GreenDolphin

I'm about to pull the trigger on Unraid (pending a successful trial the next few weeks); I actually bought the HW and built the system a few years back, but life got in the way and I made do with an awful maze of external drives. I was very concerned with the way the release notes for 6.10 started, as a strong opponent of cloud computing and the way every Thing vendor is trying to get every customer logged on 100% of the time for every little thing. Apple was the first major offender here with iCloud, but Microsoft has followed suit, and the worst of all is Tesla. Since I might end up posting a lot of info about my system or usage in the Forum, I didn't like the direct association of my server credentials with a public forum account. Anyway, the above quote is an absolutely fine solution for me. Since a Forum signon doesn't require any PII (no real-life name or address, I just rechecked), I'll be maintaining a dummy account for this. Being able to do this wasn't a given, since lots of online forums, especially official company-owned ones, forbid multiple accounts for the same person and sometimes enforce it quite strongly (banning the user outright); I think there would be a lot less pushback if Limeware emphasized that it is possible. Incidentally, Limeware will now also have to come up with a policy of what to do if a forum user seriously violates the forum behavioral guidelines. Banning, even temporarily, that user's logon is no longer possible, because s/he still needs to access UPC. Sure, from all I've seen (been casually reading the forum for several years, some threads & subjects in depth) this isn't a common problem here -- discussion is remarkably even-keeled, even on "religious" subjects. Still, there has to be both a policy and a way to technically implement it. Re the various questions @eweitzman raised about what type of info would be collected and how, that's a rather complicated question -- basically, anyone who has a forum member's username can scrape all his/her posts and any information posted in them... That's not info Limeware is ever likely to collect itself, of course, but if the DB associating Unraid server addresses and emails gets hacked, there might be bad outcomes. That's why I'd recommend that anyone who doesn't intend to use the UPC-based applications, MyServers and/or future ones, keep their active forum account and UPC account separate. Also, while it is a minor manner, I'd also appreciate an option for not having the signon field on the WebGUI banner: I think it belongs on an Admin page like Management Access anyway, esp. since it's not info the user needs all the time. Again, commercial web storefronts are not a good comparison: There you can't do anything except casual browsing without being logged on, so an indication whether you are or not is useful. On the main management console of my private server running locally, I'd rather information that wasn't always pertinent wouldn't be always displayed.

I'm about to set up my first Unraid server. I have an 8TB Seagate IronWolf I bought a while back and never used, but in the meantime my data has grown such that I need to buy another drive anyway simply to be able to get data onto the array to begin with. I was going to buy another 8TB Ironwolf, but to my surprise, these Exos 16TB drives offer by far the best $/TB of any other HD I've seen. Basic Googling doesn't yield any obvious catch (obviously, if it fails mechanically, that's a lot of data, so backups are vital, and parity checks, rebuilds, preclear etc. take a long time). I'd be using the Exos as the parity drive in the new server, which will live right next to my desk as well. @KuniD, did you end up buying the drive? How happy are you with it? Reliability or performance issues? Noise wise?

This is offtopic, but IME it is a really bad idea to ever use ISP-provided equipment on the customer side, if you're doing anything more complex connecting a single computer with consumer-type defaults -- and any setup using Unraid fits that bill. If your ISP doesn't allow you to provide your own router, I'd switch providers just because of that (using their physical-layer modem only is OK).

Bloomberg is usually a trustworthy source. Their tech understanding is of course low, but they claim to have done a lot of investigation, and have a lot of supporting info given in the article. I can't see so many details created out of whole cloth -- Bloomberg would leave themselves open to endless lawsuits otherwise. OTOH, both Apple & Amazon have made explicit statements denying the story, and they'll take a credibility hit if it turns out true. Someone is lying. If I had to bet, I'd guess the story is mostly true. It also sounds very likely that US authorities would hesitate about taking steps that would harm a large US company (that itself was presumably not complicit). This story will definitely be continued...

In the future, if you decide to move a forum, could you update the title of the announcement thread to reflect this? I just wasted 45min trying to find posts I'd bookmarked, and then the forum itself which seemed to have disappeared. I was sure it was a bug in the forum SW. It's confusing to announce the experimental forum in the Announcement forum, but not the change back to a different forum (esp. since it's at a different location in the hierarchy).

Opinions will vary on this... First, I would personally not use any Threadripper CPU on a production server. The product line is far too new (<6 months since launch) for software written for it to be considered stable, which is a prime goal of any server implementation. Ditto for that matter for any other Ryzen CPU -- the architecture is too new. Second, which you may or may not care about is ECC support. Threadripper, officially supports ECC, but from discussions I've seen, apparently not all ThreadRipper motherboards do, and for some that explicitly say "ECC" in their specs, there are no ECC memory modules in their QVL. I don't know what that means in practice (I've seen conflicting reports), but I wouldn't bank on a non-officially-supported data-integrity feature. That said, ECC isn't mandatory for UnRAID (some folks here use it, some don't) although personally I think the extra protection, even for rare events, is worthwhile for the relatively low extra cost. For any actual issues with Ryzen , search the forum for "Ryzen", for example here -- there are a bunch for issues, although they are gradually being fixed. Some of the issues apparently require changes/fixes to the Linux kernel, which isn't up to Lime Tech, and although I'm sure this'll happen, I don't consider Ryzen a "prime time" product yet. Alternatives: If you're willing to consider "pre-owned" CPUs, an older (1st-gen) Intel X5-2xxx Xeon might work for you. These are 8 core / 16 thread CPUs, see for example here (Intel ARK specs), usable in single- or dual-CPU configs. Originally selling for $1400-$1500 each, a bunch of large datacenters got rid of a huge amount about 2 years ago, and their price on the open market went <$100 . Even after several years of server farm use, they should still be good for quite a few years of UnRAID use. The price has gone up a bit since then, but they're still available at <$150 on eBay and other places; I'm running an E5-2665 I bought here using a new AsRock mobo. There's a really long thread on the forum on them.

I very much appreciate the heads up -- it helps me determine whether to update now or wait for near-term additional updates -- the latter in my case, as I don't want to update the OS again shortly after updating it previously.

Depends on your landlord and your rental contract. I knew of people both here and in Germany who rented and had rental contracts explicitly forbidding any drilling whatsoever. In the dorms I lived at while studying in the US, it was even forbidden to use the tiny picture nails -- we were supplied with special sticky tack and adhesive hooks, like this. Also, depending on the wall material, it's not necessarily trivial to fill holes so they're completely invisible afterwards. Over here, you'd basically need to repaint a wall after filling.

(Slightly offtopic for a best-deal thread, but I figure this is the best place for it, as anyone who bought one of the Xeon E5 V1s will likely be interested...) Turns out the Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 v1are affected by Spectre / Meltdown, and Intel does have some kind of microcode update: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27431/Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-File?product=64597 Anyone know what exactly the update addresses? Assuming there is a relevant fix, what would be the indicated action for an UnRAID user with such a CPU? Would this update likely be included in a Linux kernel update which would eventually trickle down to an UnRAID update? I understand Linux does have a general mechanism allowing a microcode update on boot, unlike other OSes, so it might need to be re-loaded on every boot but would still work.

A person can't have everything. Wireless solutions are never as good as wired ones, either in performance or consistency; the major problem isn't throughput, it's latency. As for energy consumption, the nano router I have, the TL-WR902AC, actually has a USB power supply. While it comes with an AC adapter, it can be powered via any USB port as well, e.g., one on the wired device it's attached to. If a 100mbps connection to the server is enough, that will work fine (and if there's a single PC that connects to the UnRAID server, as in the OP's case, that might well be enough).

That's... a lot of drives, despite being >8cm shorter than the Azza. Looks like it's been discontinued for years, but the Cooler Master Storm Trooper is still being made; a bit more expensive, however -- currently $126 after rebate on Amazon. It does however have 4 included fans, and a 2-drive 2.5" dock in addition to the 9x 5.25" bays. There's even a built-in toolbox to keep all the screws, cables brackets etc. (-: Bottom line, looks like there are still a few choices.

Looks like this could do the job, if you have the room for it -- it's a full tower. The price is certainly right (-: I'm a bit confused by the airflow options -- with multiple HDs in front, IMO the best way to go is definitely front-to-back for all fans, aligned along the HDs & internal cards, toward the back ports. Many of the pics (also in the Tom's review linked ot from their site) seem to assume bottom-to-top airflow. The only thing I'd be concerned about is some of the the QA- & build quality -related complaints in the Newegg & Amazon reviews -- maybe not an issue if the server stays put once it's built. See if you can find a review of someone using it in a NAS build and/or with lots of drives in 5-in-3 cages, to see if there are long-term heat issues. From the look of the 5.25" trays, there will be tabs separating the bays you'll need to bend back or break off. I'd still consider the Antec 900 as well -- there's seems to be experience using hot-swap cages with it, and it's currently not that expensive -- $70 after rebate at Newegg.

++ This is best solved at the network level, not the (UNRaid) OS/server level. If the router jonathanm suggests isn't a fit aesthetically or size-wise, I'd suggest the TP-Link RE210 AC750 Wi-Fi Range Extender; it has wireless bridge capability where you can use its gigabit Ethernet port to connect a wired device (your UNRAID server) to your main router via WiFi. Since it supports dual-band, performance should be good; It's the only tiny-size WiFi access device I know of that supports a gigabit connection and 5GHz. While I haven't used it myself, I have its cousin, the TL-WR902AC nano travel router, which is a fully-featured router with amazing WiFi performance despite being barely larger than a matchbox (less suitable for your purpose since its Ethernet ports are 10/100). The RE210 is a bit expensive in the US at the moment, but can be bought from Amazon Germany for ~US$35 delivered to the US.

Sure, but rack-based servers aren't just a cost issue... While a 4020 certainly has a lot of room for drives, from what I hear (pun intended) from people who have one it's quite loud, and wouldn't be suitable for a living area. I live in a small apartment, and my UnRAID server lives in my study (I work from home) <2ft from my head. It's barely audible most of the time.

It does look like the Sharkoon is finally out of production, although both Amazon UK and Amazon Germany show it as "temporarily out of stock" and allow ordering, so they should get more of them. Looking back at my notes while I was researching cases: Another option if you can find one may be the discontinued Zalman MS800 or MS800Plus. It's intended for gaming rigs, but does have 10 5.25" bays (in the Plus, config3 of them come pre-occupied with 3 hot-swap 3.5" bays, the latter being replaceable with a 5-in-3 cage, so either model supports 15 3.5" drives overall). It's taller & deeper than the T9 (but still considered mid-ATX), and quite a bit fancier -- 4 included fans+room for 2 more, outside fan-speed knob, etc. Amazon lists it as temp. out-of-stock, so I'd probably contact them to ask whether there's a chance it'll actually be available. You may also want to keep an eye out for a used Lian-Li PC-A17 (also discontinued, but the same approach as the T9, 9x straight top-to-bottom 5.25" bays). But yes, the situation with this type of case sucks, which is odd given that home NASes are becoming a thing. The 8-bay solutions marketed for NAS simply don't cut it for a decent-size server for >2-3 years of expansion, and rack solutions are a bad fit for someone who doesn't have a basement to hide them in.