Hi all, happy to join the Unraid forums!

 

TL/DR: moving from OMV to Unraid, please advise on my envisaged disk layout below.

 

As an intro, after starting with Synology a long time ago I’ve been running a home server for the last 6 years using OpenMediaVault 5 and 6 (Debian 10 and 11). I’m familiar with Debian so that was a natural choice for me at the time, but less so lately. I don’t like the docker implementation in OMV and find myself doing a lot of manual work in the terminal. Which was fine at first, but my time has become more limited. I’ve been delaying the upgrade to OMV7 (Debian 12) and looking at alternatives, finally settling on Unraid 7 which seems the best fit for me.

 

I’ve been researching docs and YouTube but still have a few choices to make. And since I’m rebuilding my ‘production’ server I want to get this right the first time, so your advice is appreciated.

 

I’m using Unraid 7.0.0-rc1 on the following hardware:

• Case: Antec P100 tower
• Board: Fujitsu Kontron D3644-B
• CPU: Intel i3-9100
• RAM: 64GB ECC

 

Services:

• Media server (audio, video, photo)
• SMB shares
• Time Machine
• Docker containers (Photoprism, Plex, Syncthing, DSMR-reader, databases, etc.)
• a single VM, maybe

 

Disk layout (envisaged):

Array: 4x 8TB HDD

• for static data, long term storage of media and user homes
• WD Red NAS HDD
• formatted XFS, single parity

Array Cache: 2x 256GB SSD

• for downloads and performance improvement of the Array
• Silicon Power A55 SSD
• formatted ZFS mirror

Pool: 3x 2TB NVMe

• for dynamic data: docker, appdata, VMs, user homes
• Transcend 220S M.2 NVMe
• formatted ZFS raidz1

 

I’m happy with the layout but not sure about the formatting. First: I want to use ZFS on the pool for its performance and robustness. And with all this RAM, performance should not be a problem. But historically docker on ZFS was a problem, how is this now on Unraid?

 

Second is the Array HDD format. I think the standard XFS is just fine, or is there a reason to use BTRFS or ZFS in the array? On single disks with overnight parity I’m not sure what the benefit is. I want the disks to spin down so not using raidz1 for that reason.

 

On OMV I‘ve used both ext4 and BTRFS, but ext4 performance was much faster (no COW). And with the Snapraid plugin on OMV (similar to overnight parity in Unraid) I didn’t make use of the BTRFS snapshot features anyway. These days I’m leaning less towards advanced command line and more towards ‘just work’ and GUI implementation for mission critical parts.

 

Sorry for the long intro, but hope this helps to give advice on the questions. Thanks in advance!

raidz1 is not the best option for VMs, mirror or striped mirrors would be better, maybe also for docker

Thanks! I decided to just go for it and rebuilt my server yesterday. I'm now waiting for the first parity sync to finish, will learn more along the way.

 

I'll use 2x 2TB NVMe in ZFS mirror as you suggested. This will hold all docker, appdata, user homes and other frequently modified files. I'll have to manage storage but 2TB could well be enough. Perhaps I can use the 3rd NVMe separately as single ZFS for non-critical VMs at some point, I'll hold onto it it in any case.

Edited December 12, 20241 yr by mxr