Hi all! My name is Melissa Meaney, and I am a marketing intern at Unraid.

In case you didn't know, we're coming up on our 20th anniversary! Whether you’re a veteran or a newbie, we love you either way.

Let us know how long you have been part of the Unraid family and share your favorite Unraid memory in the comments!

Wow, 20 years already—time really flies!

I first encountered Unraid all the way back in the 2005 era. At the time, I was working with an ISP and was sent onsite to troubleshoot what turned out to be a Samba server powered by Unraid. That moment stuck with me. I didn’t create a forum account back then, but I ran Unraid through the tail end of version 5 and kept up with every update through all of version 6 and now on to the latest stable version 7.1.3...

I finally jumped onto the forum in December 2020, right in the middle of COVID. A plugin notification and some questionable info floating around got me involved, and I’ve stuck around since. Being part of the forum has been a two-way street: I’ve helped others, been helped myself, and learned a ton along the way.

Unraid also gave me the push to dig deeper into Slackware Linux, Docker, and GitHub. That learning curve led me to creating some of my own apps and guides for the community. Something I never would’ve imagined back when I started. (More due to issue of sharing and how to do x and now x can't be done anymore...) Looking at You Proxmox and Truenas...

I’ve got 3 Unraid licenses, with 1 still in active use and 2 retired but ready to spin up if needed. Thanks to newer hardware and advanced linux settings and configs, I now run almost everything I need from a single system.

I’m not quite an expert or a vet—but I’ve definitely seen a thing or two and done a thing or two. Unraid has come a long way, and I’m happy its still araound and working all these years later. the SanDisk cruzer usb I have been a champ only 1 flash drive replacement for the life of the machines...

Damn! 10 years now. My first install was Unraid 6 just when it first released. People were still migrating from 5.

My first setup was my own server to store media like photos and videos and then became sooo much more.

Since then I had set up multiple servers for companies and everyone loves it. It just works.

I joined when current version was 4 something. 5.X wasn't even being discussed yet. I migrated from an external RAID box running RAID5 (5 discs?) connected directly to my HTPC running MyMovies on Windows, Always on. Always spinning. Regular space heater. I did not realize at the time what it was costing me on the electric bill (more on that). I was looking at the Drobo line, mostly because it supported different disk sizes in the raid pool but passed on it as too expensive (thank deity as they've gone out of business). I stumbled across unRAID and decided to give it a try (I hadn't used Linux since college, strictly Windows). Started with a cheap tower with inexpensive AMD and a handful of 2TB & 4TB discs. It took me a week or more (I tend to block out traumatic memories lol) to transfer all the DVD & BRD rips to the new system. unRAID worked as advertised and I dove in headfirst in setting up Plex and other useful stuff. This was the time of plug-ins and avoiding incompatibilities. Almost immediately I noticed my electric bill dropping by HALF! Spinning down disks and only spinning up what was needed for playback was a revolution in cost savings!

Fast forward to today and I am still loving unRAID! My server has changed drastically (see sig) but even with the fire breathing hardware I enjoy now, power costs are still reasonable. Docker changed the whole landscape for me. I don't run any VMs as my application requirements have changed now that I'm retired. No need for additional servers and such. Recently converted all my ReiserFS disks to XFS (beat the deadline - trauma lol). When I first set some of those up (before the eventual size upgrades over the years), it was the only choice for file system IIRC.

Anyway it doesn't seem like its been 15+ years as this project is still fresh and exciting. New stuff coming along all the time. Its been a pleasure to be involved and to watch it grow from a one man shop to the vibrant enterprise it is now. Congratulations on 20 years!

the OG system

The current rig

Edited July 1, 20251 yr by interwebtech

Hello, my name is Jozef

I am a happy owner of Unraid, I needed it to store my vacation movies, as I have a lot of hardware I wanted to build my own NAS, I tested various systems for a long time but I found out about UNRAID from a friend and tested it. After a few weeks I knew that OS Unraid would stay with me.

I have a home server with i5-10500/32gb/13.5TB/1Gbit and I can stream my movies to several TVs in my house which was a priority, additionally all users in my network have access to the disk with data.

An additional advantage is that I can constantly add disks

Of course, remote access thanks to Tailscalle does the job, for over 2 years I had no problem with OS unraid, everything is friendly and very well documented thanks to the community. So a layman like me can handle it perfectly.

greetings to all Unraid owners

My Unraid journey started in December of 2011 with Unraid 5 beta 14. Unraid 4.7 was the official "stable release" then but V5 was very close to release so that is where I started. Anyone remember unMenu?

I was looking for a simple NAS to store tens of thousands of photos and home videos. None of the commercial NAS units were appealing to me (too much money for low-end hardware) and I like building computers. This led me to Unraid and I have never looked back. My first Unraid server was built around an Intel i3-2100 CPU.

A couple of years later, Docker and VMs became a thing and I digitized my movies collection and added Plex and several other docker containers.

I now have three Unraid servers and have convinced a few friends and family to start their own Unraid journey. All are very pleased with the control it gives them.

Edited July 1, 20251 yr by Hoopster

2 Gamer's, 1 PC was the start 😂 2016

9 hours ago, alturismo said:

2 Gamer's, 1 PC was the start 😂 2016

Ok, I have to know now... lolz. Was this inspired by linus tech tips and the LTT Screwdriver :)

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/proxmox-vs-unraid-for-2-gamers-1-cpu-setup/163937

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/99735-i-want-to-do-a-2-gamers-1-pc-build/

https://www.reddit.com/r/unRAID/comments/14jgkk7/2_gamers_1_pc/

4 hours ago, bmartino1 said:

Ok, I have to know now... lolz. Was this inspired by linus tech tips and the LTT Screwdriver :)

exactly ;)

i had 2 PC's (Desktop Workstation and Gaming) in my living Room, and then i saw this Video ... and said myself, well, lets try it ;)

that was the Start of the End ... ;)

Had a quick look at my profile page and joined the forum February 25, 2014, that makes it 11 years!

Joined forum in 2011 and started (as I recall) with a Beta 5 release. I don't think I ever installed the 4.7 release. Things moved at a much slower place back then and most releases were thoroughly debugged and all known issues resolved before being released. But, at that time, security, viruses, and malware were not the concern that they are today. (Linux/Unix was considered to be naturally secured unlike that Windows product!) No releases back for security issues! As I recall, version 6 was the first release where any consideration was being made to making Unraid more secure and most of that was baby steps.

In January 2008 1x Lime Technology MD-1500/LL was shipped to Germany with two 4.7 Pro License Sticks. In 2009 1x MD-1510/LL with two additional Pro License Sticks was added. Count in 17 years.

Edited July 14, 20251 yr by hawihoney

Don't remember what my first OS version was, but I started sometime in 2013. Got my feet wet understanding the unraid system and went from there.

My first real build was Frankenstein. 22 drives in two standard cases that were riveted together, with the side cutout between them for ventalation and cable access. Single Gigabyte motherboard with various SATA and IDE cards installed to make this patchwork. 12 drive front loading, with 10 more (5 in each case below the front loaders) for probably a max of 30TB at the time. Three power supplies inside to power all the drives and the mobo. Ran that configuration for around 3 years.

Frankenstein:

After that got full I started building out "Bride of Frankenstein". 30 drives (2 parity) in 2 DAS units, with 2 cache SSD's in the main 2U server (red tag). Currently sitting at 100TB capacity with 20TB more to go. I'm about 80% full in just media.

Bride of Frankenstein: (in red area)

I have 2 other unraid servers that I had to move my music and photos off of "Bride" to make room for more media.

Needless to say I have a problem ;-)

Edited July 4, 20251 yr by rader
Pictures went up, but lost the original text.

I'm right about 5 years since building my first Unraid server. Today, it is much like the Ship of Theseus, except for the case, the flash drive and perhaps a few cables, none of the server's original parts remain. A second server was built about 2 years ago to keep this first one company.

1 hour ago, rader said:

Needless to say I have a problem ;-)

Many here have the same problem. I suggested starting a support group in the thread I have in my siggy, but it probably wouldn't work out. We would all just spend our time recommending new Docker containers to try... 😮

OSD - I Need Help - Lounge - Unraid

Well, my profile was created in 2008 so somewhere around that time. I was probably messing around with it for a bit before I joined the forums. So almost 20 years. I feel old now.

It’ll be ten years this November. Originally got it to store my media library, with some redundancy. Now I’ve added lots of Docker apps and scripts. I only wish I had more free time to spend on it!

19th January 2011 was when I got my first license key emailed to me by Tom. So not quite in the 15-year category just yet.

It's been over a year for me and I was wondering how I didn't know about this awesome software before.

I joined here May 2007 -> so it's been a while.

My first and only unraid server died last year after 17 years of faithful service.

I am currently looking for advice on replacing the MB with new components to get it going again.

See here -> https://forums.unraid.net/topic/192518-server-died-need-some-help/

Installed unRaid in April 2010 and had various changes in hardware and drives...

Its a looong time now... 😉

Just getting started last week with Unraid after years of using Synology and a little bit of time with Proxmox.

Unraid as given me the drive again to get into home lab and tinkering

I have been using 2 Synology NAS for years but started looking for a new platform after a friend convinced me to buy an Asus filestor. I hated the interface, a simple almost useless server. So I went searching for a new one. I stumbled upon TrueNAS for a couple of years. Had I known how simple installing UnRAID and heard of it back then I would have been ahead of the crowd back then 👍