Hi All

I currently run a home server which is largely used for media, with some general storage etc. Its currently on an HP microserver running a very old version of freenas.

Its currently 4 HDDs of various sizes, and there is an SMB share for each drive. I havent "pooled" the drives, ive just left them as individual drives, each shared separately. This is partly because i didnt need to pool them as Kodi can except various locations for sources anyway, and also, i back these up to a bunch of external drives. if i had one big storage pool, i'd need one big pool for backup too (unless i'm missing something?)

 

So can i use unraid in this way? with separate drives and separate shares, so i can back these up to separate drives? or is there a better way to handle backups? or is the whole idea of Unraid to have one large storage pool?

 

I was going to run without a parity drive, since its largely media, and its backed up.... to expand on this a bit, 2 of the four HDDs just have media on them, the data never changes, and the backup of those drives exists. The third drive gets updated with new media being added, and the forth drive is more general storage. 

 

I'm going to build a new system. Probably based on an ASROCK J5040 motherboard. i have some old HDDs i can use for testing, then once i'm happy, i'll move the drives across to the new system and copy all the data on from the backups. I might renew a drive or two while i'm at it, i havent decided yet.

 

I want the system to do the following:

• Ideally have the separate shares on separate drives as it is at the moment, unless someone can suggest another way to handle the backups
• Run Plex server including DLNA. I dont use plex server much for video, but it runs a DLNA server for my media streamer. the J5040 should (if i understand correctly) handle hardware transcoding on unraid anyway, which might prove useful in the future.
• Be easy to setup and maintain
• Be reliable
• Run off a USB flash drive, the proposed motherboard only has 4 sata connectors that i'd like to use for storage. it does have a PCIe slot which i could use to add more sata ports if need be.

 

While i could do this in windows, i dont want to, as updates etc are a faff. I dont "know" linux, so i'd need a VERY detailed guide on how to set it up on a linux distro, so something like this seems ideal. Freenas has been great, as i set it up a decade ago and have barely touched it since, except for swapping the odd drive for a bigger one.

 

Thanks

 

Hey champ,

 

Firstly, I hope all is well in your world. I came over to Unraid after using TrueNAS for about 6 years and honestly, I haven't looked back the first time. I think the Unraid GUI experience is so much better than the time I spent on TrueNAS just because everything is all in one place, neatly. When I got started in HomeLabs, I wasn't (and still ain't) the smartest when it came to Jails and Docker containers, but the way Unraid implements Dockers is so simply and noob friendly to people like me.

When I switched to Unraid, my problem was EXACTLY yours. I had a bunch of different drives, all with their own shares. I was doing exactly how you are doing with backing up as well, because it was easier to manage to me at the time. Unfortunately, out of the box in Unraid you can't necessarily have each drive have its own share under the standard "Array". But what you could do is download an App within Unraid called "Unassigned Devices Plugin" and then from there be able to assign each drive its own individual share. Keep in mind here that these shares WILL NOT be part of the main array, so they will not have parity.. but atleast this way you could assign each drive its own share like you are currently doing.

 

The ideal of Unraid is to have one big pool (Array). But with Unassigned Devices Plugin, anything is possible. That's another reason I haven't looked back since switching from TrueNAS, is simply all of the useful Applications you can install on your server that are so extremely helpful and user friendly. Plus, Unraid forums are by far the most helpful/friendly place on the internet when it comes to having some type of issue. Another big thing for me when it came to switching to Unraid is drive replacement. Replacing a drive within Unraid is literally painless. The overall experience within Unraid is just alot easier for me to understand as compared to TrueNAS.

 

If you do end up switching to the Darkside and putting all your data on one big pool (Array), an easy way I manage my backups is having a "!Backups" folder within the Share that ALL of my data is written to before being copied to the main server. I let this folder build until its about 7.5TB (I use 8TB Backup Drives), and then back it up. I understand this is probably tedious and sometimes is hard to keep up with, but also I believe there are several Apps that could help you as far as automatically syncing newly written data.

 

I host a local Jellyfin server and can say Unraid has been the best experience for me thus far. In terms of both reliability and user friendliness. I hope this sheds some light for you and answers at least one or two of your questions. Sorry if this was confusing, sometimes I do ramble on.

 

Come to the Darkside, We have candy.

Wishing you the best,

-Darrell

 

Edited July 19, 20232 yr by DirtyDarrell

Hi Darrell

 

Thanks for your help. Having thought a bit more about the backups. for media. so far, i fill the drive with media, once its full up, i then move onto the next. I could easily do this in folders. For example, "Movies 1" can be, say 5TB big, this can be backed up onto the 5TB backup drive. then i can create a new folder "Movies 2" i can fill this until its big enough to fill another backup drive, then create "movies 3" etc. Kodi/plex etc doesnt care.

 

I have an Ad-Hoc approach to backups anyway. Its only Media, so only inconvenient if i lose it, not the end of the world. so i just power on the USB drives, and run a robocopy batch file. I can still do this with folders on the NAS, so i dont think it will be a problem.

 

Is there much to be gained from an SSD cache when not using a parity drive? The SSD would be SATA drive, if i go with the motherboard i have in mind.

 

Thanks again.