Best raid Configuration for first time Unraid user.

[nate2404usa]

I am building my system up to move to UNRAID.  It will host my Plex, Audio books, Music Library.  and will also be moving to hosting our own Photo storage server and get off the google.  

My question is what is the best raid setup for this.  I will need to increase size of array drives down the road due to grand kid pictures from the wife and my media collection growing.  I am mostly concerned with files not being corrupted or recovering from bit rot.  I have read that ZFS does this but you can't expand your drives as needed.

Am I understanding this correctly or can it be done, or is there a better RAID solution.

I will be running an offsite backup as well as a raid 1 for the catastrophic failures.

[Geck0]

I think you may find XFS will be more suitable. Bitrot can happen but, in my opinion, its unlikely. 

You haven't provided any info to work with in what your build will look like. However, you're usage is not too dissimilar to mine.

 

Here's my setup:

 

 

Have a look at the images above. Personally, the system may be overkill. You definately don't need 128GB memory. I would go for 64mb max.

Its best if you digest the above and then ask questions. I may move to ZFS for data healing, however I keep good backups of my data. The movies, etc. if I lose them I will be disappointed but I won't sweat it. I've got terabyte external drives to write backups to. Eventually, when I'm not busy, I will build another unRaid for remote backing up to. So, XFS is pretty robust. I've had drives fail and when I've slipped a new drive in, its rebuild the data fine.

 

 

[nate2404usa]

10 hours ago, Geck0 said:

I think you may find XFS will be more suitable. Bitrot can happen but, in my opinion, its unlikely. 

You haven't provided any info to work with in what your build will look like. However, you're usage is not too dissimilar to mine.

 

Here's my setup:

 

 

Have a look at the images above. Personally, the system may be overkill. You definately don't need 128GB memory. I would go for 64mb max.

Its best if you digest the above and then ask questions. I may move to ZFS for data healing, however I keep good backups of my data. The movies, etc. if I lose them I will be disappointed but I won't sweat it. I've got terabyte external drives to write backups to. Eventually, when I'm not busy, I will build another unRaid for remote backing up to. So, XFS is pretty robust. I've had drives fail and when I've slipped a new drive in, its rebuild the data fine.

 

 

Thanks.  It is still a design build in progress.  Currently Have built up with a

Fractal Design Define 7 mid tower (in the max storage configuration).

ASRock Z690 Pro RS MB

Intel Core i5-12600K

64 Gb DDR4

Ordering

6 - 18 TB Sea Gate Exos-20 HDD (for Data)

Can't decide between 

2 - 1 TB NVME or 2 - 2 TB SSD for Cache. 

 

Forgot to mention I want to Keep access to all the family photos and other personal IE tax, medical, scans segregated from Plex and music.

 

I am all about overkill, " Plan for the worst, hope for the best." 

I will be running an offsite Raid 1 Backup on a Qnap.

 

 

 

[Geck0]

Do you need that many drives starting off?

I would go 20tb drives, price difference isn't much. I would go 4 array drives. 1 drive parity and 3 data. Keep a 5th drive precleared and ready to go, as a replacement or an array expansion. Keep the rest of the money for Black Friday.

 

I keep a spare PSU and a spare hdd (already installed and orecleared).

 

I don't keep spare nvme or ssd, owing to being able to keep operating without cache drives. Also, the price gigabyte tends to drop over time for these drive. 

 

64gb memory is the sweet spot. I've got 128gb and I've never cracked 50% usage. 

 

I've got.the Fractal Design Mesh XL. I've water-cooled it but kept the HDD cage (custom setup). I've got room for approx 3 more drives. It's plenty of space. By the time I run out, it'll be time to swap out 14tb drives for what will likely be 25tb.

[Geck0]

I forgot to mention. I use a mirrored pool x2 Ironwolf m.2 for data caching. Single SSD Ironwolf for downloads, Jellyfin media caching and transcoding. 

 

I use a separate 2tb Sabrent Rocket m.2 for VMs. 

 

The m.2 are on the motherboard's  heating. To reach it is a full strip, because of the watercooling and graphics card.