[First Build Advice]

You can increase the size of the parity drive just as easily as a data drive.

 

The parity is rebuilt from the data drives, just like how the data on a replaced/upgraded data drive is rebuilt from the rest of the drives.

 

Either operation (Parity Sync or Data Rebuild) is typically an 8- to 16-hour operation (for a 4TB-high array), depending on your system's disk throughput.

[First Build Advice]

Yep, that's how it works; unRAID clears the new drive before it's added to the array, to preserve the parity.

 

Only when trying to add a drive that's larger than the parity drive is it more involved than that, i.e. the parity drive must be upgraded to a larger drive first.

 

 

[First Build Advice]

Hi Knightfolk, I can't say for sure whether the TS440 will work with unRAID (although I suspect it does), but I know for a fact that the TS140 does:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkServer-70A4000HUX-i3-4130-Computer/dp/B00F6EK9J2

 

(and it's less than half the price).

 

I built a server with one last year, with drives in an external rackmount enclosure.  I've since moved to a different (2U rackmount) machine for those drives (16 x 4TB).  So I actually have a TS140 just laying around, I use it to test SAS cards from time to time.

 

Possibly real-time transcoding would be too much for that Core i3 processor, but you mention that you really won't be doing any of that.

 

Clearly the TS440 wins on number of drive bays; since you only mentioned three drives in your initial post, I thought I'd chime in with the TS140 since it has just that many drive bays (and room for at least one more if you remove the optical drive).

 

One final caveat that comes to mind is that the Lenovo motherboards usually use a proprietary power connector (the TS140 does), so upgrading the PSU requires an adapter.

 

I found the TS140 to be very efficient powerwise, and virtually silent; I was only able to better it by going to a miniITX motherboard.

[Show me your builds!]

I've had it for over three years; bought the Plus key in September of 2011, the Pro key just about a year later.

 

This one's about 3/4 full . . . working on a second server now.

 

Thanks LimeTech, for building and supporting a great data storage solution.