Just switched from a custom, also usb-key-based (ie, ram fs), raid5 nas. I was thinking of expanding capacity, *again*, and I couldn't bear the procedure that I'd have to go through, *again*. Basically, using raid5 in linux, you have to update all the drives to be able to expand. You swap one drive, rebuild the parity (loong time), swap another drive, rebuild, etc. Takes an eternity, and like I said, you need to swap all drives in order to expand, at least if you want to keep the same amount of drives.
The NAS is mainly used for backup (don't worry; I also backup offsite) and, of course, for media storage. I have a pretty good HDTV movies collection, and while I do have them in bluray/hddvd, for the most part, it's SO much better to be able to browse through your library in XBMC, in all aeon-theme glory, and be able to start a movie with the push of a button I also use that machine as my torrent downloader, currently using uTorrent in a VMware machine (need the SOCKS support; I would use rtorrent, as I did for a long time previously, if this wasn't necessary).
It was also used as a print server, previously, but since I'm brand new to unRAID (<2 weeks of usage), I haven't looked at replicating that functionality, yet.
How are you using unRAID Server?
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Just switched from a custom, also usb-key-based (ie, ram fs), raid5 nas. I was thinking of expanding capacity, *again*, and I couldn't bear the procedure that I'd have to go through, *again*. Basically, using raid5 in linux, you have to update all the drives to be able to expand. You swap one drive, rebuild the parity (loong time), swap another drive, rebuild, etc. Takes an eternity, and like I said, you need to swap all drives in order to expand, at least if you want to keep the same amount of drives.
The NAS is mainly used for backup (don't worry; I also backup offsite) and, of course, for media storage. I have a pretty good HDTV movies collection, and while I do have them in bluray/hddvd, for the most part, it's SO much better to be able to browse through your library in XBMC, in all aeon-theme glory, and be able to start a movie with the push of a button
I also use that machine as my torrent downloader, currently using uTorrent in a VMware machine (need the SOCKS support; I would use rtorrent, as I did for a long time previously, if this wasn't necessary).
It was also used as a print server, previously, but since I'm brand new to unRAID (<2 weeks of usage), I haven't looked at replicating that functionality, yet.