Hoopster

Good suggestion. I use this plugin. My parity drive is 8TB and it takes a little over 16 hours for a parity check. With the tuning plugin, I split it into two overnight sessions. Most people run a monthly parity check. I did that for years but found that quarterly if often enough on my system now.

Append :1.32.8.7639 to the docker container repository field so it reads: lscr.io/linuxserver/plex:1.32.8.7639 At least it used to work that way the last time I tried to load a specific version.

No, shutting down does not trigger the Mover. Mover can be run manually before shutdown if you wish, and, of course, the schedule can be changed to any time you wish. 3:40am is just the default. How long mover takes depends on how much data needs to be moved from cache to the array. You can control by user share if it writes data first to cache (moved to array by Mover) of if it writes directly to the array. I don't have any shares currently writing first to cache so the Mover is not an issue in my case.

Plex reports version 1.32.8.7639

I use the docker setting and Plex has been stable for me for months (if not years). I do not use 4K HDR tone mapping and that seems to cause a lot of problems in Plex

The only issue would be if you shut it down in the middle of a parity check or data transfer to Unraid array. I used to shut my server down nightly, then I went to putting it to sleep and waking it when needed. Now I just run it 24x7. Firing up the server only when needed and shutting it down when not needed is certainly possible. FYI - sleep support in Unraid is very much hardware dependent (motherboard/NICs) and it works well for many and not so well for others.

For years, I have had an all UniFi (router/firewall, switches and access points) system for my home Unraid network. It was a long time before Ubiquiti replaced the USG 3P (small form factor) with something more powerful. They recently released the UXG-Lite which I bought to replace my old USG 3P. Still, the UXG-Lite has only GbE NICs which is fine if your Internet speed is Gigabit or less. At least the UXG-Lite can take full advantage of the speed with IDS/IPS enabled. The USG 3 choked on that. At the urging of @PeteAsking, I thought I would give OPNSense/Zenarmor a try as the router/firewall in my network. Why not, I like to play around. I purchased this mini PC based on an Intel N100 CPU with 8GB RAM and a 256GB PCIe SSD from AliExpress. It has four Intel I226-V 2.5 Gb NICs, I don't need that speed now as my infrastructure and ISP speeds are Gigabit. What I like about the Ubiquiti UniFi setup: Everything managed and viewed in the same controller interface More intuitive configuration of things like static routes, port forwarding, static IP addresses, etc. Good overall design, organization and navigation of controller software Very active and helpful support forums (sometimes that is necessary) What I like about OPNSense/Zenarmor Clearly, there is more control over security, traffic filtering, routing rules, etc. I am just scratching the surface and everything is mostly at defaults right now. For open source, free software, It has a decent interface although I found it somewhat difficult to find certain configuration options Good documentation and Google finds good third-party OPNSense tips as well I am very early into this OPNSense/Zenarmor journey and have a lot to learn, but, overall, I am liking it so far. I have successfully setup necessary interfaces, VLANs, DHCP, port forwards, static routes, static IP addresses, etc. As I said, just scratching the surface I suppose.

If by "keep me me logged in to the unraid server" you mean the GUI, the always stay logged in to the GUI option exists just by leaving the GUI open in a browser tab when you close the browser and shut off the PC. If you have set your browser to open previous windows and tabs it opens up the logged in Unraid GUI again. I have been logged into one of my Unraid servers for months this way.

This is governed by your share settings, specifically, allocation method, split level and disks included in the share.. Below is a screenshot of these settings with help turned on: Read the user shares section of the manual (link in lower right corner of Unraid GUI) for a more thorough explanation. I see itimpi just answered regarding the not protected shares. That is normal for shares on cache drives. The fact that you have some disks that won't spin down, indicates a likelihood that some docker and/or VM files are being stored on array drive(s) instead of cache/pool drives. With the Dynamix File Manager you can check which disks your appdata and VM files are currently stored on. Notice that all of mine are on Cache (Location column). If any appdata files are on a array disk, that is likely why the disk does not spin down. Ideally, appdata settings or other shares you want to live on cache only should look something like this (Primary storage = cache, mover goes from array --> cache, secondary storage is used only if cache drive is full):

It is very wise that this has not been implemented. You do not want an automatic update to whatever controller version Ubiquiti just released. They tend to be in a beta state at best and sometimes have been more like alpha software. Admittedly, Ubiquiti had gotten much better over the last year or so in releasing more stable controller software; however, it is still best to let any new release stew for a week or two and see what the more adventurous users discover and post in the Ubiquiti forums. If there are no major problems, @PeteAsking will create a tag for that release which usually means it is safe (mostly) to proceed with the update.

It's not really a matter of Unraid supporting USB 3.x (it does as well as it can) as much as it is motherboard and firmware manufacturers making USB 3.x implementations more consistent and stable. I have three Unraid servers and one of them has a USB 3.0 flash drive in a USB 3.0 port and it runs without issues. The other two have USB 2.0 flash drives in USB 2.0 ports. USB 3.x tends to randomly disconnect more (very bad in the case of the Unraid flash drive) and the flash drives can run hotter shortening their lifespan. The Linux kernels used in Unraid for many years have had USB 3.x support, but the hardware/firmware implementations on some motherboards have proven to be flaky. USB 2.0 is simply more consistent and stable and is therefore preferred but it is not an Unraid requirement because of lack of USB 3.x support.

See this page for Nvidia GPU hardware encoding and decoding capabilities. The P2000 Quadro is very popular with Unraid users.

There is no official support for AMD GPU transcoding in Plex. They state the following on their Hardware-Accelerated Streaming webpage: *Note: Our hardware-transcoding system has technical support for many dedicated AMD graphics cards, but we haven’t done official, full testing on those. Support for AMD GPUs is provided “as is” and your mileage may vary. It is recommended that you use Intel Quick Sync Video or a dedicated NVIDIA GPU. Some have been successful in getting AMD GPUs to work for transcoding purposes in a variety of applications but there is no official process for doing so. It is somewhat hit-or-miss. Dedicated Nvidia GPUs or Intel Quick Sync have much better support and established procedures for enabling hardware transcoding.

Phyically connected = connected to and detectable by Unraid at the time the server boots up. For example, an external USB drive does not count if it is not connected to the server at server boot. It can be connected after server boot as an unassigned device. This same USB drive does count in the 30 drive limit if it is connected to the server when the server is booted. I don't know if/how Unraid would handle a SAN but if it can handle that, the SAN drives would most likely count against the limit.

Mine has always had the /tmp/PlexRamScratch/Transcode/Sessions structure; however, if you see the transcode files being created and deleted in your folder structure as a file is being transcoded, that would indicate it is working properly.

Look in the folder you have designated in RAM for transoding (/tmp/PlexRamScratch on my system). There should be a Transcode folder there with a Sessions subfolder which contains the transcoding pieces if things are working properly.

They are in the docker container template. Edit the container and add the appropriate information to the variables.

I access my server (including user share content) anywhere in the world where I have a WiFi connection via the WireGuard VPN built in to Unraid. Others use the Unraid Connect plugin or a reverse proxy solution.

You can update as often as the container maintainer updates the container. Plex docker containers often have options for allowing you to update to only public stable releases or early releases as often as Plex pushes them out. It is NOT recommended to attempt update Plex yourself within the container. You have both options with Unraid. There is an Nvidia plugin for using a discrete Nvidia GPU within Docker containers or VMs or you can use QuickSync. I don't have any personal experience with accessing FreeNAS data from Unraid but there is a very flexible Unassigned Devices plugin that may give you some options.

When my posts get quoted it is usually with a "yeah, don't do what Hoopster said" qualifier. 😀

I guess I can try both. Two sets of incoming hardware means I can give both a try and see which feature set and performance I like better.

OK, you got me intrigued and I have a lot of time on my hands. I bought a cheap HP Elite 8300 SFF computer (i5, 8GB RAM) from eBay and one of these mini PCs (8GB RAM/256 GB SSD) from AliExpress. I will set up OPNSense and Zenarmor on both and see how they work for me.

I have no personal experience with this but comments on the Ubiquiti forums indicate there is no support for json files with the UXG-Lite.

Just be aware that you will need a really good cooling solution with that CPU. It's got a 125W TDP although you can configure it down to 95 TDP which will limit performance. My Xeon E-2288G is a 95W TDP CPU and keeping it cool long-term under load proved a challenge at first until I found a CPU cooler that could do the job in a case with a CPU Cooler height restriction of 148mm; the Noctua NH-D12L. It's a good CPU but you will need to keep it cool.

Yes. My Xeon E-2288G is essentially an i9-9900K with ECC RAM support. The i9 10900K would give you a lot of CPU overhead even if you want to run VMs.