NAS-t_Hirsute

I feel I've been lucky in that regard. I certainly had this feeling plenty when I was younger and the internet was entering homes. My jobs demanded I shed that feeling, so if I don't understand something, I just ask. However, I completely understand your feelings. When time is available, I research with the goal of asking more pointed questions. I also find that writing out the question, then reading to weed through my gobbledygook, helps me better understand the subject and pare down into a concise question - a practice I'm still improving. Some context only matters to me....if someone is going to help me, what information do they need? All this to say, I agree with ChatNoir, please don't feel embarrassed to ask questions. It seems you don't have that problem here at Unraid, so I'm happy you've found a tech community you feel welcome in. Personally, I have also had great experiences at ServerBuilds and Self-Hosted - great content and communities.

Websleuthing for different kinds of PC parts is turning out not to be my forte. I think I found what is an example of the safe alternative where everything is crimped into round terminals and wires to each SATA are doubled up to daisy chain into the next. Ideally I'd like to either find a cable assy with more SATA connections or the parts needed to make my own. I've found round terminal crimps and PCIe 6 pin latched connectors, but I can't seem to find the SATA connectors that accept these round terminals. I'd like to use the PSU I have. Can you provide direction to either the cable assy to purchase or the SATA connectors that accept round terminals? Excuse my inability to think straight on some of this, I'm sick. I thought to look at the manufacturer and found 4x SATA. The cables that came with my PSU are 3x SATA. I think these, like the example I posted abive, are in-line with what you are talking about - see close-ups on my 3x SATA cables.

After more reading and watching, I was thinking all my splits was not a smart way to do this. Thank you for your insight. So a few questions: What do you mean by slip fit connections? Is this video from WilluDesign the proper guide for making SATA connections? If so, I'll just look up ratings for 18awg wire and base max HDDs per cable off that + a safety margin. Split fit connections at the PSU....the PSU cables, which are from EVGA, have the locking tab to hold them in place. Is this not ok?

This is the video I've seen linked in these forums to show the molded SATA connector to avoid. From your photo, it appears the Momoprice is not molded. You should be able to see the pin terminal if you look into the SATA connector where the wire enters or you can even pop it open to verify. The Cablematters appear to be the in-line style where the back cover snaps into place, essentially punching down the wires into the connectors. This video shows the in-line connectors pretty well. The way I understand it, the plastic itself is probably molded, but the question is whether the wires are molded into the plastic or terminated, inserted and snapped together between two pieces of plastic. I'm no expert, and you may want to wait for others to chime in.

I'm moving media from my QNAP to my new Unraid, after setup is complete. I'm planning to setup my old QNAP at a remote site as a backup point. I was wondering if the QNAP would talk nicely to everything at home. Now I know I have the option of experimenting with Unraid when the time comes. Nice work!

I've got 20 HDDs lying around to put to use. I have already starting to re-use my Lenovo M900 SFF as the server and build out my DAS. I'm planning to use this primarily as a media server and photo storage. I have a separate box and off-site backup routine for important documents. I have booted everything up with 4 HDD's connected. I have stopped at this point mainly because I want to figure out if my DAS PSU and power plan is ok and verify everything I have on this circuit, which isn't just Unraid, is below 12A (80% of breaker). I'm getting a Kill-A-Watt to check my other stuff before I just plug everything in at once. Questions: Is my power plan below safe for powering all these HDDs? Any recommendations? Server - Lenovo M900 Intel i7-6700 2x 8GB DDR4 2133 (I have RAM available for 64GB - max of the MB) Dell H200e crossflashed to LSI FSP Group 210W PSU: FSP210-20TGBAA 120GB 2.5" SSD Kingston DTSE9 USB flash - Unraid OS DAS WD Reds 5400RPM - 8TB x4, 5TB x5 WD Red Plus 5400RPM - 8TB x4 WD Blue 5400RPM - 1TB x1 WD Black 5400RPM - 1TB x1, 500GB x1 Hitachi Deskstar 7200RPM - 3TB x2 Rosewill cages EVGA Supernova 550 G2 DAS PSU Power Plan PS SATA 1 Riser for SAS expander card StarTech 4x splitter (used throughout) StarTech 4x splitter PS SATA 2 StarTech 4x splitter StarTech 4x splitter StarTech 4x splitter PS SATA 3 StarTech 4x splitter StarTech 4x splitter StarTech 4x splitter PS PERIF 4x cage fans daisy chained 4x cage fans daisy chained Not used

Yeah, I really did. Immediate parity protection is extremely valuable. My use case doesn't need immediate parity protection. I do plan to test and see how recalculating parity affects my use. If the affect is unnoticeable, I won't be using cache the same as I currently plan. That doesn't diminish the fact that immediate parity recalculation and protection is critical in certain use cases or just to some people. Users should understand the level of protection they are getting. I've got a Dell H200e I crossflashed to LSI IT mode years ago. I'm only just now getting around to using it. This reminds me of clickbait articles that are years old and no longer applicable. Timestamps are the key!

I only made sure my controller and expander cards were working and I could see drives on Ubuntu. From Unraid USB utility through mounting and unmointing devices has been super simple. I see that making the array will be the same way. Simplicity - I do really like that. Something about that reminds me of an aspect tying back to community. I had watched a Spaceinvader One video so I knew about the preclear plugin, but the one available was different than shown in the video. A quick jump into the forums and I knew why. The idea that plugins and community apps are tied directly to this OS and community, correct or replaced as needed is a huge benefit.

I agree with your points but want to build on them. 1. Mergerfs and SnapRAID together perform similarly, based on my understanding, to Unraid. Mergerfs lets you create an array of varying size disks, and SanpRAID puts a parity disk into action. There are differences but I only know one. With SnapRAID you don't have to send new data to a cache, then move to the array overnight to avoid the congestion of recalculating parity; parity is not calculated during write but instead when you tell it to. I think between mergerfs+SnapRAID and Unraid, I'm not sure there is a clear winner unless I start experimenting with filesystems (I think support differs). 2. Community is extremely important. Ubuntu, for example, has loads of support out there but for example I haven't seen a Spaceinvader One creating amazing content for this specific use-case for mergerfs+SnapRAID (videos exist, but I haven't seen constant dedication by one user). However, once beyond the storage and parity part the user is just back to using Linux where there are many community options. I wonder if that can also be a negative and part of the draw of Unraid; Unraid is purpose built, maybe with some constraints I haven't learned about yet, that is tamer, but still vast and powerful, and possibly a little bit more difficult to accidentally wreak havoc on my system. I think what I need to realize is I'm in an Unraid forum. While Unraid is undoubtedly great, as many have said, I'm sure other setups are too, also as many have said. So obviously the answer is ask around multiple forums and just dig in. I don't have a lot of time to experiment, but maybe with the proper motivation to learn and a few tweaks I can find time to continue with Unraid and experiment with others to determine my best fit. Thanks for your input. Much appreciated!

Thanks. What would you say has contributed the most to saving time by using Unraid?

I'm new here. I bought a SFF PC about 6 years ago to use as a HTPC. After selling my 1030, it turned into an expirenmental box for learning some Debian and Ubuntu and getting used to headless operation. Time constraints mean I am barely more experienced than when I started. Probably 2 years ago I bought the hardware necessary to direct attach a bunch of HDDs via a HBA card. Finally, a couple weeks ago I started on the DAS side of things and I could see my drives in Ubuntu. I was very happy. Based on my desire to use Unraid 2 years ago when I bought that hardware, I bought into Unraid a couple weeks ago with the idea it would be "easier" than building out my needs in Ubuntu. As I read and watch some more videos, I can't help but think that I will be doing the exact same thing on Unraid as I would be on Ubuntu. If my use case is media consumption, photo library, restic backup to on and off site...what am I doing here (for money) that SnapRAID, mergerfs, Docker, and Linuxserver.io containers can't do for me? Is there a time and ease component to Unraid, like I initially thought, that will benefit me (hobbyist with limited freetime)? This is a legitimate question, I'm truly not trying to bash anything and I have an unhealthy habit (not meant to be a part of this discussion) to second guess....well, everything. Anyway, this community appears really helpful and I'm just hoping to clear this mental hurdle and continue on with a hobby that I legitimately enjoy doing and learning from - messing around with computers.