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Am I using Pools or the Array?? I don't understand that question. Don't I have to use a Pool eventually? I mean how am I going to have a large data Pool of 5 HDD's if I don't create a Pool eventually? And isn't the Pool also the same as the Array? In DrivePool my HDD's were just one big Pool of four 8TB drives and one 4TB drive. So I apologize, but I don't understand what you mean by Pool or Array? This is what I want. 1 x 8TB HGST Parity drive (I will be getting another drive for this eventually for Parity 2) 2 x 8TB HGST data drives (in one large pool) 1 x 8TB IronWolf Pro data drive (in the same large pool) 1 x 4TB IronWolf data drive (in the same large pool) 1 x 500GB NVMe SSD (Primary cache) 1 x 1TB SATA SSD (Secondary cache??? I don't know about this yet) 30 years worth of my data collecting, tons of family photos, documents, IT documents, work documents, school stuff, etc stored in the Pool in its own directory called STORAGE and in the same large Pool as everything else, plus I want to migrate all of my 15 years worth of Plex movies, shows and music etc, and all of the metadata so that nothing changes from how it was working on the Windows SERVER. I just want ALL of it to be in one Drive location on the network for all computers on the local network to easily access. By the way my network is all 2.5GbE if that matters at all. I have 7 computers on the local net and a multitude of Plex enabled TV's and devices such as smart phones in almost every room in this House, which all have to have access to this Unraid NAS I am building here. I am under the impression that Unraid is perfect for this NAS SERVING. I just want to get away from the dangers of Windows, lol. I used to think Windows was the best OS, but now I just see it as a PC gaming OS and even that seems to be changing. So can you answer this question for me please? Is Unraid for me and my family?

Yeah I created the Array using just one 8TB data drive as was previously suggested. The other two drives are still unassigned because of the large data transfer that is taking place right now. I created "some" of the shares already, at least the ones that will have large data transfers and that data is already copying over from the Windows SERVER. Once that is done I will have to test things before I shut down the Windows server for good, but everything must work as expected before I feel gutsy enough to take that final step. Once I am confident that its working how I want and like, then I will start moving more data HDD's into the Unraid NAS and then setup the Parity and Cache drives. But I do have two more questions, the appdata and media folders that Unraid docs made me create had to be created on the data Array since their is no cache drive in use yet. Will that be easy to move back to the NVMe SSD (cache) once all data is done copying over? And when should I setup the Parity drive? After the cache drive is also setup, or after I add the final three data HDDs and place them all in a Pool? Man there is lots to learn here, lol. I just hope I am not making big mistakes that I can not fix. unraid-server-diagnostics-20251209-1631.zip

OK I'm back and thanks for the replies my friends. It's good to see a community that doesn't balk at new folks trying to learn something new. I did put in some time and effort trying to find resources I could read up on but I eventually gave up and decided to ask here, because that is what a community forum is usually for. So, I just couldn't find this "dropdown" I kept reading about, and all resources say to use the dropdown directly under the Array Devices, or that the "Array Devices" is actually a dropdown menu itself, but it is NOT. However, I think I found it now, it is actually under the section "Pool Devices" and sitting directly under the word "Identification". I just needed some sleep I guess, lol. So that's where I find the options for Parity etc? OK got it. But now I actually need to Remove my cache device before the data migration? Hmm, oh boy, OK. That is funny because I read to assign that as cache before anything else, just wow. So how do I do that? Do I remove it physically from the machine or just remove it from the Pool? Also, about the Parity drive, do I add both 8TB drives to the Pool as data, and then later on convert the HGST as Parity, or do I simply add the IronWolf Pro as data and just transfer data to it first and THEN set the HGST as Parity after all data has been moved over? Also any idea on what file format to use on the HDD and Parity drives? Should that be BTRFS and will my 4790 handle that OK resources wise? Thanks to everyone that responds with their helpful insight. In the meantime I will be reading more docs and watching more videos on Unraid 7. Thanks again

Hello, today I decide to say Goodbye and good riddance to Windows Server+DrivePool and I built another system from spare parts just for Unraid 7.2.2. My old SERVER is still in service and running in my other room, but I took two of my 5 drives out already to at least start an Unraid server. So here is what I have. Three HGST Enterprise class 8TB He8 drives. One IronWolf Pro 8TB NAS drive, one IronWolf 4TB NAS drive, one Corsair MP600 NVMe cache drive and one 1TB Samsung SATA drive. One of the HGST drives I will be used for Parity, although I cant figure out how to do that. I also have a 500GB Corsair MP600 NVMe SSD that I have already setup as cache. I also have a unused 1TB 870 EVO+ that I would like to use as backup cache, or what ever it should be used for. I already formatted the MP600 cache ssd as XFS as well. So now I have installed my first two 8TB drives, one HGST and one IronWolf Pro. I want the HGST as Parity since its failure rate is much lower than the IronWolf Pro. The IronWolf Pro will be hdd data but I have not figured out how to do that yet. This should get me in a state to start migrating data, correct? On my Windows Server I currently have two 8TB HGST He8 drives also and they only have about 5.5TB of data on them, so this 8TB setup in Unraid should work to start the migration I believe. Once all of my 5.5TB of data has copied over from the windows server I will want to remove those two last HGST drives from the windows server and add them to the Unraid server. This is my current plan. My Server is modest Intel Haswell current setup I7-4790 (old I know but still has Intel Quick Sync Video for my Plex Media Server) 16GB of DDR3 RAM 500GB MP600 NVMe installed in the GPU's PCIe x16 slot (cache) 1 x HGST He8 8TB (Parity) 1 x IronWold Pro 8TB (data) Later on I will add 1TB 870 EVO+ (backup cache or something useful?) 2 x HGST He8 8TB (data) 1 x 4TB IronWolf (non-pro slowest drive data) This should give me like 20TB or 24TB data space eventually, right? But I cant get past where I am at right now. The Parity option seems to be missing from where I read that it is supposed to be. So, is there a newbie guide somewhere online or in pdf, or a Unraid expert that can help a newbie get started? Maybe even a YT video perhaps? Where do newbies start exactly? I only know Windows stuff and have been a Windows user since 1994, so this is completely and utterly different to me, but I must learn this Unraid because I want this setup really really bad. Lol Thanks for any guidance at all. I am on Trial day #1. And I am happy to be here. Thanks again, Rod