andyps

Lot of a great info! Thanks. I definitely hear you on your points for sticking with hotswap over a case like the Lian-Li. I will most likely go that route. I like the convenience of both the config, but also in the event of a drive failure, making the replacement process much easier. I think you are spot on for the PSU too. After further research, looks like the WD Red 6TB drives use 4-5w at idle and 6-7w at load. Even if I double that and say 14w a drive, that's only 280w, plus my existing 90w, I still have plenty of room for the one or two PCIe cards I'll need and the SSDs. Plus it seems the PSU will be happier if I pull that kind of power from it, vs getting a higher wattage PSU that I only use 20-40% of.

I really like those hot swap cages. I can find them used on ebay for $65-70 shipped each. I'll check out that thread too. I am leaning towards the tower as well. For a different approach, I also like the Lian Li PC-D800, which can still be purchased for a bit less than the norco. Any thoughts on the PSU? Thanks!

So after giving this more thought, I think I would rather have large, expandable storage, than a semi-large pool that is fast. So I think I am going to snag a 1-2TB M.2 NVME SSD for my system as a "working" drive, for just the most recent projects, then have a SSD cache on my unraid server. Two questions: 1) For my system + 20 6TB WD Red drives, is my PSU selection (SeaSonic SSR-650RM) adequate? Several calculators say yes, but I am wondering if I should get a 850w Platinum instead. Edit: I just attached my killawatt to my TS140 and ran AIDA64 stress test. With 3x4TB drives and an SSD in there, the whole system is pulling 80-90w. 2) I like the Norco RPC-4220 a lot. Having the ability to eventually have 20 drives is nice, but it is HUGE. Is there another option I should consider? Thanks for all the info so far!

I wondered if the update to having two parity drives was this. I guess that was just dumb optimism on my part. Thanks for clarification.

At the very minimum, using 2 x 1TB SSDs could work for the drive I work from. I'd like more space than that, but that might work as a minimum. Still would be $500-600 just to add that on. The 450-500 MB/s that the SSD cache would provide would be excellent. I've been searching and I've found a few people who've maybe setup a hardware Raid 5 and brought that in as a "individual" drive, that's not part of the UnRaid array. I wonder how reliable this is and if there is speed loss from doing so. I'd love to have 8TB+ in Raid 5/6 and my working data drive, then have my UnRaid array as my large archive + everything else, expandable drive. I found this: I guess this died off? I have tried searching, but haven't found much else. Implementing Raid 6 in UnRaid would be amazing. That would solve my issues. Also, good info on Blue Iris. How many cams do you use in this config? Also, are they HD?

Ideally I'd have 1-2TB minimum for my working "drive." A typical video project is 150-200GB and a photo project would be 200-250GB. I might have a few of each I'd be working on at a time. Is the cache pool automatic, or is just a "drive" that I could mount and use traditionally?

Thanks for the info! I'm a-okay with having a separate storage pool for working data, I would just like it all to reside on the server. If I were to use SSDs, they would just be one-off devices? UnRaid doesn't support any traditional arrays, like mirroring or raid 10 for the ssds? I read somewhere that some people have run a hardware raid (5 or 6) and connected that to UnRaid. Is that true? Could I setup a hardware raid of 4-5 fast disks in Raid 5 as my working drive and then have my main, large storage an UnRaid array that I can grow? Would SSD caching help in the middle?

Hi there! I'm considering UnRaid for my new home server. Right not I have a home server (Lenovo TS140) that runs Windows 10. It runs Blue Iris (IP Cam Surveillance), Plex, Sonarr/Radarr/Headphones, and that's pretty much it. For data storage, I have several externals that I work from. I outgrew my largest enclosure, so I purchased single drive externals to become archive drives. I have mirrored copies of everything and back up to backblaze and Gdrive for offsite. I would like to consolidate everything. One server/storage solution to rule them all. For Blue Iris & Backblaze I'm guessing I'll have to run a Windows 10 VM to keep those going? My data storage needs are mostly because I have a photography and a video business. I really love everything I read about UnRaid, especially the ability to grow my storage pool. I have quite a few hard drives to start with, but it would be nice if I didn't have to buy my "full set" and commit them to a Raid 6 or ZFS2 array. That said, my main working drive is a 4 bay enclosure that's running Raid 5 with 4 6TB drives. For my video editing work, I don't think I could be limited to the speed of a single drive, especially since I'm working in 4k more and more. I also back reference projects at lot (from the past year at least) and move/copy to current projects to use. For the photography side of things, I would also like fast storage for at least the most recent projects. Skipping around on 30+ megapixel raw images in lightroom get's laggy on slower drives. Can I have my cake and eat it too? Can I have a big storage pool and then also a fast array/pool on the same server that I can access via 10GbE or something? Are there other options? On top of the data storage/usage, I still want the server to do everything I mentioned it's doing already. I'd also like it to become a personal cloud (maybe Tonido, Cozy, or Seafile?). I am planning to utilize as much of my current hardware as possible. That includes transplanting and upgrading my TS140. Here is my current hardware plan (open to suggestions here too): TS140 motherboard + E3-1225 V3 Xeon (possibly upgrade to a 1245 V3 for the hyperthreading) Norco RPC-4220 4U 20 Bay Hotswap 32GB DDR3 ECC SeaSonic SSR-650RM PSU (plus adapter for TS140 mobo) HBA? 10GbE card? 8 x 6TB WD Red Aside from the Reds, I also have 4 Toshiba 6TB X300 drives, 4 x 4TB WD Greens, 2 x 4TB WD Reds, and a 8TB WD Easystore. Needless to say, there are a multitude of options out there and I'm a little overwhelmed. I've considered everything from just continue running Windows 10 on the new build with a hardware Raid or something to running another dedicated NAS OS like the FreeNAS or NAS4Frees of the world. Any insight would be very much appreciated!