zidion Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 I am looking for redundant storage for my plex server. I currently have a basic PC (win7) running plex, sonarr, couchpotato, SNZD, and deluge. I was looking at getting a drobo, but the reviews are terrible. Everyone says to do an unraid server. Can I run my programs off an unraid server (make it the new plex server)? Or will it only act as a storage device? I know unraid has a plex app, but I also want to use my other apps as well. Link to comment
dirtysanchez Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Yes, you can run all of the above apps you mention on the unRAID server itself. You might want to read up in the docker section. My unRAID server runs Plex, SABnzbd, SickBeard, CouchPotato, and PlexWatch. Link to comment
danioj Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 NOTE: I appologise in advance if the below includes any technical inaccuracies. I am not a data specialist nor do I work in the field. I am at best a SOHO user with a Systems Engineering Background. This post is made up of my opinion only and my comments are based on what I have learned in these forums and my understanding of the product and the wider subject. I guess it all depends on what you want. I love my Unraid Box, it's all becoming much of a hobby too. I use it to store my Media and run some minor applications. However mainly I am concerned about my Data. I want it accessible at all times and I don't want to loose any of it. EVER. I feel my Unraid Master Server (12TB) running apps / Backup Server (16TB) running nothing but stock Unraid Setup (The Backup part of my setup is nearly complete) meets my needs. It's an excellent Product. BUT, I do feel that LT is ignoring/forgetting/choosing not to address some core features of a traditional RAID System (which competitors - that I won't discuss here - have now) in favour of more "additional features" and virtualisation. For me - and this is the big plus of Unraid - the feature of each disk having its own filesystem is just too much to look past for me. Unlike with many competitors if controllers fail, multiple disks fail (beyond what is covered by parity and cannot be rebuilt) etc then ALL data can be LOST! With Unraid (which at the moment is tolerant up to 1 disk unless additional measures are taken) if a similar scenario happens the only data which is lost is the data on those failed disks! You can stick the remaining disks into a USB dock and still access the data! Awesome! As a means of further positives Unraid has a Realtime redundancy model and not Snapshot - so Parity is calculated Real Time. Like I said above, if more than one drive fails then data is still recoverable (and more importantly easily accessible from the other drives), only the disk which is being accessed is spinning at the time of being accessed, you don't need an OS to run it on, it has a really nice GUI which is improving all the time to manage most things and it is supported by a VERY active community (which is better than ANY other I have experienced). As a means of negatives (and these are my own and what i mean by CORE features which competitors already have in their product, but as I said above are not enough to make me move) There is no data validation (e.g. CRC etc), Poorer(er) fault tolerance in that it only supports 1 drive failure before there is data loss (I don't worry about this now as I have moved to a FULL Backup system - which technically I should have had anyway no matter how much data I have), data errors are not managed (e.g. if rot occurs then this can be copied to Parity meaning potential data loss). Unraid (IMHO) is in a difficult spot. Many competitors have the Media Centric / Virtualisation features (which are the focus of LT's latest release) and LT have to catch up. I would have liked them to consolidate on their core product first and make it the best damn RAID system software product they can and then add additional features later, but I don't think that is possible for them right now. One might speculate that this is because of their licensing model (e.g. pay once and not ongoing) as new sales are based on what new customers want and people seem to want those additional features I mention above - and it seems unless their RAID system is also an ALL-IN-ONE RAID System, Media Server, Virtualisation Host etc etc. It is seen as a deal breaker. Some people talk to the use of SW Linux and RFS and the supportability of such software as an issue - but I don't think that is one for me. Quite the Contrary - It seems to have served LT well in the past and I don't (and never have) seen an immediate need to move from something that is working (e.g. Barney Stinson Quote: Newer is Always Better). They have a solid product which is lasting. While I am sure LT have a long term strategy for moving OS's / FS's (noting that BTRFS and XFS are options in v6). Here comes my biggest issue ...... Development and Roadmap. Development with Unraid takes (in comparative terms) FOREVER! There is no PUBLIC release schedule (either for bugs or feature enchancements), milestones, development plan. You just don't know when another BETA is going to pop up, how many there are going to be, when it will move to RC, how many of them there will be and then when there will be FINAL. You can make the jump to the new version and install the BETA but remember you ALWAYS get the caveat (this is BETA software so data loss cannot be guaranteed) - which I guess if you have a backup running the latest stable version its not too much of an issue. I sometimes forget about this because in the main I think of Unraid as a community supported product - but then remember I PAID for it - so I get upset again! All in All for me Unraid is an excellent Product (for now) and I hope it continues to be. It needs to be competitive and I guess thats what LT is trying to do right now with v6 and I can't blame them for that. Does it offer a solution which offers the BEST protection for your data. I would say no. But I think they will get there. Always have a Backup of your data, be careful to run the stable version of the OS (on your main server at least) and I think this is the product for you. As with any choice of solution there are Pro's and Con's for each and I think Unraid has more Pro's than Con's. Thats why I use it. Link to comment
gurulee Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Unraid is a turnkey storage and PMR that can run plex and complementing plug-ins. Link to comment
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