Unraid has become boring...

I was looking at the SMART self-test results of my hard drives and noticed they're now about 4.5 years old. (I bought my first Unraid license back in 2020.) The SMART values still look good, and it made me realize that during all that time I've never really had a major issue with Unraid software itself. The GUI has always been reliable, updates have gone smoothly and worked on the first try, and the rollout of Unraid Connect went pretty well too. The only thing I struggled with a bit was the KVM/QEMU virtualization stack, but that's probably not entirely under Unraid's control.

Now, six years later, we know exactly what we need, and we've ended up with a true "sit and forget" server.

For those who are curious, the Docker containers we run include Nextcloud (the basic setup without Photos, Office, etc.), Immich, Jellyfin, Music Assistant, and Vaultwarden. Those are the core services that allow us to stay as independent as possible from the big tech companies. As for VMs, I only have a Clonezilla VM configured, and it's powered on only when I actually need it.

There were a couple of issues with the Nextcloud and Immich databases over the years that required me to recreate those containers. Fortunately, thanks to the User Scripts plugin, restoring everything from backup was quick and easy. I highly recommend the User Scripts plugin as part of any backup strategy. It's a simple, no-nonsense tool (basically a gui on top of cron) with a surprising amount of functionality. Personally, I prefer using the plugin instead of running yet another Docker container. Writing the scripts was a bit challenging at first, but there are plenty of tutorials and examples on the Unraid forums and elsewhere on the internet.

These days I stick to the KISS principle, although I have to admit it wasn't always like that. During the first two years I probably installed a new Docker container almost every weekend and rearranged my hard drives every three months or so. Honestly, I'd recommend anyone doing that too. That's how I learned Unraid inside and out, discovered what it could do, and figured out what our actual needs were.

That was four years ago.

Today, the server just quietly sits in the basement doing its job without anyone paying much attention to it. About twice a year I open the case to blow out the dust, and that's about it. I still check the GUI weekly—sometimes even daily—to see if there are updates, but that's pretty much the extent of it. There are weekends when I catch myself wondering if I should try something new with the server, but there's a golden rule: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I still enjoy experimenting, and Unraid made that easy up to the point where the server became part of our home's infrastructure. I don't need to put a spoiler on a classic car, so to speak. A few times I've considered switching to plain Debian with Cockpit and Docker, but at the end of the day Unraid is first and foremost a NAS for file storage—and that's exactly what I need.

So yes, Unraid has become boring.

And that's a good thing.

Thanks to the entire Unraid team.