Proudly presenting my "lazy man's Unraid build" !

[AlainF]

Dear community,

 

I am finally ready to share what I call my "lazy man's Unraid build" ! I believe it's for lazy people because there was definitely NOT a lot of building/tinkering involved 😀

 

Let's start with a picture and then go to the specs:

 

 

The specs

• OS is Unraid Plus 6.9.2, running off a Sandisk Cruzer Fit 32GB thumbdrive
• Computer (small little gray box on top) is a Minis Forum U850
  • CPU: Intel Core i5 10210U
  • RAM: 2 x 8GB DDR4
  • Internal storage: NVME (Kingston 256GB), 2 x Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSDs used as mirrored cache pool
• Storage enclosure (black box below) is a Fantec 4 drive USB 3.1 with the following drives
  • 2 x Seagate Ironwolf 8 TB 7200rpm (one parity, one array)
  • 1 x WD Red 3 TB 7200rpm (array)
  • 1 x Seagate unknown model 2 TB 5400rpm (array)
  • So I currently have a total of 13TB usable array storage, and 1TB SSD cache pool
• I have added a dummy HDMI plug for complete headless operation and to be able to make use of QuickSync within Plex
• Network is 1Gbit/s

 

A screenshot of the Unraid disk setup:

 

 

On the subject of using external USB disk enclosures : I know that this is considered "suboptimal", to use a polite word. However, I have been running this for 3 weeks now with great satisfaction, great performance, and without any issues so far. Help me cross fingers!

 

I am using my little Unraid box mainly for my Plex libraries and the usual *rrs Dockers, as well as some tools like DNS server and Internet connection monitoring.

 

What I like:

• Unraid. It just works, and it's very light/lean. This product and its value proposition should actually be a benchmark for many software companies! I absolutely LOVE it!
• My setup is very quiet and takes very little space, while having plenty enough "oomph" to run several dockers, Plex with a few parallel streams, and so on. Transfer rates from and to Unraid are consistently bottlenecked by the 1 Gbps network I use.
• The fact that it was really plug&play with "consumer grade" components that don't need a lot of planning, building, tinkering. Not that I don't like and appreciate this as well, but for this given use case I wanted something that is quick to build, not overy expensive, and which doesn't completely look like a "big ugly black IT box" like my SO would call it.
• EDIT: I also like the fact that the array disks are spun down when there's no activity, respectively selectively spun up/down. This is good for drive life, power consumption and mainly good for the environment!
• The Unraid communities, here and on Reddit, with so many knowledgeable and kind people who know a sh*tload about everything and were able to guide and help me very well when I started planning my Unraid journey!
• Did I say that it just works??

 

What I dislike:

• During a parity check or rebuild, the disks get relatively hot (49-50°C) because this Fantec case has suboptimal cooling.
• USB C ... I am afraid that one day, shit will happen and I will need to go to a more robust option.
• The Fantec case has too many blinking LEDs, even when all the disks are spun down.
• My urge to continuously enhance my Unraid setup and in the end finish with a "big ugly back IT box" with way too many drives and CPU and RAM horsepower than what I'd ever really need and use.

 

So what do you think? I hope you like my setup, and my enthusiasm for Unraid! And yes, you are definitely allowed to tell me again that external USB enclosures are a bad idea 🙂

 

Best,

 

Alain

Edited October 6, 2021 by AlainF

[Michael_P]

2 hours ago, AlainF said:

And yes, you are definitely allowed to tell me again that external USB enclosures are a bad idea 🙂

 

 

It's a Bad Idea™️  

 

[JonathanM]

4 hours ago, AlainF said:

On the subject of using external USB disk enclosures : I know that this is considered "suboptimal", to use a polite word. However, I have been running this for 3 weeks now with great satisfaction, great performance, and without any issues so far.

What speeds do you get for parity checks?

[AlainF]

13 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

What speeds do you get for parity checks?

The last one clocked in at 137,5 MB/sec.