hello, i am new to unraid or any other OS like this , i am still learning and i have some questions i wish you could help me understand some of the things i couldnt find online

 

here is my situation , i have around 45 TB give or take of media and other type of data but mainly media, i am using external HDDs (20TB's + 12TB's) to store and backup my files but i know its inefficient and costly , so i bought a modest setup to run unraid on and use it as a data center to keep my files in addition to a Plex media server but that is not my main goal.

 

my questions are :

- the data i have is very important to me and i would like to know how to use unraid to keep it safe.

- if i use a drive or more to store the data using unraid , can i remove the drive and use it on a windows machine or am i stuck with unraid to access my files forever? , because i would like to access my files and maybe share or copy for a family member semi-frequently and a bit of flexibility is a nice bonus.

- i would like to use my HDD that i have on windows for Plex can i just simply remove it and put it in my unraid machine or do i have to format it to an appropriate file system to use it? i would like to add another drive as backup just in case if possible.

- if i would like a backup HDD outside this setup that i can access using windows just in case how would i do that?

 

Thank you for your time and patience , English is not my main language so i hope my post is clear.

 

You must let Unraid format any disk after you assign it to the parity array or pools. Unraid can read and write Windows disks with the Unassigned Devices plugin, but those can't be assigned disks. And Windows can't read or write Unraid disks. In fact, you should not put assigned Unraid disks in another system. Other Linux systems can read and write Unraid disks, but moving disks between systems can cause complications.