Hi all,
I am considering migrating from a 2-bay QNAP home NAS to UNRAID, and I have a few questions...

 

Currently I am using my NAS for the following usecases:

 

- Automatic backup of pictures from family members' smartphones
- Photo album with face recognition
- File sharing (mostly archive files, movies, etc.)
- Light containers (Vaultwarden, Changedetection.io)
- Local backup for LAN computers/servers, e.g. via TimeMachine
- Remote/offsite backup for a friend via rsync
- VM sandboxing when needed

 

My volume of data is quite small, I'd say about 2 TB of valuable data and another 2.5 TB of data that I could afford to loose. The valuable data is being backed-up regularly using the 3-2-1 strategy.

 

My current NAS is a 2-bay QNAP with 2 x 6TB in RAID1 and 8 GB RAM. The reason for moving away from my current system is that it's running a bit slow as the number of containers is growing.

 

I am also considering consolidating some other containers running on a "server" (Dell 7040 micro) onto the NAS. Those containers are sitting on a different VLAN (my "DMZ") and accessible from the public Internet.

 

From what I have seen UNRAID matches my need, either out of the box or through plugins, but some things are still a bit unclear to me:

 

- Container network isolation: I want to be 200% sure that I can attach one virtual switch to my DMZ VLAN and have some containers running in the LAN while other containers are in the DMZ. I believe this is doable, am I correct?
- iSCSI: I have seen a plugin that can provide the iSCSI target feature, but I have not seen much of feedback on that plugin. Is it reliable?
- Photo-album with face recognition: I have seen several plugins to get a photo album but could not find one that does the automatic face recognition, does this exist?
- Backup data to external USB drive: is this possible? If so natively or through additional plugins?

 

Now, in terms of migration strategy, I am thinking about this:

 

- Setup my UNRAID system with 2 x 512GB NVME in a pool for the cache, 1 x 4TB HDD for data and another 4TB HDD for parity (taking advantage of the fact that I have 2 x 4TB disks laying around)
- Move my ~2TB of valuable data from my existing NAS to UNRAID, presumably via rsync
- Break my RAID1 on the existing NAS, reuse one of the 6TB drive to upgrade the parity on the UNRAID system
- Repurpose the 4TB drive ex-parity as an additional data drive to reach 8 TB usable
- Migrate my 2.5TB of non-valuable data off the old NAS
- Move the second 6TB drive to UNRAID, add it as a data drive and decommission one of the 2 x 4TB drive to reach 10TB of usable space (more than enough) - Obviously this step involves moving data left and right to free disks but that should not be a problem and I am not in a hurry.

 

Appreciate your opinion on this migration plan...

 

Finally some more questions:

 

1. I am planning to use ZFS filesystem on my data disks, because I want to be able to do snapshots (snapshots saved my a** a few times, I am a big fan and absolutely need it for the (small) part of the data that is changing frequently), any recommendation on that part?

2. I do hope the GUI has a light theme, as I hate the trendy-but-unreadable dark mode, could you please confirm?

 

Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading, and even more thanks for answering 🙂

Edited November 26, 20241 yr by googleg

1 Automatic backup of pictures from family members' smartphones
2 Photo album with face recognition
3 File sharing (mostly archive files, movies, etc.)
4 Light containers (Vaultwarden, Changedetection.io)
5 Local backup for LAN computers/servers, e.g. via TimeMachine
6 Remote/offsite backup for a friend via rsync
7 VM sandboxing when needed

 

unraid should work fine for your needs

1. There are a few docker options. I currently use photoprism to back up a android and iphone device (any where in the world with data via unifi teleport vpn).

*Easily setup auto bakcups (video and pictures!) at night via the paid phone app photo sync.

https://www.photosync-app.com/home

iphone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photosync-transfer-photos/id415850124

android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.touchbyte.photosync&hl=en_US&pli=1

 

2. photoprism has face recongition and can handle 1 and 2 of your needs. photoprism can be a bit tricky to setup while it's working for me there may be other solution/docker for you.

* I can't seem to reproduce what is working for me easily for others with photprism... immichi and other docker exist....

 

3. File sharing, no problem. rejeto hfs (webdav share over http/https) sftp docker (share via secure ftp), easily setup a windwos mac network shares via samba share and or nfs share. Easy media sharing with a docker like plex and/or jelyfin... Unraid has a decent comuunity support here. ask in genral if you have / need setup help...

 

4. I've herd of theses thoguh passing. i don't run them but they do exisit on unraid. ask on the forum.

 

5. unraid sambe suprots timemachine for apple hardware. some smb extra option may be need.

 

6. I do this crunelty in a ring with vpns and rsync. rclone plugin can help here...

 

7. Unraid suports kvm/qemu Virtual Machines. suport on the forum as well.

 

 

on unraid:

 

Container Network Isolation

Yes, Unraid supports container network isolation. You can achieve this by configuring Docker container networking in Unraid:

Setup VLANs:

Go to Settings > Network Settings in Unraid and configure your VLANs. Assign one VLAN for your DMZ and another for your LAN.

Isolate Containers:

In the Docker container configuration, assign the specific VLAN to each container as required.

Ensure that your router/firewall enforces proper VLAN separation for additional security.

Recommendation: Use macvlan or ipvlan Docker networks for better isolation

 

iSCSI Plugin

The iSCSI plugin on Unraid is reliable for most users, but it may not be officially supported by Lime Technology. It's actively maintained and works well for providing iSCSI targets to external systems.

Best Practices:

Test it in your environment to confirm stability.

Ensure you have a robust backup plan, as iSCSI targets can be critical storage points.

*Remember that iscsi is meant to support a single machine to conect to a remote disk by issues scsi commands to the remote disk.

--other option exist for data sharing... like vpn tailscale for instance...

 

Photo Album with Face Recognition

Unraid does not have native plugins with face recognition, but you can achieve this using Docker containers like:

PhotoPrism: Supports face and object recognition. It’s a great option for managing and organizing photos.

Nextcloud with a photo plugin: Can be enhanced with third-party apps for face recognition.

 

Backup to External USB Drive

Yes, Unraid supports backups to external USB drives.

Use plugins like CA Backup/Restore Appdata or Unassigned Devices for managing external drives.

Automate backups with tools like rsync or Duplicati via Docker containers.

 

Migration Strategy

Your migration strategy is well thought out. Here's a refined plan with considerations:

Initial Setup:

Configure Unraid with the 2x512GB NVMe cache pool, 4TB data drive, and 4TB parity drive. This ensures redundancy for your valuable data right from the start.

Data Migration:

rsync -avzP --log-file=/path/to/rsync.log /source/directory /mnt/user/target-directory

 

Expand Storage Gradually:

Break the RAID1 on your QNAP and reuse the 6TB drive for parity.

Reassign the 4TB drive for data storage.

Continue until you've fully utilized the available drives and reached the desired capacity.

*enable ssh on the qnap and filezilla ftp over a smb share...

 

ZFS Filesystem for Snapshots

Using ZFS on Unraid is an excellent choice, especially for snapshot capabilities.

Configuration Tips:

Install the ZFS Master Plugin to manage ZFS pools and datasets.

Use ZFS snapshots for your valuable data to enable quick recovery from accidental changes or deletions.

Consider configuring a separate ZFS pool for frequently changing data.

 

Light Theme

Unraid’s GUI supports both light and dark modes. You can switch between them:

Go to Settings > Display Settings and choose the theme you prefer.

 

 

Additional Recommendations:

Monitor Performance: With multiple containers and VLANs, ensure you have sufficient CPU and RAM for smooth operations.

Testing Environment: Before fully transitioning, test your Unraid setup to ensure the configuration meets your needs.

Security: Secure containers in the DMZ with strict firewall rules and avoid exposing critical services unnecessarily.

Thanks for the feedback, many pointers in your answers and I'll need to explore further.

Quick update:

 

I have switched to a DIY NAS based on an Intel N100 motherboard from CWWK and I am just finishing the migration from my QNAP. My UNRAID box has been running for 3 weeks now and the migration was a bit of a bumpy road and steep learning curve, but I am now very confortable with UNRAID and I won't look back at the QNAP, which I switched off today.

 

Here are the hardware specs of my UNRAID box:
- Jonsbo N2 case (5-bay)
- CWWK "Purple" mainboard with N100 CPU and ASM1166 SATA controller
- 2 x 512 GB NVME SSD (1 from ADATA and 1 from Kingston)
- 16 GB RAM
- 10,5 TB of usable storage (17 TB raw) - may grow to 16,5 usable in the near future
- Be Quiet SFX-L PSU, 80 Plus "Gold" - could not find any PSU that is less than 500W, way overkill (my setup draw 17-20 W a idle)
- Noctua NH-L9i for the CPU and Noctua NF-A12x15 for the case (the stock fan from Jonsbo was too loud for my taste)

 

Migrating the data (roughly 4 TB) was a bit of a pain - I ended up pushing from the QNAP using rsync. But on my first try I forgot about how rsync handle symlinks and I had a few circular references which resulted in a bit of a mess.

 

Other than that, I made some customization following the great tutorial from AlienTech42 and  SpaceInvader One :

 

- Converted the pool from BTRFS to ZFS

- Converted the appdata folders to datasets

- Enabled Snapshots

 

The migration also entailed consolidating some workloads from a separate Dell 7040 mini "server" onto the UNRAID, converting an iSCSI LUN used by a Raspberry Pi to NFS, reworking the automated transfer of backups from the various endpoints on my network, connecting my Eaton UPS etc.

 

This is the list of containers running on my NAS:

- a LAMP sandbox (primarily used by my son)

- Calibre Web Automated

- Chrome Remote Desktop (this is my cheap VDI, more info here) 

- Newrelic Infrastructure client

- Vaultwarden + Nginx + Vaultwarden-Backup (2 instances, 1 "public" and 1 "private" for the most sensitive passwords)

- Photoprism

- qBittorrent

- Changedetection.io + Selenium

 

Overall I am happy with the setup. The only point which I think would need to be looked at it the absence of low privilege user to connect to UNRAID. I do not feel comfortable doing all my rsync transfer etc using the root account. Been burned quite a few times working as root when I was younger. I know there are workaround but I need to look deeper into it.

 

 

Edited January 17, 20251 yr by googleg

For those who have the same board and struggle to get the PWM module recognized by UNRAID, I found out thank to this Reddit port that the driver for the Install ITE IT87 Driver needs to be installed via the apps...

And by the way speaking of PWM, with my setup I left the CPU fan managed by the BIOS and only configured the case fan (identified as PWM3) with auto fan. That way the CPU fan speed is based on the CPU temp and the case fan speed is based on the HDD temperatures.

I set the threshold so that at idle the CPU fan runs at around 1300 rpm and the case fan at 850 rpm, which is around 40% of their max speed.