JonathanM

Nope, got it backwards. On the parity array, all non-failing drives are fine, and you can rebuild as many failing drives as you have parity drives, max of 2. The cache pools are purely BTRFS RAID for multiple disks, so a RAID 0 is completely broken with no recovery if a drive fails.

Which will change airflow and add heat. You may need to do a full evaluation on how air is moving inside your case since you seem to be on the ragged edge of stability. Remember, air will flow the easiest path, it doesn't go places unless forced. I know you said you have 5 case fans, but if you don't have them pointed optimally you may end up with one fan just cancelling out the work another is doing. You also may need ducting inside the case or a fan dedicated to blowing across the cards and board I/O chips.

Cache pools are BTRFS RAID, so you have whatever redundancy you define by level.

Shares span drives, the parity array drives are still separate volumes so any one file can only exist on one drive, no spanning files across drives. Cache pools use BTRFS RAID, so files can span across all drives in the pool. Free space on the parity array is limited by the free space available on any single drive. So, if you have 2 1TB parity data disks, you would not be able to store a single file larger than 1TB, but you could have a folder with 2 TB worth of smaller files. Clear as mud?

If it were me, I'd proceed a little differently. Since all your data will fit on one of the new 4TB drives, I'd temporarily connect one of the 4TB to another PC on the network, not the Unraid machine, and make a full backup of all your files before you touch anything in the Unraid box. Then, once you have a backup... Use unbalance to move data off of your 2 worst data slots, either oldest drives or any showing errors, so you have 2 2TB with data and 2 empty. Set a new config, assign the other new 4TB as parity, and the 2 2TB drives with your data still on them as data1 and data2. Remove the 2 empty drives. Now, you have a choice, either stay protected with a full backup, or erase your backup and replace one of the 2TB data drives with the 2nd 4TB drive that currently has a full backup of your files. If you choose to erase your backup, then you can keep the 2TB you replaced as a backup of those files, copy the other 2TB to the newly replaced 4TB data drive (not move with unbalance, copy) then do a new config with only the 4TB parity and 4TB data. Ideally you could get another 4TB and replace the 2TB, that way you would have more room to grow. There is no scenario where I would recommend using a USB connection with Unraid, gigabit ethernet is more reliable in my opinion.

It's not the CPU that's under stress, it's the I/O chips on the motherboard and any hard drive controller cards. Having the case open is a bad thing, it means the fans aren't forcing air through the case, and stagnant pools of hot air can develop. If you must leave the case open, try using a desk fan or something to force air over all the internals.

If the VM service is enabled it keeps files open even if you don't have any VM's defined.

Parity check puts a constant load on disk controllers and power supplies. Do you have constant airflow over the motherboard and disk controllers?

Verify your port forwarding inside the VPN tunnel is working properly.

Keep in mind that ALL remaining drives are required to rebuild a failed drive. So... if one of your "healthy" drives decides its time is up, you are relying on a drive you know has a questionable past to recreate the failed drive. Any data on the parity array is only as safe as your weakest drive. Only you can determine how much risk is too much.

Yes, you need to have a unique container path for each host path. Just a suggestion, but maybe remove the default /media path, and create 2 new paths, /TV and /Movies. Then in plex point to those paths instead of /media.

Yeah, I'm sure it's your antivirus software on your computer doing it. Just posting an example of what to look for.

so it can alert you to the insecurity if it succeeds in getting access.

Example of a device on the network "helpfully?" trying to hack into other devices.

If it's the only copy, it's not safe. You still need backup. Unraid can protect from outright disk failure, but that's only 1 of many ways to lose data.

Where is the data coming from?

Yeah, once it's running no need to reboot frequently. I seldom reboot, typical uptime is months between, and then only when forced by environment or critical upgrade.

Did you change the host mapping in the docker container config to point to the new share instead of /mnt/user/music? Music != music, they are 2 different paths, and you already had a share called music. Regardless of the name in the host (Unraid) the container still needs to be pointed to /media unless you created a new path mapping.

You set the container path to /media, so that is the folder you want to scan, not the /mnt/user path.

TV gets genre subfolders (yes, it can get messy trying to categorize, but action-adventure, animation, comedy, crime, drama, educational, fantasy, reality, sci-fi work for me) Movies by year or collection, if it only has a 1 and a 2, it just goes by year of release. Disadvantage is that each new subfolder must be added to the 'arr manually.

If you sync everything, that's not a good backup, as deletions and corruptions are instantly updated. Backup implies being able to retrieve previous versions of files.

Now you should do a parity check to ensure everything can be read accurately.

If you are not fully stopping the rclone and mergerfs processes BEFORE trying to stop the array you probably have mounts not under Unraid's control holding the /mnt/user system open.