Please excuse my ignorance but if I am the only person who would access my server directly (not an app hosted on the server) what is the benefit of creating another user/ not just logging in with the Root user every time 

Are you talking about the GUI or the data files that you have stored on the Array?

Either really. I am the only person who would access either. I have some some apps like Plex that the family accesses but otherwise it's all me. 

Unraid only supports one admin (root) user for administration of the system.

 

For shares, you would do it for better security.  It's recommended to use read-only shares where you can and create separate users having different access levels.  If any of your devices are compromised, your SMB shares are exposed and not having full rights everywhere can reduce the damage from the attack.

Edited October 27, 20232 yr by dboonthego

In fact, 'root' is not permitted (for security reasons!) to access SMB shares.   (Understand that most OS's want Superuser accounts to be used only for the actual administration of the computer.  Day-to-day operations (web browsing, word processing, etc.)  should be done by using an User account which has more limited privileges. Many Linux distributions have the sudo command command to do things that require Superuser privileges and you have to provide Superuser credentials before they will be performed.  Unraid is one distribution which does not do this.. )  If you are currently accessing your SMB shares without logging into your Unraid server, you are probably using a 'Guest' account (no login required) and have the Security access mode set to 'Public'.

 

Windows 10 & 11 will try to block client computers from having 'Guest' account access.  For more details, see here:

 

         https://forums.unraid.net/topic/110580-security-is-not-a-dirty-word-unraid-windows-10-smb-setup/