Hello community,

 

I am looking into moving to an unRAID system towards the end of the month. I have various questions I appologise if they have been answered elsewhere I just want to obtain a full clear understanding.

 

I am looking to build a Plex server ontop of unRAID in order to use the power of using any sized disks in the RAID. I am also hoping to use uTorrent, NZBget and Sonarr and possibly TeamSpeak3 Server.

 

• Is it mandatory to have a parity drive? (If not I will be adding one within a month)
  
• Is it difficult to update unRAID?
  
• If anyone has used unRAID6 and installed Plex I'd like to grab some feedback and gotcha's
  
• I have read some information about the Dockers but as a newcomer to Linux does anyone have a detailed guide?
  

 

Thank you very much in advance and if anyone can offer advice it is much appreciated.

• Is it mandatory to have a parity drive? (If not I will be adding one within a month)

Not mandatory but recommended

• Is it difficult to update unRAID?

Just hit check for updates

• If anyone has used unRAID6 and installed Plex I'd like to grab some feedback and gotcha's

I'm only a casual user of Plex, but there was nothing strange that I ran into in setting it up

• I have read some information about the Dockers but as a newcomer to Linux does anyone have a detailed guide?

No detailed guide per se, because the set up for each application is different.  But for the general concepts, check out the Docker FAQ thread. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40937.0 and the noobie setup guide http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=37732.0, and Community Applications (to make installation of the various containers easy) http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40262.0  Docker is just a way to install an application.

 

Hello,

 

thank you for replying, i've not been able to find any official documentation for installing Plex, is it as simple as downloading the package from plex.tv to a folder called extra on the root of the flash drive?

 

Do you happen to know how easy it is to get Sonarr up and running on unRAID along with a newsground downloading application?

 

thanks!

Hello,

 

thank you for replying, i've not been able to find any official documentation for installing Plex, is it as simple as downloading the package from plex.tv to a folder called extra on the root of the flash drive?

  Install one of the docker versions instead.  IE: from linuxserver.io or binhex

Do you happen to know how easy it is to get Sonarr up and running on unRAID along with a newsground downloading application?

Relatively painless.  Basically no different than doing it on Windows.  Only thing to wrap your head around is volume mapping for docker applications, of which there is some explaination of it in the docker FAQ

 

thanks!

Thanks for the information it is much appreciated.

 

I am also looking into the option possibly for ease of running native applications to run a CentOS7 VM. Do you know what kind of resources I need to reserve for the running of unRAID?

 

The machine which will be running my unraid is: AMD4350 @ 4.6Ghz, 16GB Ram, 10TB mixed hdds. I would like there to be a single guest OS of the CentOS with as many resources as I can throw at it.

I would reserve about 2GB for unRAID use which should be enough unless you are going to run a significant number of dockers.  You may well get away with even less for unRAID but I it is better to have a little margin as running out of RAM can have unexpected side-effects if processes start getting killed.

Thanks for the reply, I will leave 2GB for unRAID and will use the rest for my guest operating system. I'm pretty much going to be running Sonarr, Plex and a newgroup downloader within the guest os (CentOS7) so I think I should be okay and not really need any Dockers.

 

Sorry if any of my questions seem a little silly

Thanks for the reply, I will leave 2GB for unRAID and will use the rest for my guest operating system. I'm pretty much going to be running Sonarr, Plex and a newgroup downloader within the guest os (CentOS7) so I think I should be okay and not really need any Dockers.

 

Sorry if any of my questions seem a little silly

 

I think the approach most of us take is to use docker containers for Sonarr, Plex, NZBGet/SABNzbd and only use a VM if we can't use a suitable docker.

Hmm okay! Maybe I will check out Dockers with more detail! I will check out the links in the first reply.

 

I was not sure on the locations to download the docker versions from? Can someone help me out with that?

 

In terms of Sonarr and Nzbget are they easy to get running via the docker?

Hmm okay! Maybe I will check out Dockers with more detail! I will check out the links in the first reply.

 

I was not sure on the locations to download the docker versions from? Can someone help me out with that?

 

In terms of Sonarr and Nzbget are they easy to get running via the docker?

 

The only difficulty with dockers is getting your head around them conceptually regarding the folder and port mapping.

 

linuxserver.io do versions of all the software you want, which will save space as you'll use a common base image.

 

Give it a go and if you need some help pop by the irc chatroom or post a thread here. 

Okay I've watched videos and seem to have my head kinda around dockers.

 

The next things i want to understand are Parity drives and Cache drives.

 

Cache - Is it better to run a couple of SSD's? I'll not be writing much over 50GB a day so would these works for cache driveS? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Technology-120GB-Solid-2-5-inch/dp/B00A1ZTZOG/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447340819&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=64GB+SSDF

 

Parity - How easy is it to upgrade a parity drive or change to a large parity disk? Will I lose anything in the process other than protection should a drive fail?

Okay I've watched videos and seem to have my head kinda around dockers.

 

The next things i want to understand are Parity drives and Cache drives.

 

Cache - Is it better to run a couple of SSD's? I wont be writing more than 250GB a day so would 2x Samsung EVO850's work for cache? If I understand correctly this protects me the in the case one dies?

 

Parity - How easy is it to upgrade a parity drive or change to a large parity disk? Will I lose anything in the process other than protection should a drive fail?

In addition to caching user shares, most people use the cache drive for dockers and VMs. In fact, some such as myself, only use the cache drive for this purpose and don't even bother with caching user shares.

Thanks for the reply i'm very interested in your setup.

 

I edited my previous post to mention looking into these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Technology-120GB-Solid-2-5-inch/dp/B00A1ZTZOG/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447340819&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=64GB+SSDF

 

Do you think 2 of these in a Cache pool would be sufficent for Plex, Sonarr, Nzbget, possibly torrent app? I would also like to run a TeamSpeak3 server but those are currently my only aims. Whilst I still think I need to read more on Dockers. I don't suppose you would be able to take some screenshots of your Docker setup for Plex would you?

 

I really wish someone would create an unRAID6 video for loading plex!

Have you installed Community Applications plugin yet?

... I don't suppose you would be able to take some screenshots of your Docker setup for Plex would you?

thanks for the screenshots. I'm currently making sure I have everything I need ready to build at the end of the month. I'm repurposing my current desktop machine as my unRAID as I upgrade to an i7 machines.

 

I've loaded unRAID onto my designated flash drive. I'm not sure If I can do anymore without being able to ready up the disks.

 

I guess I need to get my head around those container folders and how to set them up.

I guess I need to get my head around those container folders and how to set them up.

It's not a complicated concept, but its not the easiest to explain however.

 

In a nutshell for the above picture,

 

Whenever plex reads or writes to /config, its actually going to be reading or writing from /mnt/cache/appdata/plexmediaserver

Whenever plex reads or writes to /media, its actually going to be reading or writing from /mnt/user (which is where all of unRaid shares are)

Whenever plex reads or writes to /transcode, its actually going to be reading or writing from /tmp (temporary folder stored in RAM)

 

The sweet thing about docker applications is that you can only allow them access to whatever unRaid shares you deem necessary.  EG: If you don't want any plex users to be able to access those "special pictures", you wouldn't allow the application access to it (although in this case, plex has access to all of the shares on the system due to the /mnt/user)  That being said, it is far easier to conceptualize if you set up the folders similar to above

Awesome thank you! sorry I didn't reply earlier I missed this went onto page 2!

 

 

When Plex comes in as a Docker application does it always use those three folders and you specify where you actually want it to look? I'm sure when I finally get up and running it will be much simpler.

 

 

I have another question if that's OK?

 

If I decide I want to swap out an older/smaller hard drive and replace it with a new one would I lose data or simply replace it and the Parity drive would rebuild onto it?

 

Thanks!

If I decide I want to swap out an older/smaller hard drive and replace it with a new one would I lose data or simply replace it and the Parity drive would rebuild onto it?

You just swap it out and the rebuild will happen and all your data is intact.  Strictly speaking this is not just from parity, but from the combination of all the other data drives plus the parity drive.  That I why unRAID can (currently) only rebuild if a single disk is faulty (or being replaced) as it needs all the other drives working OK to do the rebuild.