Some beginner questions.

[alarsen77]

I just aquired a new server (Dell T440) I am looking to set it up at home for Plex, NAS, and homelab purposes. I have it running with Windows Server 2022 currently and moved my windows storage spaces pool from my desktop to the server. However I want to set something up that is more geared towards storage and plex, but will still allow me to play with things in a VM like windows server 2022.

 

Server Specs: 

2 x Intel Xeon Silver 4208

32gb of ram

3 x 8tb Seagate Ironwolfs

1 x 1tb Seagate Exos

 

I just downloaded TrueNAS Scale on a separate computer to see what it's like and I only got about 15-20 minutes into it and I am already frustrated with figuring out share permissions so I can write to all the folders within a share. I could get it working and then it would just break again. So this is already a frustration. I also couldn't figure out how to easily migrate my plex metadata from my windows based plex server to the TrueNAS based plex server so I still have my playlists, continue watching and all of the other metadata changes I have made. 

 

I am hoping that Unraid might solve a lot of these issues. Some of the questions I have are: 

 

1. What USB flash drive is recommended? I have a couple Samsung Bar's that are 128gb, they are not new though. I could buy a new one and start fresh, or do I use something I have for the trial and then if I decide to buy it can I move to a different USB flash drive? 

 

2. At what point does the 30 day trial start is it from the time that I create the USB boot drive or is from the time I boot it up and start an array? 

 

3. I like a lot of what ZFS has to offer as a file system on TrueNAS, however I don't love the limitations for expansion. Would BTRFS be a good compromise between XFS and ZFS? 

 

4. If I decide to start with XFS or BTRFS can I convert a pool to ZFS in unraid later without data loss? 

 

5. Is ZFS support built right into the GUI now? 

 

6. Can I directly connect an external USB hdd that I have my plex media backed up on to the server and not have it be part of an array just to transfer my data to my array? Also while doing this can I have plex point to it as a source of library data so that I can use plex while the transfer is going? Or would it be easier to leave plex running on my spare PC with that external as it's library source and then use a network share from Unraid on that PC and transfer the data to that share? I know that might be slower but also might be cleaner? 

 

7. How well do things like Windows and Windows Server run in a VM on Unraid? 

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by long-term-lure1429

[ConnerVT]

I'll only offer input on what I know.  I haven't had enough hands on time to offer answers into ZFS.

 

6 hours ago, alarsen77 said:

1. What USB flash drive is recommended? I have a couple Samsung Bar's that are 128gb, they are not new though. I could buy a new one and start fresh, or do I use something I have for the trial and then if I decide to buy it can I move to a different USB flash drive? 

 

The Unraid boot drive doesn't need to be anywhere this size.  Probably the sweet spot is around 8-16GB.  The whole OS fits in about 1GB.  When upgrading, the upgrade process copies most of that to a folder on the flash drive, so now you are about 2GB.  Throw in several docker templates and such, you haven't even come near to 8GB, no less 126GB.

 

At boot, the OS and needed configuration is loaded into memory, where all of the OS will run from (with very little ever accessed to/from the flash).  My recommendation for a flash drive is to grab a small capacity (8-16GB) drive at your nearby chain drug store (or similar).  Several reasons for this:

• No need for large drive - Unraid drives typically are formatted with vFAT.  Larger capacities need you to play partition games.
• Small capacity = older technology node memory - Tend to not be as fragile to heat/stress (I work in semiconductor manufacturing.  Trust me on this one)
• Less likely to be counterfeit - Lately there has been a number of counterfeit Flash drives flooding the market.  Unraid requires the flash have a unique GUID programmed in them, something the major companies always do but counterfeiters usually don't (more work cost money).

 

7 hours ago, alarsen77 said:

2. At what point does the 30 day trial start is it from the time that I create the USB boot drive or is from the time I boot it up and start an array? 

 

I'm not 100% sure, but I will go with when you create the drive.

 

7 hours ago, alarsen77 said:

4. If I decide to start with XFS or BTRFS can I convert a pool to ZFS in unraid later without data loss? 

 

When you change the file system, the drive needs to be formatted to that new file system.  So no, you will need to move all of the data off the drive before converting.

 

7 hours ago, alarsen77 said:

6. Can I directly connect an external USB hdd that I have my plex media backed up on to the server and not have it be part of an array just to transfer my data to my array? Also while doing this can I have plex point to it as a source of library data so that I can use plex while the transfer is going? Or would it be easier to leave plex running on my spare PC with that external as it's library source and then use a network share from Unraid on that PC and transfer the data to that share?

 

Yes to all three, with different pain points.  How you do it affects how long it takes to transfer data.

 

You can connect an external USB (or even attach the drive to a spare SATA port) and access the data with the Unassigned Devices (UD) plugin.  UD can read most all file systems, so great for moving data from Windows to XFS (or whatever).  When many TB are involved, this is usually the fastest way to transfer data.  Some folks leave parity off until they transfer data, others use Turbo Write (all disks spinning/reading all the time) for the fastest transfer speeds.  Transferring over your network (and I'll assume Samba) will limit your speed some.

 

You can play your media files from wherever you are copying from (after setting Plex/Plex docker to point to those sources), but that will also impact your transfer speeds, as the disk will be thrashing around, trying to read data for the stream and the disk copy.

 

7 hours ago, alarsen77 said:

7. How well do things like Windows and Windows Server run in a VM on Unraid? 

 

Many folks run Windows VMs (among others) in Unraid.  Like most VM platforms, a little bit of a learning curve, but all of the parts are there.  I just recently spun up a Win 11 VM, and have had HASSIO running for some time.

 

Hope this helps answer some of your questions.

 

[alarsen77]

Thank you that does help answer a lot of my questions. As far as the 128gb drive being overkill. I understand that, but it is very hard to find drives much smaller than that, atleast in the Samsung Bar which seems to be a recommended drive to use. 

[alarsen77]

I decided to start a trial. I have gone through the setup. 

 

I have a question though. If I wanted to use my 3 8tb drives in a ZFS pool how do I do that? I see create pool and can add the drives but then they aren't in the array and the array can't be started. Is there a way to have a purely ZFS setup without having to have a drive in the array? Or can I add the array drives to a ZFS pool? 

[JorgeB]

For now you need at least one data device assigned to the array, an old flash drive will do.

[alarsen77]

So you said for now you need atleast one data device assigned to the array. Does that mean that might go away eventually? 

 

Also since I formatted my disks using ZFS, can I remove them from the array and make them part of a ZFS pool without losing data? I guess the only exception to that would be the parity drive would have to format as ZFS, but would the data on the other 2 disks remain and be distributed properly as part of the pool creation? Or would I lose that data and have to transfer it back? 

[itimpi]

2 minutes ago, alarsen77 said:

Does that mean that might go away eventually? 

This is meant to be happening as part of the Unraid 6.13 release.

3 minutes ago, alarsen77 said:

Also since I formatted my disks using ZFS, can I remove them from the array and make them part of a ZFS pool without losing data? I guess the only exception to that would be the parity drive would have to format as ZFS, but would the data on the other 2 disks remain and be distributed properly as part of the pool creation? Or would I lose that data and have to transfer it back?

 

I am not a ZFS expert but I think it is unlikely as when using ZFS in the main array each drive is formatted as a single drive ZFS file system.  I would love to be proved wrong

 

[JorgeB]

26 minutes ago, itimpi said:

I am not a ZFS expert but I think it is unlikely

Correct, you'd need to create a new pool.

[alarsen77]

Thanks for all the info this is helpful. I need to think about my drive strategy for this server and how I best want to go about it. I like a lot of the features for data protection and speeds with ZFS pools, but the flexibility of the Unraid array is also very nice. I also don't know that a 3 drive raidz1 pool makes much sense and might want to wait until I have more drives and then convert to a raidz2 pool with more disks. 

[alarsen77]

So another thing I have a question about. I setup my array with my 3 x 8tb drives 2 for data and one for parity. I also installed dynamix file manager. I mounted my usb drive that had my plex media files on it, and initialized a transfer. It started out at 125-200 MB/s and then slowed to 10-15 MB/s the next day. It is about 6 tb of data. So I stopped the transfer. Read something about removing the parity drive during the transfer so I did that. Started the transfer again. It was going much faster but then seemed to slow again. 

 

The weird thing I noticed is when I was transferring with the partiy drive as part of the array but the parity check paused. The data was being put on both disk 1 and disk 2 fairly evenly. Since removing the partiy drive and starting the transfer again. It appears to be filling up one drive first and not distributing evenly. I also notice that it seems to be taking up more space on the Unraid array than the USB drive. I looked to see if there were duplicate files but I didn't see any. Not sure if there is an easy way to check for this? 

 

Basically what is the best way I have to check the number of files and size of the plex folder on my USB drive and compare it to the number of files and size on the array? 

 

It seems that the transfer has created duplicates of files but I can't find them? 

[JorgeB]

If you're transferring to a user share don't see how there could be duplicates, but you can share it over SMB and then with Windows explorer right click on the folder(s) and click properties to show how many folders/files are inside.

[alarsen77]

3 hours ago, JorgeB said:

If you're transferring to a user share don't see how there could be duplicates, but you can share it over SMB and then with Windows explorer right click on the folder(s) and click properties to show how many folders/files are inside.

I actually did that last night and did notice that the number of files and folders were the same but the size of a couple folders were larger on the Unraid array then they were on the external drive while others are the same size. 

[alarsen77]

It looks like the size shows differently in windows explorer than it does when clicking calculate in unraid. 

 

 

If I am seeing this correcty it looks like Unraid reports the claimed TB space of the drive not the "actual" like windows, becuse it says 5.31 TB on Unraid and I see that matches the amount of bytes in windows. But maybe I am wrong? 

[itimpi]

7 minutes ago, alarsen77 said:

If I am seeing this correcty it looks like Unraid reports the claimed TB space of the drive not the "actual" like windows, becuse it says 5.31 TB on Unraid and I see that matches the amount of bytes in windows. But maybe I am wrong? 

 

There are two possible things coming into play.   One is the difference between decimal GB and GiB (binary v Decimal), and the other is space occupied rather than size of the data in the files.

[JorgeB]

Windows uses TiB, 4.83TiB=5.31TB

[alarsen77]

Yeah I figured that out as I was posting it. That would be why my drives show at 7.9TB of free space in Unraid but were showing as 7.1TB in windows. It is just something I have to get used to. Thanks for bearing with my learning and helping me out. New to Unraid, and linux in general. 

[alarsen77]

I also wanted to setup a zfs cache pool on my server. Right now I don't have any internal SSD's available but I do have 2 external Sandisk NVME SSD's. Can I use those as a cache pool until I get internal SSD's setup on the server? Or is it not recommended to use USB SSD's as a cache pool? 

[JorgeB]

17 minutes ago, alarsen77 said:

Or is it not recommended to use USB SSD's as a cache pool? 

USB Is not recommended for array or cache devices, they are prone to disconnects and bad at error handling in general, but you can use them if you want.