Given that I’ve read through a lot of the postings here, I know it’s odd that I still have this question but I can’t figure it out…

 

For background reference, my current situation is that I have my music and movies stored on a single [large] drive in Desktop, and my XMBC clients point to NFS mounts on the Desktop.  For backup, I have 2 standalone single drive NASs that I’ve accumulated over the years, and I split duplicating the Desktop library content across the two NAS drives (music and DVD rips go to one NAS, and Bluray rips go to a separate NAS).  Given that I’m running out of space on the Desktop, I’ve been looking into getting more HDDs and happened to stumble upon unRAID.

 

Where I’m getting hung up on is the fact that if I want to maintain backups, I [ideally] still need independent systems (first the Desktop as the main store (for example), and then either my existing NAS drives or a new unRAID server for backup); I shouldn’t, for example, move all of my rips off of the Desktop and NAS drives and solely use a new unRAID server to store and stream them because unRAID is not in and of itself backup (although I can rebuilt a dead drive using the parity info, so I guess there is some… limited?... backup functionality…).  So then if I have to maintain independent systems, then what do I get by using an unRAID system as a backup versus a generic server with enough HDDs?  I have to get another server anyway, right?  Is the subtle difference/benefit that copying to an unRAID server ~ hides the physical sizes of each backup drive and it’ll figure out  the allocation across them for me (versus with a generic server stuffed with HDDs I have to map out which Desktop drive content gets copied to which physical HDD(s) on a generic server)?  If that’s the case, then I’m struggling with how much weight to put to that benefit because at least with my current library size, I currently easily just use some backup software with various scripts that run based off of Desktop drive-to-NAS drives mapping that I had to figure out once (and then I was done).

 

Please keep in mind that I’m not trying to dump on unRAID; I just feel like given the enthusiasm that I see for unRAID in these forums that I’m missing something.

 

unRAID is a NAS.  RAID (no matter what type) doesn't replace backups (ever).  A proper backup strategy is something like 3 copies, on 2 different media types, one offsite.

 

The advantage of unRAID (imo) is that the parity disk provides some level of convenience if a disk does fail (no need to restore from backup or re-rip content), and it's dedicated to storage.  The more things a server can do, or is doing, the more likely it is that you'll run into a possible problem.  That being said many people have had rock solid Linux/Windows/OS X computers serving. 

 

Personally I run unRAID as a VM on ESXi.  I get unRAID's stability, and have the flexibility to run other servers (and services) without them having the ability to negatively impact the stability I want in my network storage.  It also has the benefit of having a lower energy and physical footprint than multiple servers.

Before unRAID, I had a Mac on which I maintained my iTunes database. Then Apple came out with TimeMachine--a really cool backup capability. So i added an external disk for TM. (and another external drive on my wife's Mac) Then I started to encode movies to stream to my Rokus and tablets...then I ran out of disk space. So I added a 'harddrive' docking station and started collecting hard drives with media. When I wanted to watch 'Die Hard', I plugged the Action Movies disk into the docking station...then I ran out of room on THAT hard drive for 'action movies'. At that point, I realized I had wall warts all over the floor, a stack of (expensive) hard drives on the desk waiting for the cat to knock over, and a database on Google Docs to keep track of which movie was on which disk.

 

 

I began looking around. The prices of commercial NAS devices was daunting. And when I thought through my real requirements, they were:

1. Keep it simple--whatever it was.

2. Be able to expand when I needed, and to upgrade a drive or two when price/need indicated.

3. Be able to 'stream' to the devices around the house.

4. Low price.

5. Use standard protocols of SMB and AFP, and support Time Machine.

6. 'Energy conservation' My main intended use was as a media server. It would have to be online, 24x7. Nobody wants to trudge downstairs to turn the NAS on. (Bruce Willis just isn't that attractive.)

 

 

I've always been wary of 'true' RAID systems, where you are either doubling your storage costs by mirroring data, or you are getting blazing speeds by striping but if there's a failure its catastrophic. The cost of mirroring + striping was unthinkable.

 

 

I looked at building a Windows home server, and determined that it was more 'techie' than I wanted, and yet more confining at the same time. (Odd, but a lot of MS stuff is like that.)

 

 

I ended up building a pretty nice unRAID system. I have six data drives for less than the cost of a four drive 'consumer NAS'. I have plenty of processor headroom for transcoding, I have a plug in that automatically cleans up my iTunes metadata tags, etc.

 

 

What I like about unRAID is that it meets all my criteria. I don't have to know any *nix, although I'm learning a bit because I'm interested. The interface is simple and does more than I need. It takes care of managing files and shares, I just watch the total storage available. My Mac TM works brilliantly. Running PLEX, the Roku's are a delight.  unRAID is 'invisible' to the family, so I never have to play 'tech support'. The parity drive provides error correction and a bit of recovery should there be a single disk failure. (I still keep all the original DVD's on the shelf. The old stack of hard drives is another backup, and now they're in a box somewhere on a shelf. The cat lays on the desk corner where the stack of drives used to be.) If a single drive fails, or I change my mind about unRAID someday, I can pull out the data drives and they are individually readable.  And the 'openness' of the unRAID software has me constantly eyeing new uses for my 'NAS.' (Right now, I'm thinking about setting up streaming audio using SubSonic.)