I built a mini-ITX PC a few years ago for Plex and some gaming. And it turns out I do several server type things, so I may as well turn it into a full on NAS. While there is some room in this case for 5 or 6 total drives, the mobo only has 4 SATA ports, and 1 is used by the blu-ray drive. Right now the plan is to add 2 x 12tb drives (1 for parity), and 1 x 1tb SSD (as change RAM from 16 to 32GB), and once everything is running, I’ll add the 500gb m.2 SATA drive as additional cache, or however that works best..

 

I have started a practice server, thanks to some really old hardware my parents no longer use. It’s loud, only has 1 HDD and 2 gigs of DDR 2 ram. But I was excited to get it up and running. In addition, I’m also starting to understand Docker, I’ve had several failures under Windows in the past.

 

So I have some general questions I thought I would put out to see if anyone has any best practices I should follow. Or if there are any flaws in my plan.

 

Filesystem

 

I’m very used to a GUI-os with Finder/WinExplorer. I can follow command line instructions, but that’s about it. How should one interact with with the filesystem like /appdata? For example in order to copy over a Minecraft world + server.prop I had to install MC server on a share. Another example is adding a Windows ISO for a VM. I just changed the default ISO storage path instead. Or should all of those Unraid folders be shares?

 

I noticed there are Docker containers for Handbrake/MakeMKV/MKVToolNix. Is there any advantage to running those as opposed to in a Windows VM? Collecting physical media for Plex is one of the main functions this machine will do.

 

My practice system doesn’t have a cache drive, so I’m curious as to how that should work. Do all the containers/VMs just reside in there? What about Plex metadata/video thumbnails/etc, do they stay in the cache drive? How is this all backed up?

 

Networking

 

I need to figure this out, as I currently use Jitsi in a Hyper-V for work. Right now I have DDNS built in to my Asus router, port 80/443 are open to the Hyper-V, and every 3 months I export the cert into a directory in the Ubuntu Hyper-V. That I understand, but then I hear about reverse proxy, and various apps and I’m not sure works together, especially with the current built in Asus DDNS. I have yet to get Jitsi working on my practice server using the Community App, I have not yet tried SpaceInvaderOne’s guide. I do own a domain as well. I wouldn’t mind learning how to connect other services to the outside, but Jitsi is the important one.

 

Also, learning what the .local domain is, I thought it would be nice to set up more local domains (jellyfin.local, homebridge.local), but rebinding using Adguard or NextDNS don’t allow for adding a port to the ip. So this one seems above my pay grade for now.

 

Backup

 

Currently, my Windows 10 PC + Drobo 3 DAS (media) is backed up to Backblaze personal, and the Drobo 3 is also sync with a Drobo 2 (which is now loud and needs to be retired). My plan is to have a Windows 10 VM sync my Unraid shares with the Drobo 3 (USB) and have all of that be backed up to Backblaze. But since Unraid will also be Arq backups of 2 Mac laptops, I’m getting extra off-sight backup as well. At least I think that will all work that way.

 

Here are my current planned uses (and how it’s going on the practice server):

 

Plex - ✅

Jitsi - in progress

Homebridge - ✅

Minecraft/Bedrock - ✅

AdGuard Home (mostly experimental) - ✅

Windows 10 VM (for MCEBuddy, Gaming, backups) - in progress, potential issues with VNC

 

Like I said, these are just general questions, making sure I’m on the right path. I’ll ask specific ones when I’m on the real hardware. Thanks for reading.

34 minutes ago, TheDaveAbides said:

a GUI-os with Finder/WinExplorer... I had to install MC

mc (Midnight Commander) has always been builtin as long as I have been using Unraid, since v4.7, no need to install.

 

Some prefer Krusader docker for file management.

 

Of course any share can be configured to allow network access.

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

I should've been more specific. The MC I was referring to was Minecraft. I didn't know how to copy files to /appdata if they weren't shared, so instead I made a share called Minecraft and pointed the data to there. I wasn't sure if the default folders should be shared or if there's better ways of accessing them.