OSD - I Need Help


ConnerVT

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Hello.  My name is Conner.  I have OSD – Obsessive Server Disorder.  They say the first step is to admit you have a problem.  Here is my story.

 

It all started innocent enough.  Last year, anticipating a $600 stimulus check, I decided I would build an Unraid server.  I had a handful of unused components from a decommissioned PC – a 1st gen Ryzen, 8GB of DRAM, a motherboard, a small NVMe drive.  I had packed too many 3GB drives in my small daily driver PC, and it would always be powered on, running my Plex server.  Relocating those drives and off-loading that task to a small server seemed to be a reasonable idea at the time.

 

The build went mostly smooth.  I only overshot my budget by a small amount.  An extra fan here, an internal USB header cable there.  The extra money spent to make it clean was worth it to me.

 

I loaded up the media server on the machine.  Then I started thinking, “What else can it do?”  This is where I went down a rabbit hole of trouble.

 

Found a good deal on some 6TB drives.  I bought 3 of them.  Future proofing is good, I felt.  It was nice to see that extra storage space.  The 8GB of DRAM seemed inadequate, as I started installing more Dockers, so added 8GB more.  I’m up to 28 Dockers installed, with 22 running all the time.  At least another half dozen pinned in CA, to try out in the future.

 

I started with an old GT760 to do some hardware transcoding.  But felt it worth upgrading so I could handle NVENC H.265.  A Quadro P400 only costs around $100.  The power supply I had was very old and less than trustworthy, so a new one was ordered.  I found a great deal on a UPS, to prevent those annoying unclean shutdowns from summer thunderstorms. 

 

Looking for an offsite backup solution, I again repurposed those 3TB drives I moved, I took those out of the server, and put them in external USB enclosures, to swap and safely keep at work.  I ended up buying 4 more drives (two 6TB and two 8TB).  The Intel NVMe is small and slow, so now have a 500GB to install as cache in the upcoming weeks.

 

I worry how I’m affecting my family.  I have already corrupted my son.  He really enjoys being able to request and add media through one of the Dockers, and stream to his (or his girlfriend’s) apartment.  The domain name I purchased makes it easier for him, as well as allows me to get around the DNS firewall at work, to access the server.

 

My wife rolls her eyes when another package arrives, with more of my “toys”.  But I feel she may be enabling me.  I may need to add the Amazon driver to this year’s Christmas list.

 

I was thinking that Limetech may consider creating a sub-forum, where folks like us can help each other through our OSD issues.  But I decided that may not be the best idea – it would be like holding an AA meeting down at the local pub.

 

Thank you for letting me share my story.

 

 

Edited by ConnerVT
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  • 1 year later...

Hi, I'm Tim and I also have OSD.  I managed to convince some family members to host a couple of my servers.  The unRAID01 and unRAID02 are off-site.  The 01, 02, and 03 servers all synchronize between each other so each are duplicates (triplicates) of one another.  Everything works pretty good but I constantly have to tweak things and I can't leave things alone.

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