ryans081

Hey Everyone, Currently, I have an i7-8700k which has been rock solid for the past 5 years. But I have come across a Gen9 DL380 (12 bays) and was going to build second Unraid server as straight storage. Initial plan was to VLAN the two Unraid along with my PC on a 10GB switch. Then I started thinking. Which is bad as this usually means it will cost me more money. While my i7-8700k has been great, I am noticing some performance issues when Plex is transcoding. Also the power consumption of the DL380 is making me second guess. So, I have a few questions and need some clarifications. Are there benefits of having a “dedicated” Unraid server for dockers? This would be a smaller build with performance and stability in mind, rather than storage volume. My thought process in this is that it would be far easier to update/replace this dedicated Unraid server without having to mess around with the “storage” Unraid servers. I would need to build two Unraid servers, which I am fine with. I am more curious if there are some downsides or drawbacks to this (besides the cost). Thanks, Ryan

I should have been more clear, the other server is actually going to be an ESXi host with Raid 10. I was just planning on using the UnRaid server as a straight NAS with a 10gb connection between the two servers. But, I might as well give docker a shot and see if my old PC can handle the work load. I think I'll just stick to single parity and sign up to a cloud backup like crashplan. I have been meaning to do so anyway. Thanks for the replies everyone. Now just have to wait for the chassis to arrive.

Current Setup and Use: 2 Drobos Intel NUC server Plex The drobos are filling up, so I was in the process of building a FreeNAS server, then I found UnRaid. I like the idea of being able to expand as needed, thus I am leaning towards UnRaid instead. As with building a new project, you get excited and the project becomes more than it you initially planned and more grand. I have went from thinking about buying a used server off of ebay, building from scratch, replacing my current CPU/MB with a new one and using it as the server. But, due to various reasons, 4k Transcoding, compatibility, cost, form factor, etc... It just made more sense to use an older PC that I have laying around and using the Rosewill 12 bay chassis. And eventually, build a more robust server as a VM Host and spin Plex as a VM. I have a couple of questions before moving forward with this project. I understand that UnRaid, is installed on a USB. If I want to upgrade the hardware, is it as easy and replacing it and the USB will still recognize everything? This most likely means going from a desktop grade setup to Xeons. In a similar fashion, backing up the contents of the USB, to another USB. Would they be interchangeable in case of USB failure? With dual parity, do I start with 3 of 4 Hard drives? This might sound a bit silly, but, I like organizing things. Since the largest drives are always the parity, I plan on putting them at the end of the chassis. If I purchase a bigger drive, I would remove one of them and put the bigger drive in. Do I have to wait for it to rebuild the array or can I just pop it in, put the "old parity drive" into its new slot and call it the day? As stated, eventually, I plan on building a more robust VM server. It will serve the Plex Host that is capable of transcoding 4k and a lab environment. For the lab environment, disk usage will be localized. So really, the only connection between the storage and this server is Plex. In this setup, are cache drives even recommended? Thanks, Ryan