Hi, new here.
I've looked at Unraid in the past and got interested in it, but never really 'needed' it.
However, last week my Qnap TS-212 lit a red LED for it's 2nd drive. Qnap's test shows it to be OK, but still says the drive status is abnormal and should be replaced.
It's a Qnap TS-212 with 2 WD 2TB drives in JBOD (so effectively 4TB of usable space.
I've about 700GB space left, but I am planning of digitizing ~2000+ slides/negatives which would probably fill that space right up.
I could just replace the disk and continue with the Qnap, but it's getting old and I can't use any of the cool apps/services with it anymore.
I would like to use the system for the following:
- Storage of TV-shows and movies
- Usenet/Radarr/Sonarr etc.
- (Automatic) backup for 1 PC and 2 laptops (don't know how yet, but maybe something like Syncthing would be sufficient)
- (Automatic) backup for 3 smartphones (mainly photo's (DCIM folder) as an alternative to Dropbox backup/Google Photos)
- I've got some Dahua IP-camera's (and NVR). Would like to look into Frigate or Scrypted for its AI object detection.
- Some sort of photomanager. Don't know which one (Photoprism, Immich, LibrePhotos or something similar)
- Support for the Coral Dual TPU. Seems I would need an adapter to use both TPU's, for example an adapter for the PCIe x1 slot or m.2 2280 B+M key. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but it understand the TPU can only be used by one service/program at the time. So Frigate/Scrypted could use one, and the 2nd TPU could be used by for example a photomanager app/service (I heard some can use the TPU)
Would love to dive in several apps/services etc. Unraid has to offer, but all in due time.
The whole system should be power/energy efficient, hopefully similar to the TS-212.
Looking around online, I've made up 2 systems, one with an Intel N100 and one with a i3-12100.
N100:
ASRock N100M
Crucial CT16G4DFRA32A 16GB DDR4
Mini-box picoPSU-150-XT
WD Green SN350 1TB
i3-12100:
Intel i3-12100
ASUS Prime B660M-A D4
Mini-box picoPSU-150-XT
WD Green SN350 1TB
As for the case, not that important right now, but preferably something small and cheap, maybe Kolink Satellite.
As for storage; 8TB would be more than enough. I was thinking of buying a WD Elements 8TB external drive, a recertified one from WD itself and shuck it. (much cheaper then a new internal/external 8TB drive)
Use that drive for the array, and the SSD for cache. Later down the line maybe a 2nd WD 8TB for parity.
I know 2.5" drives are much more power eficient but price per TB is much higher, and all high capacity 2.5" drives are SMR and not CMR, and I understand SMR is not good to use with Unraid.
But since I don't access the NAS much, those 3.5" drives would be idle/spun down most of the day anyway. Most of the time only a day to move any new/changed files from the cache SSD to the array.
So hopefully, that would help with lowering the power usage.
I have a separate, 4TB Seagate external drive that I use for a complete backup of the Qnap NAS. (with it's internal backup service; so basically an exact copy of the NAS drives). When all files transferred to the Unraid system, I plan to use that 4TB Seagate drive for backups again. When done, that drive is stored at a family member's house. (so off-site backup)
Total cost of the N100 system would be around €320 and for the i3-12100 around €450. (I'm from The Netherlands).
Those prices exclude the hard drives and Coral TPU (and adapter and power supply).
So the i3 system is much more powerfull, the motherboard gives a bit more options (2 M.2 slots instead of 1, 4 SATA ports instead of 1 and Intel network controller instead of Realtek RTL8111H (I understand Intel NIC is better when using Unraid?) and with the right (BIOS) settings the i3 system is probably as power efficiënt as the Intel N100 system.
The N100 system however is much cheaper and probably still plenty powerfull enough for me. I've seen the N100 being mentioned being used with Frigate, people having half a dozen camera's and still barely any CPU usage.
And Frigate would probably use the most CPU resources on my system, if I would use it in the first place (the Dahua NVR is working fine, but Frigate/Scrypted looks interesting with the AI object detection)
Something like the new AOOSTAR R1 looks great to, but no way to fit the Coral TPU and most of all, they don't ship the thing to Europe.
So has anyone been in the same boat as I am and might be of help, steering me in the right direction?
N100 versus i3-12100? 2.5" drives versus 3.5". Dual TPU in combination with Unraid?
Thanks!