Questions before switching to unRAID Pro from GreyHole

[fishy]

Hello everyone, I'm currently considering switching my backup machine from Debian w/ GreyHole to unRAID (Pro license). While I'm preparing everything for the trial period, some questions popped up and I hope to get some clarification beforehand.

I have an HP ProDesk Mini USFF PC with four 8TB USB HDDs I want to use as a backup server. The system is usually used as a media PC, boots from the NVMe SSD and is connected to a TV.

 

1. As described above, the system wouldn't be exclusively used for unRAID. As unRAID boots from USB, I assume I can shutdown the server, unplug the unRAID USB, leave the USB HDDs unpowered and boot another OS from the internal NVMe SSD. I'd boot to unRAID maybe once a month to run my backups. Could this lead to any issues along the way, I'm not seeing?
2. Can data be recovered from the drives without additional software? For example, can I unplug one drive and access the data stored on that disk on a different Linux system?
3. I have a couple of bash and python3 scripts, also relying on pip3 packages, that aid me with my backup process. Can I install python3/pip3 packages and run the scripts on the unRAID server? If so, is there a way to check the software repository, which packages area available?
   1. If this is not possible on the unRAID server itself. I assume I could run a VM on the unRAID server, which then could install/run bash/python3/pip and access the backup disks. The VM would be stored on an additional SATA SSD attached internally. Is this assumption correct?
4. Is it possible to attach an additional USB HDD to the unRAID server and copy data from that drive to a NAS on the same network? Should this also rather be done with a VM running on the unRAID server?
5. As the unRAID license is paired with the USB flash drive, I could move the USB HDDs and the unRAID USB from the system (from the HP ProDesk mini) to another computer in the future, correct?

 

Thank you for your time!

[JorgeB]

1. It's fine

2. Yes

3. Don't know, someone else should be able to answer

4. Yes, as long as it's formatted with a filesystem support by the UD plugin

5. Yes

 

P.S. USB drives are not recommend for array/pool usage, but they can be used.

[fishy]

16 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

1. It's fine

2. Yes

3. Don't know, someone else should be able to answer

4. Yes, as long as it's formatted with a filesystem support by the UD plugin

5. Yes

 

P.S. USB drives are not recommend for array/pool usage, but they can be used.

 

Fantastic, thank you very much for your help!

 

Are USB drives not recommended, due to the slow access times and read/write speeds, or are there possible issues in terms of file integrity?

[JorgeB]

The main issue is that USB devices can be prone to disconnects and they are usually also not the best at error handling, but this is a general recommendation, some USB bridges work well enough, though performance is usually also not as good, not the max transfer rates, assuming USB 3.x, but the IOPS and latency.

[tjb_altf4]

A3.  Install nerdpack plugin, which allows you to install packages through the GUI, with User Scripts plugin being a nice frontend for running scripts on a schedule.

 

Alternatively you could look at running the scripts through a python based docker.

VM is also possible, normally you would just create a vdisk for it to run on, but passing a whole disk is also possible.

[fishy]

Thank you both for the help!