Unraid technician?

[Maverick52]

This is a bit of an awkward question, but...

 

I setup a Unraid server for my wife's photography business, she uses it to store her photo archive. We're beginning a separation and while I'm still willing to help if she had issues with her server, eventually she would need to be able to handle issues/hire someone to handle issues if she were to run into them. Is there any common, like Geeksquad or something, business that would be familiar enough with Unraid to help her out if she were to need it?

 

edit: I guess I should add... The setup probably won't need to be adjusted moving forward, but right now the array is only made up a single parity drive and single data drive. As time goes on a hard drive would need to be added physically and through the Unraid UI. So other than some unforeseen issue this is basically the only thing I know that will need to happen in the future.

Edited August 11, 2021 by Maverick52

[JonathanM]

1 hour ago, Maverick52 said:

Is there any common, like Geeksquad or something, business that would be familiar enough with Unraid to help her out if she were to need it?

 

Not likely. Common computer support businesses are fluent in microsoft and apple products, not so much linux and variants. Typically people fluent in linux in general either have non public facing sysadmin type jobs or are just hobbyists.

 

Honestly, if she isn't willing to learn to admin the server on her own with help from the forum, and you anticipate not being involved for reasons, then I'd advise you set her up with a mass market NAS that has corporate support and keeping the Unraid server for yourself.

 

BTW, currently how are backups being handled? Keeping business critical files in only a single physical computer is suicide, regardless of hardware redundancy features like RAID or Unraid.

[Maverick52]

50 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

 

Not likely. Common computer support businesses are fluent in microsoft and apple products, not so much linux and variants. Typically people fluent in linux in general either have non public facing sysadmin type jobs or are just hobbyists.

 

Honestly, if she isn't willing to learn to admin the server on her own with help from the forum, and you anticipate not being involved for reasons, then I'd advise you set her up with a mass market NAS that has corporate support and keeping the Unraid server for yourself.

 

BTW, currently how are backups being handled? Keeping business critical files in only a single physical computer is suicide, regardless of hardware redundancy features like RAID or Unraid.

 

We're really not fully setup for redundant backups like I'd planned, but right now we have a Synology NAS that holds her photo archive along with the Unraid server holding a copy of the archive. More current photos are on her editing PC (and the camera cards for at least a little while) and are backed up to the cloud, so quite a bit of her archive is on the cloud as well. The plan was to implement another Unraid server like our current one to replace the Synology (as it's only a 2 bay NAS so it's limited for upgrading) and then have the 2nd server stored offsite.

 

I don't mind helping her, but who knows how things will go in the future. I just figured I should find out if I can point her in a different direction if things change. As far as her learning goes, it's less about her willingness to learn and more about her ability to understand and retain it. She's a creative type, this stuff is a completely foreign language. My son is more like me though, so I suppose if worse came to worse he could handle things even if he has to google stuff or have me talk him through something.