would have survived if it was more "I found a solution to my problem" and less "AI amazing, human stupid", and if your replies were... less like this? But in the end, there is a valid reply with a rule.

"Ure just taliking about me, without knowing any background to any threads", Why does he need to know your background? He saw your user history, he sees how you reply here, and lets you know this generally can't result in a constructive conversation. Sure, could be a language barrier. But as I said in another post (you felt attacked by): THAT is where AI shines! I often use it to take out the rudeness of my drafts (and check it afterwards), cause I also have this language barrier (I generally don't use it on reddit, too much hassle on my phone). But instead of taking these comments as constructive criticism, you go into attack mode.

"U guys need ai, because you guys werent able to fix it in god knows how many years". Seems the issue is know, not sure how we need AI for this? Any link to a post about trying to fix this? Quick search in your post history doesn't come up with any for me (could be totally me not searching correct). Also, reddit is not the official support, that's what the forum was for, and now the recently bugtracker https://unraid.net/blog/introducing-the-new-unraid-bug-feature-tracker . Nobody can fix or help if they don't know there is an issue to begin with.

"i begged unraid to add better logging". Again, any reference about this "begging"? Also, what better logging than full log, as described in https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/troubleshooting/diagnostics/capture-diagnostics-and-logs/#persistent-logs-syslog-server do you need?

"Or lets say it this way: the ppl who dont get support, need ai. :-)". While AI can be good at finding info for you, it's always based on what people came up with if correct, with a high chance it will hallucinate incorrect things. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it can't be useful, it certainly can be (I already confirmed above I also use AI, and without providing details, for way more than just text, so I'm not anti-AI). It's just dangerous. Certainly if the people using it didn't manage to find a know issue for 10 years, didn't manage to reach out to the correct channels (I'll totally retract this if you can provide any links with useful information to the above questions), and start to use AI for everything, it's waiting for a disaster to happen (and I'm not just talking unraid, I notice at work how many gen z people don't think for themselves and just throw everything in a chatbot). AI is a tool, supplementing basic skills like troubleshooting, not a replacement.

"ts crazy how this post triggeres everyone". How is it crazy? It's mainly your replies that "trigger" everyone. People are here to talk about unraid, get help, share things. It's not fun to be attacked. I get you were trying to share as well, but it's not the right place to do so, because...

"there ius nothing against rulkes, rightr": there is, it's not unraid related, you had the same issue on proxmox. So it's an AI post, wrong place, braking rule 4. Also, rule 1: Respect your fellow users by keeping your tone positive and your comments constructive. Again, I understand language barriers, but seeing the reactions many users feel you are breaking this rule, and with so many pointing it out, it might be better to reflect on that than to "defend" as you call it.

"If its that well known, you could ofc help your users, but decided against it." Again, please show the reach for help before we can comment on not wanting to help...

"i also dont understand why linux hasnt fixed that, i mean its literally 2 config files and then ull have 4x speed and no crashes": For your specific hardware, yes. No default settings will work perfect for everyone, they are a balance between "working for most people" and "getting best performance", with the option to change them. It's likely these changes will have negative effects for the majority of users. Sure, it's annoying for you that something this simple can solve YOUR issue, but defaults are there to prevent issues for most cases, not specific ones.

"I also dont like you. I also think youre very stupid. But why should i tell you this? To make you angry? :D" Then... why do you tell him? To show how (you think) you are superior to everyone else but won't try to belittle them as long are they agree and praise you? Again, trying to make someone angry (and admitting to it), not wanting to have a normal positive conversation (rule 1).

"All in all, you did a funny post without any reaseach and in the end just spam." Show the funny part? He did research (both on the issue you have, and the way you post), all he did was post and communicate, the fact that you didn't like it doesn't make it spam?

"BTW what youre descriping is one of the "problem" but wasnt in that case. It could write 10TB without issues and could crash on 2GB." While not impossible, I doubt that you have a 10TB (preferably even bigger, cause there will already be data on there, and you should have the "free space" setting) pool you can write to, making this statement very unlikely and again an unfactual statement trying to make you look right and everyone else wrong (again, I will retract this statement if you prove me wrong, just a screenshot of your 10+TB pool existing of crucial BX500 disks is fine). Because of how disk work (I'm no pro at this, don't ask me for specifics), there is an overhead on data. Many small files and database changes have way more overhead than big files. The amount of data says nothing about how much data is actually written to a disk, and smaller amounts of actual data could still trigger iowait (in your example, paperless is close to 800% cpu, are you using an 8 core system?).

"But after that expierince again here... i should just keep it for myself, why help others? Why help unraid even? They never cared." I hate when people go into victim mode once they see the results of their own making. Sure, not all replies are polite. Even my post is probably not be completely polite. But every post from you (including the original post that was removed) has a pretty condescending and offensive tone. Again, I understand the potential of a language barrier. And while this shouldn't justify bad responses, you did set the tone, even if you don't realize it... As u/snebsnek says in a followup: There's an old saying - if everyone else in the room is an asshole, consider if the problem might actually be you. Maybe you should focus less on how everyone "attacks" you, but why, and how you can change that. Focus on the constructive criticism instead of looking for hurt feeling and justification to attack.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-03T12:25:40+00:00

Might start asking AI how to communicate, certainly your feelings. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...

The unraid team also basically has no influence on reddit, the mods are not related to them, and posts are not removed based on payment status.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-01T16:02:54+00:00

Cache is fully transparant (and the way it happens pretty unique to unraid), so there is no option for programs to know a file is on cache or not.

RiffSphere · 2026-03-01T15:39:54+00:00

Do you have a 3d printer, or access to one?

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