Seeker14491

Before unRAID I was running just Windows Server 2012 R2 on the laptop. One of the main reasons I installed unRAID was just to try something new. It seems to me like I lose nothing by switching to unRAID, as I can still run Windows in a vm. The other reason I switched is that I wanted to setup some kind of data redundancy, and unRAID's parity protection sounded good both in terms of data protection and space efficiency.

I recently installed unRAID on my old gaming laptop. I run Plex Media Server via Docker, and I also run a Windows Server 2012 R2 vm in it. I've got a 600GB hard drive inside the laptop, and I've got a 500GB hard drive hooked up to it via a USB enclosure (the laptop has space for only one internal drive). This USB drive is not part of the unRAID array, as unRAID does not support USB drives in the array. I'd like to upgrade my storage so I have at least 4TB of usable space, along with data protection through a parity drive. What are the best ways I could do this? I've considered getting an external enclosure such as https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/ , putting 3 x 3TB drives in it such as these https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D1GYNU8/ , and connecting it to my laptop via e-SATA. This setup would cost $400. I've heard people mention that the single e-SATA port would slow down the drives though. Ports and slots on the laptop 1x Mini-IEEE 1394 Port 1x e-SATA Port 1x USB 3.0 Port 3x USB 2.0 Port 1x ExpressCard/34/54 Slot Laptop specs Model: Clevo W86CU Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 460M Processor: Intel Core i7-740QM Memory: 8GB