hey so im looking into using unraid but i have some questions about it. do the drives being used have to be new. i have hdds with stuff on them still and i dont have anywhere to put them. can i just use them without formatting them? can someone help me please!!

The drives can be used, but they DO have to be partitioned and formatted by Unraid so the existing content is lost when this happens.

 

you will need at least one drive that can be emptied when added to the Unraid array.   You could then copy the contents of the other drives one at a time to the Unraid array, and having done so add that drive to the array to add it as extra space,

One approach would be to look at how much data you have on those drives.  If the max data space (on any single drive) used is less than (say) 3TB, buy two 8TB drives.  Other wise buy two drives that are approximately twice the size of the max data on any of the current drives.  Setup your Unraid server. Assign one drive as Parity and one as a data drive.  Now copy the data to the server.  When you have emptied a drive (or two or three drives as the case my be), add them to the array.  Repeat until all data and drives are on the server.

 

Reasoning:  This will allow for easy storage space expansion of the server by replacing small drives on the array with 8TB ones as the need arises. (Any Drive failure on the array should always be the same size as the parity drive!) Otherwise, you will always be behind the curve in being able to increase storage space.  Plus it is also difficult to get computer case with large number of drive bays these days. 

 

If more space is required in say 5 years from now, you can get a new parity drive.  By that time, 20TB drives may cost with what 8TB drives do now...

Edited August 14, 20223 yr by Frank1940
Clarification...