February 18, 20224 yr Hello there, I'm new to Unraid but I've watched some tutorial videos about it. Before buying anything I would like to have your advices to not make any misstake. I have a budget of 800-900€ for the components parts and 1000€ for HDD. I want to keep that NAS for years and be able to access it from home and outside. I don't want a big tower (no ATX) and not a too small also (no mini-ATX), something like a normal QNAP 4bays for example or a little bit bigger but not much. I would like to do these things : Host my iPhone library (500+gb of Photos/VIdeos) and manage these easily by creating album, share with family.. (Nextcloud ?) Plex 4K or minimum 1080p with 3 simultaneous users. (or Jellyfin ?) Host my personal website (made by Wordpress ?) Save all my files and be able to work on project directly from my NAS on Unreal Engine. Save all my games (Steam library etc..) on NAS and play from my personal laptop. 2 VM Windows 10 with GPU Passthrough for gaming purpose (1080p 60FPS) (Parsec ?) Host game servers like Project Zomboid etc.. (Pterodactyle ?) Play Arcade Games (GBA, PS1, PSP, NES etc..) (Recalbox ?) I want at least these things to work at the same time with no lags : PLEX 1 user, 1 VM, running personal website and game servers. For that I planned the following builds : CPU : Ryzen 5 5600X GPU : 1660 Super or XFX SWFT 210 Motherboard B450 Case : Still thinking about it but I want something supporting Micro ATX. RAM : 1x 32Gb DDR4 upgradable to 64Gb later Power supply 500W ?????? 1 SSD M.2 1To for cache 5Ghz or 10Ghz internet if possible 4 HDD Bays (Ironwolf Pro 4x8To or 4x6To) I want to save safely my data just in case 1 drive crash and be able to recover it. I need at least 15To of storage and 20To would be cool. What's your thought ? Should I change some things ? Will I be able to run all of this with this config ? Thank you in advance for your help, have a nice day. Edited February 21, 20224 yr by BananeBleue
February 24, 20224 yr Author Well as I see no replies for 150+ views I guess you agree with the build ?
February 24, 20224 yr On 2/18/2022 at 2:31 PM, BananeBleue said: I want to save safely my data just in case 1 drive crash and be able to recover it. Parity does provide redundancy and allows you to rebuild a failed drive, but it is NOT a substitute for backup.
February 25, 20224 yr On 2/19/2022 at 2:31 AM, BananeBleue said: Power supply 500W ?????? 4 HDD Bays (Ironwolf Pro 4x8To or 4x6To) I want to save safely my data just in case 1 drive crash and be able to recover it. I need at least 15To of storage and 20To would be cool. Get the best quality PSU that fits your budget. Why multiple smallish hard drives? Every hard drive is a potential failure point - the fewer, the better.
February 25, 20224 yr Author 13 hours ago, trurl said: Parity does provide redundancy and allows you to rebuild a failed drive, but it is NOT a substitute for backup. Well if I have 4 disks and only 1 die would I be able to recover it anyway ? 5 hours ago, Lolight said: Get the best quality PSU that fits your budget. Why multiple smallish hard drives? Every hard drive is a potential failure point - the fewer, the better. I mean i'm not sure 500W is enough, maybe 600W would be better but I don't want my NAS to consume too much electricity. Before making my NAS DIY I planned to buy 4 hard drives for RAID 5 but as I want to use Unraid now I thought it was the best idea anyway. Because I have buy only 1 14tb hard drives for example if it fails I don't have any others hard drive to recover it ..
February 25, 20224 yr 5 hours ago, BananeBleue said: Well if I have 4 disks and only 1 die would I be able to recover it anyway ? Plenty of ways to lose data that are much more common than a failed disk.
February 25, 20224 yr Author 3 hours ago, trurl said: Plenty of ways to lose data that are much more common than a failed disk. Which are these ways ? Sorry for being a noobie, just want to be aware of everything before making misstakes
February 25, 20224 yr 14 minutes ago, BananeBleue said: Which are these ways ? Sorry for being a noobie, just want to be aware of everything before making misstakes To name a few: opening your server up in a non-secure way to access from the Internet mixing user and disk shares in file copy operations misconfigured docker containers or plugins use shares improperly misconfigured rsync commands for data copying/backup file system corruption due to unprotected power failures (and other causes)
February 25, 20224 yr Author 22 minutes ago, Hoopster said: To name a few: opening your server up in a non-secure way to access from the Internet mixing user and disk shares in file copy operations misconfigured docker containers or plugins use shares improperly misconfigured rsync commands for data copying/backup file system corruption due to unprotected power failures (and other causes) 1. I will use Wireguard, is that good ? 5. Can I solve this with an inverter ? Other things sounds scary .. How to prevent these ? I see many of you have a main NAS and backup NAS, is there any tutorial about how to config this ? I'm actually following "Superboki" channel for my upcoming config but I don't think he's talking about that.
February 25, 20224 yr 5 minutes ago, BananeBleue said: 1. I will use Wireguard, is that good ? Yes. WireGuard is good. What you don't want to do is port forward port 22, 23, etc., put the server in the router DMZ, and other dangerous ways of accessing the server remotely. 6 minutes ago, BananeBleue said: 5. Can I solve this with an inverter ? Having your server connected to a UPS will prevent this. Don't copy files between users shares (/mnt/user/{name of share} and /mnt/disk1 for example. They may actually be referring to the same location and result in a 0 byte file as it attempt to copy over itself. Be careful with how you setup docker containers and plugins. If you are unsure on the correct paths, ask in the support thread for that docker container or plugin. Always test any rsync commands on test data (that it does not matter if you delete) before implementing it for real. This video about LuckyBackup use to backup between unRAID servers may be useful to you. I use rsync and User Scripts plugin to backup between two unRAID servers.
February 25, 20224 yr Author 30 minutes ago, Hoopster said: Yes. WireGuard is good. What you don't want to do is port forward port 22, 23, etc., put the server in the router DMZ, and other dangerous ways of accessing the server remotely. Having your server connected to a UPS will prevent this. Don't copy files between users shares (/mnt/user/{name of share} and /mnt/disk1 for example. They may actually be referring to the same location and result in a 0 byte file as it attempt to copy over itself. Be careful with how you setup docker containers and plugins. If you are unsure on the correct paths, ask in the support thread for that docker container or plugin. Always test any rsync commands on test data (that it does not matter if you delete) before implementing it for real. This video about LuckyBackup use to backup between unRAID servers may be useful to you. I use rsync and User Scripts plugin to backup between two unRAID servers. Thank you really much for the advice, I will check the video. If I don't have 2 unRAID servers could I just buy 2 HDD : 1 for data 1 for parity to have a "backup" or is that too dangerous ? Also, I found this on Amazon : https://www.amazon.fr/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-Disque-externe/dp/B0889D848K Is that interesting to take the HDD inside ? 240€ for 14To is pretty nice I guess and many comments says they have good surprise inside that kind of thing, what do you think ?
February 25, 20224 yr 1 minute ago, BananeBleue said: 1 for data 1 for parity to have a "backup" You don't need to backup the parity drive. There are no actual files on it. It is just a bucket of bits that are calculations of all the bits on the data disks. You could use the Unassigned Devices plugin and modify the sample backup script included in the first post. I also did this and when I plug in a 14TB external USB drive it automatically starts backing up new/modified files from the three shares I told it to backup.
February 25, 20224 yr Author 8 minutes ago, Hoopster said: You don't need to backup the parity drive. There are no actual files on it. It is just a bucket of bits that are calculations of all the bits on the data disks. You could use the Unassigned Devices plugin and modify the sample backup script included in the first post. I also did this and when I plug in a 14TB external USB drive it automatically starts backing up new/modified files from the three shares I told it to backup. So basically I should buy 2 of these external USB drive, use 1 for my data and 1 for backup. Should I have the same storage on both, I mean 2x18To so I have at least 18Tb of data that are secure because of the backup on the second one ? Or can I have 18Tb of data and 4Tb of backup to recover what I need ?
February 25, 20224 yr 14 minutes ago, BananeBleue said: So basically I should buy 2 of these external USB drive, use 1 for my data and 1 for backup. Should I have the same storage on both, I mean 2x18To so I have at least 18Tb of data that are secure because of the backup on the second one ? Or can I have 18Tb of data and 4Tb of backup to recover what I need ? What do you mean "1 for my data and 1 for backup"? Isn't your data going to be on your Unraid server? Or are you planning to shuck one (or both) drives and install internally? How can 4TB recover 18TB?
February 25, 20224 yr Author 25 minutes ago, trurl said: What do you mean "1 for my data and 1 for backup"? Isn't your data going to be on your Unraid server? Or are you planning to shuck one (or both) drives and install internally? How can 4TB recover 18TB? Yeah it is going to be on my Unraid server but I am planning to (if that’s a good idea) buy these 2 externals drives and install them internally in my Unraid server. Yeah that was a stupid question I think I need 2x18TB. So I can use one for my data and another one to backup these datas but both would be installed internally in my server.
February 25, 20224 yr The normal way would be to have parity and one or more data drives, with a backup external to your server. You don't have to backup everything, but you must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable. You get to decide what that is.
February 25, 20224 yr Author So basically I can do the following : 2x18TB, 1 for parity and 1 for my datas inside. 1 hard drive outside with important stuff and it would be safe. Is it good deal to buy these external « cases » (Amazon link I shared) and take the hard drives inside of it to make it internal drives?
February 25, 20224 yr 20 minutes ago, BananeBleue said: So basically I can do the following : 2x18TB, 1 for parity and 1 for my datas inside. 1 hard drive outside with important stuff and it would be safe. Yes. In my system I have 1 parity drive and 4 data drives in the server. I use the external 14TB USB drive to back up important data from three shares on my unRAID array. If you use the Unassigned Devices plugin and the sample script, when you plug in the external USB drive to the server, it will automatically mount and start backing up files. It will tell you when it is done.
February 25, 20224 yr Author 8 minutes ago, Hoopster said: Yes. In my system I have 1 parity drive and 4 data drives in the server. I use the external 14TB USB drive to back up important data from three shares on my unRAID array. If you use the Unassigned Devices plugin and the sample script, when you plug in the external USB drive to the server, it will automatically mount and start backing up files. It will tell you when it is done. Why 4 data drives and not only 1 bigger ? This plugin sounds nice I will take a closer look at it.
February 25, 20224 yr 29 minutes ago, BananeBleue said: Is it good deal to buy these external « cases » (Amazon link I shared) and take the hard drives inside of it to make it internal drives? I have removed several (at least 6) drives from external enclosures to put in unRAID servers. You can often get the drives at a lower price this way than by buying them as bare drives. Many people shuck external drives for use in unRAID and other NAS servers. There are even Reddit discussions dedicated to what drives are in external enclosures and which are the best deals.
February 25, 20224 yr 1 minute ago, BananeBleue said: Why 4 data drives and not only 1 bigger ? You can have one or many data drives. It is all personal preference. 1 data drive = fewer points of failure >1 data drives = lose less data (hopefully backed up) if a data disk fails and parity has been compromised I have 4 8TB data drives because I bought a bunch of them back when I decided to reduce the number of drives from many 3TB drives to fewer 8TB drives. I have just continued to add 8TB drives as I expanded storage.
February 25, 20224 yr Author 13 minutes ago, Hoopster said: You can have one or many data drives. It is all personal preference. 1 data drive = fewer points of failure >1 data drives = lose less data (hopefully backed up) if a data disk fails and parity has been compromised I have 4 8TB data drives because I bought a bunch of them back when I decided to reduce the number of drives from many 3TB drives to fewer 8TB drives. I have just continued to add 8TB drives as I expanded storage. So it’s safer to have 2x8TB data drives and 2x8TB parity than 1x18TB data drives and 1x18TB parity but price a little bit more expensive ? 17 minutes ago, Hoopster said: I have removed several (at least 6) drives from external enclosures to put in unRAID servers. You can often get the drives at a lower price this way than by buying them as bare drives. Many people shuck external drives for use in unRAID and other NAS servers. There are even Reddit discussions dedicated to what drives are in external enclosures and which are the best deals. I will take a look at it thanks.
February 25, 20224 yr 7 minutes ago, BananeBleue said: So it’s safer to have 2x8TB data drives and 2x8TB parity than 1x18TB data drives and 1x18TB parity but price a little bit more expensive ? Not necessarily. Usually, the recommendation (nothing official) is that you should consider more than one parity drive when you get to 8 or more data drives. Many unRAID users are running a 1 parity and 1 data drive array. At some point, most expand beyond the needs of 1 data disk and start adding more. The biggest consideration is your risk tolerance. What can you stand to lose? Personally, I have been running unRAID for 10 years and I have never had a single disk failure. Of course, I have backups to another unRAID server, an external backup drive and to the cloud. I can recover from a catastrophic failure and 1 parity drive for 4 -8 data drives is a level of risk that I can tolerate.
February 25, 20224 yr Author 23 minutes ago, Hoopster said: Not necessarily. Usually, the recommendation (nothing official) is that you should consider more than one parity drive when you get to 8 or more data drives. Many unRAID users are running a 1 parity and 1 data drive array. At some point, most expand beyond the needs of 1 data disk and start adding more. The biggest consideration is your risk tolerance. What can you stand to lose? Personally, I have been running unRAID for 10 years and I have never had a single disk failure. Of course, I have backups to another unRAID server, an external backup drive and to the cloud. I can recover from a catastrophic failure and 1 parity drive for 4 -8 data drives is a level of risk that I can tolerate. Well I think I will do this, I will see later if I need more hard drives and save on an external drive some backup from time to time just in case, thank you really much for the advices
February 25, 20224 yr Author What about the specs of my config what do you guys think ? Is that okay for the tasks I won’t to do or maybe too overpowered or both enough ? What’s your thought about this ?
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