Hi folks.

 

I used unRAID a while back, but to be honest I've forgotten most of how it worked.  I think I used V5 with addon menus or something, I really don't remember.

 

Anyway, I was going to move back to unRAID, and I have a few questions, in no particular order:

 

- I have 2x5TB drives.  Can I mirror?  Can I add a parity drive later?

- I want to run a Windows 7 instance in a VM, can I pass through two USB devices to it (one is an OWL energy meter, the other a generic Bluetooth dongle)

- I'll be using a 180GB SSD for the cache drive.  Can I set it up with one initially, then add a second identical drive later? (one is in use in my current Windows box).

- Is 16GB RAM overkill? I'll be running Sonarr/nzbdrone, nzbget, Plex, some torrent program probably Transmission, and at least one VM

- Will unRAID shut down gracefully on power fail - I have an APC UPS connected via USB

- Does unRAID do network aggregation?  The board in my server has 2 NICs I'd like to aggregate using 802.3ad.

- btrfs or xfs for the data drives (it's mostly movies/tv shows in HD, so big files)

- Can I get my licence key's GUID changed?  The USB key I have my licence assigned to is a bit old and crusty now, so I'd probably be better getting a new one.

 

Thanks folks.

I can answer some of your questions.

 

- I have 2x5TB drives.  Can I mirror?  Can I add a parity drive later?

unRAID isn't traditional RAID, so you can't mirror in the RAID0 sense.  That said, you can assign 1 drive as data and 1 drive as parity and have a 5TB protected array, effectively the same as mirroring.  You could also assign both drives as data drives and have a 10TB unprotected array.  Yes, you can add a parity drive later to make it a protected array.

- Is 16GB RAM overkill? I'll be running Sonarr/nzbdrone, nzbget, Plex, some torrent program probably Transmission, and at least one VM

No, it's not overkill, especially if you plan to run multiple dockers.

- Will unRAID shut down gracefully on power fail - I have an APC UPS connected via USB

Yes, as long as you are using the APCUPSD plugin.

- Does unRAID do network aggregation?  The board in my server has 2 NICs I'd like to aggregate using 802.3ad.

Yes, but in most circumstances it is of little use.  See here and here.

- Can I get my licence key's GUID changed?  The USB key I have my licence assigned to is a bit old and crusty now, so I'd probably be better getting a new one.

In most circumstances, yes, but that is up to the discretion of LimeTech.  E-mail them explaining the situation and ask.

Thanks for the reply, and apologies for not getting back sooner, I was too busy playing with UnRAID.  

 

I have it up and running on a HP Microserver Gen8 (upgraded with a schoondoggy 2.5" drive bracket, an i3-2120 and 6GB RAM).  Having great fun with Docker!

 

I'm planning on putting a better CPU in the thing, the current i3 is a little too high wattage for the passive heat sink, so I'll probably stick in an i3-3220T or similar, depending on availability.  The supplied Celeron G1610T is a bit slow for Plex transcoding.

 

Array drives are currently a pair of 5TB WD Red, cache drive is a 180GB Intel Pro SSD 1500 (an OEM version of the 520).  A third Red, probably a 6TB will become the parity drive.  6TB to allow for future expansion.