tomahawkeer

So currently I am running my plex server on an old workstation (built in 2010) and a drobo gen 3 (USB). It works, and im not out of storage by any means, but its old and starting to show its age. I have been considering building an unraid box, or buying a small synology (DS918+). I would also like to have the option of running some virtulization, I am very familiar with VMware, but im very open to a different platform. I have additional storage to put into what ever I decide to do ( 3 x 8TB, 8 x 2tb) on top of the 4 x 4tb that is currently in the drobo. I also have a 4U 15 bay server chasis (brand new), so if I am building, I would basically need a motherboard, cpu, ram and PSU, and possibly video card. I know I can buy these for the $540ish price of the DS918+, however, there is so much used server grade hardware out there that might help me build a much better machine than the synology for the same price (or less). I guess I am just looking for opinions on what to do, and maybe some hardware recommendations, especially if I could turn this into a multipurpose build and have a solid virtulization setup on top of unraid. Maybe I should look into a small Ryzen build instead of used xeon stuff, or maybe I should just stick to synology and keep it simple, since I already have the drives, and don't have the need for a huge amount of storage. Any feedback is welcome. Thanks in advance!

There seems to be a lot of varying info out about the necessary thumb drives for unraid specifically different sizes / brands work. I would like to know if there are some specific brand / size combinations that I should be looking at. Thank you in advance!

Ok wow, I need to read more of the documentation. Don't know why I didn't think the cache wasn't counted. I have been messing around with freenas for a couple of months, and its a great project and all, but for my needs, I think unraid probably works better. I just need some simple NAS storage and the ability to run plex and possibly a few other things via the NAS. Ill download the trial, and give it a whirl once I move my hardware to my new case. Regardless, thanks for the answer!

Hello guys, my first post here, so please don't hate me too much for this question. I am about to buy a license, probably the Tier 1 or Tier 2, and I just wanted to verify that a parity drive DOES use one of those attached storage devices, AND that the CACHE drive does NOT. Is this correct? Thank you in advance!