smather

Ok, once I get some time to attempt this I will let everyone know how it went. Thanks again, I'm sure I will be back with more questions as I am a total noob when it comes to this aspect of computing.

Ok, I will definitely try that and report back on how it works out. Now, is there a way to migrate the data on my existing drives onto a new drive before I incorporate them into the system, short of pulling the drives and placing them in an external housing? Thanks everyone for answering my questions! I had heard that the community here was really positive, and I'm glad that it was accurate!

OK, I may try that. Can I test it to see if its functional without actually formatting any drives? I'm still using that pc at the moment. Also your build Mr Hexen is not too different than what I was thinking about. I was leaning towards an A10 processor as I could get it for less than a basic i3, but is AMD any good for this?

Hi everyone, I'm trying to piece together a replacement for a bunch of failing external hard drives (6Tbs worth) and have decided an unRAID server would be my best option. However, I only have a limited budget of approximately $500 (taxes included) Canadian to build with, and I want to get the most storage for my buck. I do have an aging but completely (touch wood) functioning tower with an AMD E2-1800 processor running at 1.7ghz and about 4gb of ram I can re purpose, but I'd rather start fresh with a new platform if possible. My goal for this particular system is to primarily serve media to various outputs around the house (I have at least 1 windows laptop, 1 macbook pro, several android devices, several iOS devices, and several consoles I'd like to serve, although mainly it'll be a nexus player with a KODI front end and the 2 laptops). Down the road it would be nice to do more with it, but I'm alright if all this machine can do is serve media reliably and with a minimum of buffering. I'd rather not use plex as I haven't enjoyed it when I've tried it. What should I be looking for? I found some good deals on AMD parts, but are they worthwhile? What's the best way to get maximum storage while maintaining a parity drive? I'm finding lots of disparate information, but nothing that's helping me narrow things down. Thank you, any help would be appreciated!