I'm wondering if, for example, in the event of a defect in the Unraid system or, for example, my unexpected death, my wife (who knows nothing about UNRAID) can simply take the hard drives and read them on a normal Windows PC? For me, it would be an important factor in data backup for family photos, important data, etc.!!! I don't think it will work, right?

For xfs, its not plug and play on windows, as it doesnt have the drivers for it, but it will work with linux. btrfs is the same story, but im not absolutely sure about the linux part, there might be distros that dont, who knows

(and thats just for the single drives from the array, pools are a completely different story)

Edited November 22, 20241 yr by Mainfrezzer

What I have done for information that is irreplaceable (Photos, Family Videos, Financial Records, etc.) is to copy them onto a standard 2.5" USB hard drive every other month.  I then put that HD in my safety deposit box.  (I have two of them and make a swap when I go to the box.)  If you don't have a safety deposit box, you could store that drive with a trusted family member or friend.  

 

Remember that Unraid is not a truly a backup solution but it can be a part of one.  There are also other ways to use loose the contents of your server-- Fire, storm, floods, theft are a few of those.

Edited November 23, 20241 yr by Frank1940

as @Frank1940 already noted "Unraid is not a Backup Solution".

Therefor you need an external Backup somewhere.

In my case it is a Windows Server (old hardware) which is usually OFF. Late at night it turns itself ON, autologins the Admin and 5mins later runs a skript that uses robocopy to mirror all the drives from UNRAID. (Aftwerwards it switches itself OFF again).

 

THIS backup is directly usable by windows machines! (unless you use ReFS for the Backup's file systems. This only will work for "upper" windows editions. So stay to NTFS and you are safe.)

 

Of course, this is a little bit expensive (not the backup computer, it is made from old parts that are not in use anymore, but of course, you need the same amount and sizes of UNRAIDs Disks. To save a bit money I pack all the NVME drives from Unraid into a subfolder of a 18G drive on the backup computer.

The backup disks MIGHT be a bit smaller because you will unlikely fill up UNRAID completely, but better play it safe.

 

So, if I need to enlarge the space on UNRAID, I buy TWO of the same disks. Put one into UNRAID, the other into the Backup Server. (still have many drive bays free, so I can add another few disks without changing anything)