A long time ago I setup an unraid server with 8 8tb wd reds and used it as a plex server. Unfortunately I never got much use out of it do to ... life.

Now I saw this beelink me mini and thought ... oh I have a bunch of extra m.2 drives why not waste a bunch of money on a new nas!

Anyways I have two 4tb, one 2tb, and one 1tb m.2 drives. It has been a LONG time since I messed with a nas and am curious if anyone has recommendations for a setup? Right now I was assssssuming one 4tb as a parity and the other drives just thrown in an array like a JBOD? Or one as a cache drive? The two 4tb are about the same speed the 2 and 1tb are a bit older/slower.

All I will use this nas for in the near future is backing up all of my old files from 30 other old hard drives laying around. Complete overkill I suppose but I'll probably look into doing other things with it once I get organized.

I wouldn't bother with a parity drive for an all SSD array, or a cache drive for that matter.

With SSD drives, I think you would want to setup a cache pool. (I believe you can use TRIM on SSD's in pools but not in the array)

Here is a brief introduction to pools:

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/storage-management/#pool-modes

It does not seem up-to-date as ZFS is now a formatting option but it will give you a feel for what your options are. I believe that more RAID formatting options are now available in the latest release.

EDIT: PS--- This is an very intersting mini PC. Looks like six M2 slots and that makes it an interest choice for a fast small server!

Edited July 14, 2025Jul 14 by Frank1940

46 minutes ago, Michael_P said:

I wouldn't bother with a parity drive for an all SSD array, or a cache drive for that matter.

I am just reading that m.2 wont work with parity disks for a rebuild?

Mar 28, 2015 << limetech unraid key purchase date ... it has been over 10 years since I have messed with NAS stuff ... damn

14 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

EDIT: PS--- This is an very intersting mini PC. Looks like six M2 slots and that makes it an interest choice for a fast small server!

Yeah real easy to setup too ... has a built in 'USB' partition and you could probably do some interesting stuff with the m.2 slots and some expansion cards. Seemed like a decent price too.

21 minutes ago, ManiacMagic said:

I am just reading that m.2 wont work with parity disks for a rebuild?

SSDs are a lot more reliable than rust spinners, doesn't make sense to waste the storage capacity for parity unless you REALLY need uptime

1 minute ago, Michael_P said:

SSDs are a lot more reliable than rust spinners, doesn't make sense to waste the storage capacity for parity unless you REALLY need uptime

YES and NO. The last disk failure I had was an SSD (Last year while under warranty). Two SSD's and thirteen 'Spinners'. And it has been more than five years since the last spinner truly died. Different failure modes for the two devices so there are a lot of outside factors that determine the actual reliability in a particular setup.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but still

46 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

The last disk failure I had was an SSD (Last year while under warranty)

Early mortality is much more likely than when a drive has been in service a while - and SSDs are far and away more reliable as the days go by. Spinners spin, those parts wear out, lube dries out, etc. It's a given. SSDs couldn't care less if they sit idle for years in NAS service (if you're constantly writing to them then that's a different story). For media a media server and backup destination, at the drive sizes and cost of SSDs, parity is a wasteful, IMO of course.

39 minutes ago, Michael_P said:

t the drive sizes and cost of SSDs, parity is a wasteful, IMO of course.

That is an individual's decision which can only be based on their risk tolerance. I (personally) like parity protection because reassembling of that 'non-critical' data (while possible for about 90% of it) would be a monumental time-consuming task compared to the cost of a parity drive.

51 minutes ago, Michael_P said:

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but still

Early mortality is much more likely than when a drive has been in service a while - and SSDs are far and away more reliable as the days go by. Spinners spin, those parts wear out, lube dries out, etc. It's a given. SSDs couldn't care less if they sit idle for years in NAS service (if you're constantly writing to them then that's a different story). For media a media server and backup destination, at the drive sizes and cost of SSDs, parity is a wasteful, IMO of course.

I am wondering if those stats are also true for M2 SSDs. Those little things tend to go very hot under load...

1 hour ago, googleg said:

Those little things tend to go very hot under load

The cells themselves actually love heat, it's the controllers that don't. They'll throttle if they get hot tho - using a reputable brand is key if you're concerned about temps.