Hello Unraid Community, I built and ran an Unraid server as a trial in June 2024 which I really liked on a mini pc I had laying around. I reset the server after updating to 7.0 and will be fully loading it on my gaming pc. I would like to seek guidance on the best way to set up.

 

My equipment which is already set up ready to go since this was my old gaming PC

Case: Corsair Air 540 case (not important but good to mention for any cooling issues if that were to come up)

RAM: 32GB of Corsair 3200mhz

CPU: Intel i7-8700K with a Noctua NH-D15

GPU: EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FTW3 ULTRA, 8192MB GDDR6 ( I Intend to run SpaceInvaderOne’s power effecency script for this piece of hardware) 

Storage: 

2x 2TB WD Red Pro drives 7200 rpm HDD

 

3x 960GB Micron 5300 Pro Enterprise Solid State Drive (new in box still) 

 

I do have some flexibility with some drive laying around if necessary 

 

2x 1TB WD Black NvME Drives which Windows is installed (please see below for more information)

 

Use Intent: 

This will serve as my family server for Photo storage (currently at 600GBs+), Video management (likely Jellyfin and other apps that assist in library creation), Nextcloud All in one, and other services as I intend to go to more privacy focused software. 
 

Storage Intent:

Have SSD’s as my main storage and use the HDD’s as a back up for the SSDs in the case of drive failure. This is what I would like to do but if it cant be done with setting them up as pools let me know a better way. 

 

As for the NvME’s I would like to use these , due to windows installed, to continue using as a VM for  gaming / windows required tasks as this machine is my gaming desktop which I only do occasionally now. I will follow the following documentation in https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/guides/convert-windows-to-vm/ to accomplish this task but please let me know any better alternatives. 
 

 

my main question is if I can have the SSDs as the main storage location and use the HDD as a back up simulating a Raid set up 

 

I am new to Unraid and have been using SpaceInvaderOne’s/Ibracorp/Unraid reddit or forum/ and other guides to set up most of my apps within my test version. Please inform me as much as possible or provide me links to assist me in learning more about what you all are suggesting. 

Ultimately, it comes down to what you want the system to do and how you want to interact with it.

 

My Recommended Setup:

 

Disk Configuration:

Option 1: Mirrored Cached Pool Disk Setup

Use 2x 2TB WD Red Pro drives (7200 RPM HDD) in a mirrored configuration as a cached pool.

Use 3x 960GB Micron 5300 Pro Enterprise SSDs in a ZFS RAID 1 setup.

 

Option 2: Array and Parity Setup

Use 2x 2TB WD Red Pro drives (7200 RPM HDD) as an array with parity.

Use 3x 960GB Micron 5300 Pro Enterprise SSDs in a ZFS RAID 1 setup.

Optionally reuse a 1TB drive, either mirrored or as a single drive, for caching.

 

Regarding Gaming with VFIO:

Decide whether to use:

A VFIO-passed NVMe disk, giving the gaming machine direct access to the physical drive.

An Unraid vDisk, which allows using the VM Backup/Appdata Backup plugin for disk management.

 

If opting for VFIO-passed NVMe:

Ensure the NVMe drive is installed in the top slot (next to the x16 GPU slot) near the processor for direct PCIe access.

Use Unraid tools and bind settings to configure the VFIO pass-through effectively.

The NVMe drive will appear as a PCIe device in the VM GUI during creation.

Alternatively, other PCIe devices can be used to pass physical disks or add-on cards.

 

Regarding Data Management:

Considering your use case for photos, Plex media library, and data sharing:

Use Immich for efficient photo management.

Unraid default folder structure should include:

domains/: For VM and vDisk storage.

appdata/: For Docker templates and configurations.

system/: For Docker XFS.img and VM libvirt.img files.

 

Plan additional folders:

Photos: For photo storage.

Jellyfin: For media library files.

Nextcloud: For a shared access/drop folder.

 

Key Considerations:

RAID is not a backup; it provides redundancy to maintain uptime and prevent productivity/data loss in case of disk failure. Review and implement the 3-2-1 backup rule to secure your data.

Depending on your disk assignments, a multi-array setup with parity disks may be beneficial:

Assign Disk 1 for specific tasks (e.g., VM storage).

Assign Disk 2 for other uses (e.g., Docker storage).

 

In a traditional Unraid configuration:

Docker appdata and VM vDisks run off the cache disk.

Use a pool disk setup with fast drives for optimal performance when running VMs.

Review: