My plans for the server. Need advice

[Vivent]

I currently have:
- m.2 nvme drive: 250gb
- 3,5'' hard drives: 1TB, 2TB, 4TB
- 2,5'' hard drives: 500gb, 300gb
- cpu: i5 6600
- ram: 2x8gb ddr4
- power supply: silentiumpc vero m2 (600W bronze)
- mobo: ausu h110m-k
 

The system above is currently running windows server, but as you can imagine, handling all those different drives is pain in... little toe

First question:
I don't think that using parity drives makes any sense, because I would lose more than a half of my storage space (as the parity drive should be the largest), but I want to add more drives in future (possibly toss out this 4tb, because it's not mine really). So, would it be possible, to add drives to array in future, remove other, and set (change from data) parity drives, all without jangling data, creating backups, and so on? In docs I can see, that all of this is theoretically possible, but is it sane?

Second question:
My current mobo, have some problems regarding connecting disks (need to investigate), so I'm planning on upgrading it to something with more SATA ports. I found used (not bought yet) asus h170-pro, and for me it looks too good to be true. Specification on asus website states, that it is possible to occupy m.2 slot and all 6 SATA ports at the same time, which not many motherboards with this chipset are allowing. Am I missing something? Or it is real?

Third question:
This question is partially connected to the second one. As I'm planning to buy second tier of unraid server license, you can imagine, that I want to expand my storage in future. I know about existence of ahci pcie sata controllers, but they are quite expensive, so I want to know if I'll be able to connect it to my setup? Again, according to specification of the motherboard that I'm planning to buy it should be no problem, but again, maybe I'm missing something (about disabling certain slots/ports in some configurations)? Also, some of them come with CDs, so are they requiring any additional software? If so, would unraid recognize this device without it?

Fourth question:
Any suggestions? About system, server and so on. I can add, that I'm planning to use this to share files in local network, host plex server, have a vm for things like minecraft/terraria servers and use docker for my web related projects.

Joke question:
If you have and idea how to obtain 40USD for free, thath would be great, because I have spare 50$ somewhere for the license, so I would still need to invest 40

Also I just noticed. Adding disks to array will erase them (obviously), but I currently have about 2.6TB of data on all those drives. So I will probably need to add one drive, dump data from other, do it with the second, third, and so on? Or is there a better option (I'm thinking about moving everything to this 4TB drive, create array from the rest, move data to array, and add 4TB to array)

[trurl]

1 hour ago, Vivent said:

I don't think that using parity drives makes any sense, because I would lose more than a half of my storage space

Whether or not you have parity, you must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable.

 

Parity will make it nuch easier to upgrade those small disks in the future though. Since they are so small I suspect they are also old. Are you sure they are healthy? Even though Unraid data disks are independent, every bit of parity plus every bit of all other disks must be reliably read to reliably rebuild a replacement disk.

 

 

[Vivent]

3 hours ago, trurl said:

Whether or not you have parity, you must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable.

About important things, I have even too much copies (I don't even know where are some of them), that's why I'm building this server, too have easier time getting data. But most of the data from that 2.6TB mentioned earlier is easily replacable or even not needed anymore. Probably about 50GB is really important for me.

 

3 hours ago, trurl said:

Are you sure they are healthy?

Crystal Disk Info says, that they are ok, but I do not trust any of the HDDs I own (the youngest one is more than 6 years old).

 

3 hours ago, trurl said:

Even though Unraid data disks are independent

I didn't know that, I was thinking that it works kind of like RAID0 with extra steps, so that's a nice surprise.

 

3 hours ago, trurl said:

every bit of parity plus every bit of all other disks must be reliably read to reliably rebuild a replacement disk

I know, I'm planning on replacing every disk in the span of next 2-3 years.

@Edit
Actually, my biggest concern is this mobo. Will I'll be really able to put there nvme drive and 6 SATA drives? And in future expand it with ahci controller?
 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Vivent
retargeting the topic to the main problem

[Lolight]

On 3/17/2022 at 8:44 PM, Vivent said:

Actually, my biggest concern is this mobo. Will I'll be really able to put there nvme drive and 6 SATA drives? And in future expand it with ahci controller?

According to the MB's manual you won't loose any of the SATA ports when running a NVMe SSD in the m.2 socket