Spec7re

I'm planning on setting up Nextcloud mostly for hosting/editing documents, Nextcloud calendar, browser bookmark sync, a long with some other little things here and there. I've played around with Nextcloud when I was testing out Truenas Scale, but just have some questions regarding implementing it on Unraid. 1. After watching some of Spaceinvader One's videos on Nextcloud, I was wondering if installing MariaDB is still needed? When I set it up on Truenas scale (using the built-in app), I didn't need to setup a DB, I just created a dataset for the data and just pointed Nextcloud to that. Is a DB still needed, or can I just create a share and point the container to that? 2. I've also read many instances of Nextcloud not updating well (when reading about it on Unraid). Is this just a Nextcloud thing in general, or more specific to Unraid. Either way, has it gotten better as of late? Is there anything I should follow to ensure updates go smoothly? 3. Do most people use one of the docker apps on Unraid, or do some create a VM and install it there? 4. If using the docker apps that are avilaible, is there one that is more full proof? I am thinking of using the Linuxserver.io version.

I agree, If you haven't seen it already, you should probably watch it as it covers many topics including; the reasons behind the recent changes, as well as their plans/goals for the next couple versions of Unraid. It may help clear things up a bit more, instead of trying to piece things together by reading bit's and pieces from threads/forums.

That's actually not true. If your Unraid USB died, as long as you had a backup of it, you can just load it on to another USB and your back to where you were. Furthermore, assuming you used the Unraid array, you can still read the drives off the server to recover your data if needed. Truenas boots off a dedicated drive, it doesn't write itself to all the devices on the server...just the drive, or drives (depending how you configured it) it was installed. However, if your boot drive fails, you can restore it, providing you have a back up copy of the config file. Oh and if you encrypted your pools on Truenas, you also have to make sure you also have a backup of the encryption key, because you will not be able to access your data if you failed to do so. It doesn't matter which option you use, all of them can fail and they all have their gotcha's when it comes to restoring them. I don't think it's reasonable to expect fixes within hours. It all depends on the issue, some can be easy to fix, while others can take far longer. It depends on the issue and how much is required to fix it. Furthermore, some issues can be outside the control of the devs, especially when your dealing with opensource. For example the ZFS data issue not long ago had to be fixed by the ZFS devs before it could be rolled out to all the solutions that use it. So sometimes, it's out of your control. Thankfully it was fixed relatively quickly, but sometimes that may not always be the case. It could be that the issues you had were easily fixable, but I wouldn't be expecting Proxomox devs to fix all issues within hours every time, it's unreasonable.

Oh don't get me wrong, I fully understand the differences between ZFS and Unraid. My point really is just to highlight that no matter which solution/file system you use, there are pros and cons to everything. As I've said before, Unraid fits the bill for most home users, but there are situations where something like ZFS is better. There is no perfect solution and either option will have it's compromises. At the end of the day, it comes down to the user and what they feel is best for them. Regardless which solution someone uses, backups of your important/irreplaceable data is paramount. Yes, if you lose more drives than what the redundancy level in ZFS can handle (depending on how you configured it), you loose everything. On the flip-side, it is true that you only loose the data on the drives that died with Unraid. However, I would caution by saying that hopefully it wasn't the drive holding your personal photo collection. My points aren't to suggest in anyway that ZFS is superior, or that Unraid's array is inferior, or whatever. My point is that people need to focus less on the nitty gritty and just have a proper backup strategy, regardless which option you choose. People like to go "ya, ya, I know," but IMHO, I don't think it gets emphasized enough. Yesterday I was reading a thread on Reddit where someone was suggesting that "if you value your data, you would use ZFS." I immediately rolled my eyes, because like I said, people get too caught up in the nitty gritty. My reply to that would be, if you actually cared about your data, you would have backups. Even with Unraid, I see people bring up the fact that you can still access the data on drives that didn't die, but there was no emphasizing proper backups regardless of the fact. I'm not suggesting that people cannot talk about and/or discuss their differences on a technical level, it just has to be done while emphasizing the need for following the 3,2,1 backup strategy. Especially with home users, as people often get too caught up on all the tiny details and not looking at the bigger picture.

I agree, Even if Lime Tech makes a bunch of changes to make it more "enterprise worthy," in all honesty, most large businesses rarely if ever change solutions, unless it is absolutely necessary. Even if they didn't implement ZFS, I feel that Lime Tech one way, or another would have still come to the same conclusion as they did currently, which is they need to hire more developers...hence the changes in pricing. Either way, I hope they are able to hire more developers and can bring on even more features for all of us..especially us home users. This is true, but to be fair you do not have to back up all your data, just the stuff that is irreplaceable (ie: family photos, important documents, etc...). Stuff like your acquired Linux iso collection in most cases can be replaced just by ripping them again, so all you loose is time...which is still annoying, but not life altering in anyway. It is true that you could loose everything during the rebuild process with ZFS, but that's what the backups are for...Regardless, as long as you know what you are getting into and understand the potential pit falls, it can be a good solution when used in the right situation.

It is indeed true, but from my understanding (I think they addressed it in the Unraid podcast as well) is that while btrfs is great it's still limited in some aspects compared to ZFS. It cannot go beyond mirrors reliably which has been a sore spot for btrfs. From what I recall (unless it has changed recently) btrfs has issues doing things like raid 5, raid 6, etc... something that certain individuals may want and something ZFS does exceptionally well. As I've said I do think ZFS is overkill for the vast majority of home users, but there are indeed use cases for it and certain individuals will see the benefit from it (ie: a freelance Videographer, doing edits off the server). I still stand by my question, as I suspect that it will come up...not because I necessarily agree with it, but it will come up for discussion at some point. Regardless which array type, file system, etc... you use (ie: ZFS, btrfs, Unraid), one should still have proper backups of their important data. Sure you can read the drives outside of the array, but if the drive that died had all your family photos, but the one that survived had you Linux iso's 😉, I'm sure you'd be very upset. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue against the Unraid type pool, I'm just saying that people shouldn't get caught up in the nitty gritty of each solution and instead focus on always having a proper backup strategy. All in all, it's just about choice. Lime Tech isn't taking away the ability to keep using the "Unraid" array, it's just offering another solution to those that want it. It also opens the door for Unraid to be used in certain situations outside of the home (ie: a small business type situation)...at least that's how I see it.

I agree, I think it may not be written very clearly, but Unraid has always been fully featured regardless which version you chose. The only limiting factor was the number of devices, aside from that it was always the same. I am fully confident that it's the same now, they never talk about it making the versions different other than the number of devices...something they have always been doing.

I think there was a vote on this forum from Lime Tech (a while a go) asking the community what major feature they wanted them work on next and I believe ZFS won, hence them implementing it. Personally I think it's overkill for home users, but it does opens the door for Unraid to be used in other situations. Unraid's default array is easy to expand (good for home users), but it's not the fastest. ZFS has a ton of features, but I think for a lot of people, it's more about the increased performance than anything else. I've read quite a few posts over various forums/Reddit threads, etc... of individuals who love Unraid, but wanted to use it for something like video editing, but couldn't due to the limited performance of Unraid. ZFS now opens the door for this group of people and others with similar use cases to use Unraid. Either way Lime Tech isn't removing the default Unraid array, it will still be available for those that want it, but ZFS gives users another option to choose from if it's something they need. Really it's about opening the doors for Unraid to be used is more situations, other than just your typically media server. Ironically, ZFS has been working on giving ZFS users the ability to expand the pool/vdev one drive at a time (similar to Unraid) and is due to come out later this year from what I remember. So in a way, you can say that Unraid has (in a way) inspired home users who prefer ZFS to push and ask for this ability in ZFS as well...which is being done. So I guess the next big question is, once ZFS has that ability, does it make Unraid's default array obsolete in a way, especially when you consider the increased performance, etc...?? I don't know the answer to that, but I am sure this question will come up at some point.

Yes you are correct. They talked about it during the most recent Uncast podcast. Hiring more developers and growing the team is the main driving factor for the pricing changes. Time will tell if this is successful, or not for Lime Tech. Personally I hope they are successful and are able to grow the team to keep making Unraid better with each release. In terms of "value," it's going to be different for everyone. There will be many people that look at it (even with the changes in pricing) and still see good value, while others may not. Either way I guess we will have to wait and see what happens in the long term, hopefully it will be successful for them.

Sorry that's my bad, it was getting late and my words were starting to jumble together hehe. What I was trying to say, is that despite all of the other features of Unraid, it's main purpose is to be a NAS. When business/enterprise customers choose a NAS, they prioritize speed, robust/tried and true solutions (in the business space), high-availability, support contracts, etc.... Currently Unraid does not meet those criteria, so it's not a solution they would even consider. With the addition of ZFS (once it is fully implemented) that may change, as ZFS in itself addresses a lot of the needs for business users. However, if they already have a solution they are happy with, I highly doubt they will change to another solution entirely. Also, the fact that Unraid boots of a USB stick, is another reason why it won't be considered in businesses. While I understand the reasoning behind Unraid's ability to boot off a USB stick, it's simply not going to fly in the business/enterprise side of things. If Unraid had the ability to let users choose if they wan to boot of a USB, or dedicated drives (ie: SSDs), then maybe it could be considered. As to Unraid's speed, I honestly don't know... Again Unriad's main focus has always been home users, primarily ones that want to store and watch/enjoy their media collection. Something that doesn't really require a ton of speed to begin with IMHO.

I don't think Unraid is widely used in the commercial space. From it's inception, it has been designed and built to target the home market. Unraid first and foremost is a NAS. Business/enterprise customers looking for a NAS want very fast, robust, tried and true solutions and unfortunately, Unraid doesn't meet that criteria currently. Unraid's default storage scheme is good for ease of expansion, that still provides redundancy, but it's no speed demon. They've added caching to help with writes to the array, but when it comes to reads it's still slow. That being said, by adding ZFS Unraid is closing the gap. Whether or not that's enough to make it an option for businesses, remains to be seen. The other big factor in all of this is that a lot of business/enterprise customer's typically want support contracts and to be honest, I don't know if Lime Tech really wants to go down that path atm. Maybe if they grow enough to support it, but business/enterprise customers are different animals entirely compared to home users. The needs, wants and expectations from businesses are very different than home users. So I'd say for now, Unraid will still remain largely a solution targeted at home users, but who knows, that could change down the road. Yes and no, As I've said in my post above, I do understand the frustrations and skepticism, however, Lime Tech did in fact take some of that feedback and implemented some changes before the actual licensing terms changed (ie: increasing starter from 4 to 6 devices, and offering support updates to those who do not wish to renew the update licensing each year). Yet there wasn't even an acknowledgement of any kind from some of these people to at least say "ok Lime Tech is taking feedback into consideration and trying to alleviate customer concerns." I fully understand and I do not blame them one bit if they still feel skeptical and unsure, but to constantly be overly negative no matter what Lime Tech does to help alleviate concerns is just complaining plain and simple. Edited to make points a little clearer.

With the implementation of ZFS (fully featured in the next major release), how do you see Unraid fit in for home labbers? With some of the new features, is Unraid something you'd be willing to try out for a homelab environment (not a business deployment), to see how it compares to the other solutions?

I think it's two fold. One, there is a group of individuals that do this for a living and want to play around it to learn it for their job, or as a way to see if it's something they should deploy at their workplace. Secondly, I think others do it because of the "cool" factor. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's a mighty fine solution (I've played around with it myself), but it takes a lot more configuration/know-how to get it working. Like you said, it doesn't have docker by default, so you either have to create a VM and/or LXC, install docker and go from there. Personally I've played around with Jellyfin on Proxmox...I did it in a VM, I did it with docker in a VM, as well as an LXC and while it was fun, it wasn't no where near as simple as Unraid, where it's click install, change a few parameters and go. I also see a lot of discussion around the "free" options out there. No offence, but these "free" options aren't new. They've been around just as long, if not longer than Unraid and guess what, people still chose Unraid. Why?, because it fits it target market...."home users." Easy to upgrade storage, similar easy to follow implementations for VMs and docker, a helpful/friendly community, plenty of good resources to help you along (ie: Spaceinvader One),etc... There's more to Unraid then just the software and it's why people chose Unraid over the others. People will pay for convenience, it's not always about getting stuff for free. Does Unraid have every feature that the other solutions have...no, but it doesn't need to and IMHO most of them don't really matter in a home environment anyways. Furthermore, there seems to be a lot of entitled individuals. I feel bad for software developers, because people want their stuff, they want them to make changes, add new features, etc... and oh btw, please do it for free, or charge someone else for it, thank you... I've seen a lot of arm chair business people here offering suggestions to just do what the others do; go make a business version, go sell hardware, etc... No offence, but those things sound way simpler than what it actually takes. Not to mention there's no guarantee that it will pay off in the long run and has the potential to put you in a worse situation compared to where you were before. For example, lets say they do offer a business solution and price it accordingly. Since they (business/enterprise customers) will essentially be the one's funding Unraid's development in this case, they will be the ones driving the decisions when it comes to new features, support, etc....it won't be us home users using it for free. I want Lime Tech to focus on Unraid. I don't want them to focus of other avenues that can potentially make things worse in the long run because they have too much going on. Just focus on what they do best and that's Unraid. We can go back an forth all day long. At the end of the day, if you are that unhappy then please just move on (not you MrCrispy, just speaking generally hehe). While I can understand the reasoning behind the dissatisfaction, but to be honest, none of the naysayers have given Lime Tech a chance to prove themselves with this change. Sure we can talk about what "other" companies have done in the past, but in all honesty I don't care about "other" companies, all I care about is what Lime Tech does. Just because others have done terrible things, that doesn't mean every company will. It's ok to be skeptical, but you can be open minded as well. Give them a chance, don't just wish for them to shutdown and close up shop. I mean they've already listened and are offering a solution to those who want security updates/fixes for a period of time after the fact. Furthermore they've also upped the starter from 4 to 6 devices, so they are listening....yet people are still unhappy. Which leads me to believe there will be a group of entitled individuals who will never be happy no matter what they do.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will definitely add it to the list! I agree...I am planning to move move up the chain a little, just to get that extra piece of mind. I don't need to buy the cheapest unit, only for something to happen and for me to wish that I just spent that little extra from the get go.

I've recently finished my first Unraid build and am starting to look for a good UPS to help keep it safe and gracefully shutdown during a power outage. When doing some research I've come across some options that I think are reasonable, but just wanted to gauge other people's opinions on these options. I'm considering either: Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD Cyberpower CP1500PFCRM2U Tripp Lite SMART1500LCDT Tripp Lite SMART1500LCD (rackmount version) I do plan on eventually getting a server rack, so I am slightly leaning towards the rack mount versions, but I do like the lower price of the non-rack mount versions. Regarding the Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD, I have some reservations regarding the past glue issue, but I am assuming/hopeful has been addressed/fixed by now. I've read some so, so reviews on Tripp Lite in general. I've looked at APC as well, but I've heard that their quality has gone down over the years. As with most things these days all the brands have their issues and UPSs are no different.😆 I am still open to other suggestions, as well! I am interested if anyone has experience with these brands/models and what are you all using for your UPS's?