In the process of getting everything in order before taking the plunge on Unraid, but I wanted to ask a few things before going forward. I'm sure some of the questions are easily answered elsewhere, apologies in advance. I'm also probably mixing up terminology too, sorry!

I'm not looking to do too much at first, just want to get a good backup solution for all my data. I've got a small stack of hard drives, totaling about 40tb. While I never had any kind of automatic backup or raid, I did have some of the same data across drives, so I don't expect that I'll have 40tb used, maybe 20. Just bought a 20tb external drive to try and organize everything and see just what I have, and I'd like to use that external drive for regular backups once I have Unraid up and running.

Can I leave my external HDD plugged into my Unraid server and have it back up the data from there to the external? Like if I added or removed some video files to the server, and once a week it could automatically do the same on the external?

I think I'm understanding the different "drives" I'll need outside of the hard drives with my data, but wanted to make sure I'm prepared. I have the USB stick for the installation, would that be the same one the OS would stay on, or would I need a second?

I also know I'll need space for things like dockers/apps/etc. would this need to be stored somewhere separate from my hard drives that will be for data/parity?

Then there's the cache pool, this would need to be a separate drive (SSD) correct?

My mobo has slots for 2 m2 SSDs, and I have a 512 and 32gb available. Would a good plan be using the 32gb for dockers/apps, and the 512 for a cache pool?

Sorry for the ramble, think that's everything for now!

Thanks for the help!

32GB is probably too small to be useful. 512GB could be both apps and cache depending on how much you cache. Don't cache initial data load.

Think of the OS as firmware that is loaded from the flash drive. It isn't installed to any of your storage.

External drive can be managed as Unassigned Device, lots of ways to make backups.

Thank you @trurl !

I had another couple questions that I wanted to ask, but didn't want to make another topic and clog up the forum.

I'll be using plex, and have the metadata/art/etc on the app/cache drive. Would I run into any slow loading with a standard 1Gb/s connection? I don't need anything fancy like trailers or music playing when browsing my library, but I do like being able to browse quickly. I'd probably just upgrade everything for 2.5Gb/s if I ran into trouble.

Suppose the same question applies to my ROM collection and whatever frontend I use, data on the data drives, metadata/images on the app/cache drive? Currently using Launchbox on a windows PC, but had hoped to store everything on the NAS. Considering finding another frontend since I might be trying out Linux for a bit on the PC, any recommendations?

I'm trying to consolidate and organize all my files before getting up and running, but it's crazy how much stuff I have! So many duplicate files and photos that are just tucked away in random folders. Does anyone have a system for keeping everything organized, especially photos?

Thanks again everyone!

53 minutes ago, DragonQuest said:

Would I run into any slow loading with a standard 1Gb/s connection?

No