June 6, 201610 yr How do - Im looking into building my first Unraid box having had a Linux machine with a Mdadm software raid acting as my home server for a while but i have a couple of questions im not really sure about I know that under Mdadm the parity bits are split across all the drives - on unraid the parity bits are all stored on one drive - my plan is to buy a bigger parity drive that the data drives in the array meaning i have less pain when it comes to adding larger hard drives in the future - this a good idea? I currently have a spare 16GB of RAM and a Celeron G1840 (dual core 2.8ghz) for the machine, I know that if i want to do virtualisation down the road i will need a better CPU but just to run some dockers (Plex, SABNZB, Sickbeard, couch potato) that should be a good enough CPU right? The board i am looking at running is a Asrock Z97 Extreme4 as it has a fair amount of SATA ports built in and it has multiple PCI express connectors so i could add extra storage controllers/graphics cards etc if i go down the route of virtualisation Also if im going to look at some virtual machines as well (final plan if i do virtualisation would be a kodi VM connected to the machine and a windows 10 vm for game streaming to a raspberryPi acting like an nvidia sheidl) then would i be right in thiking that it is a case of as many cores, clock cycles and gigs of RAM i can get in the machine the better?
June 6, 201610 yr How do - Im looking into building my first Unraid box having had a Linux machine with a Mdadm software raid acting as my home server for a while but i have a couple of questions im not really sure about I know that under Mdadm the parity bits are split across all the drives - on unraid the parity bits are all stored on one drive - my plan is to buy a bigger parity drive that the data drives in the array meaning i have less pain when it comes to adding larger hard drives in the future - this a good idea? I currently have a spare 16GB of RAM and a Celeron G1840 (dual core 2.8ghz) for the machine, I know that if i want to do virtualisation down the road i will need a better CPU but just to run some dockers (Plex, SABNZB, Sickbeard, couch potato) that should be a good enough CPU right? The board i am looking at running is a Asrock Z97 Extreme4 as it has a fair amount of SATA ports built in and it has multiple PCI express connectors so i could add extra storage controllers/graphics cards etc if i go down the route of virtualisation Also if im going to look at some virtual machines as well (final plan if i do virtualisation would be a kodi VM connected to the machine and a windows 10 vm for game streaming to a raspberryPi acting like an nvidia sheidl) then would i be right in thiking that it is a case of as many cores, clock cycles and gigs of RAM i can get in the machine the better? Bigger Parity Drive to give upgrade room: Yes this is a great idea. It'll save you a lot of time in the future. The rest of the questions are a bit ahead of me, since I don't really mess with VM's still. Hope someone else can come in and answer your questions.
June 6, 201610 yr How do - Im looking into building my first Unraid box having had a Linux machine with a Mdadm software raid acting as my home server for a while but i have a couple of questions im not really sure about I know that under Mdadm the parity bits are split across all the drives - on unraid the parity bits are all stored on one drive - my plan is to buy a bigger parity drive that the data drives in the array meaning i have less pain when it comes to adding larger hard drives in the future - this a good idea? Yes, a great idea. I currently have a spare 16GB of RAM and a Celeron G1840 (dual core 2.8ghz) for the machine, I know that if i want to do virtualisation down the road i will need a better CPU but just to run some dockers (Plex, SABNZB, Sickbeard, couch potato) that should be a good enough CPU right? That's a somewhat lightweight CPU. Two cores, no hyperthreading, 2972 Passmarks. It's plenty for basic NAS duties and should be Ok for a few dockers. You probably want to avoid any serious Plex transcoding, though. 16GB of RAM is great for NAS duties + Dockers. The board i am looking at running is a Asrock Z97 Extreme4 as it has a fair amount of SATA ports built in and it has multiple PCI express connectors so i could add extra storage controllers/graphics cards etc if i go down the route of virtualisation Also if im going to look at some virtual machines as well (final plan if i do virtualisation would be a kodi VM connected to the machine and a windows 10 vm for game streaming to a raspberryPi acting like an nvidia sheidl) then would i be right in thiking that it is a case of as many cores, clock cycles and gigs of RAM i can get in the machine the better? Yep, cores and clock. 16GB is fine for unRAID plus a VM, but more is advisable if you want to run several VMs.
June 6, 201610 yr Author yea i know the cpu I have is quite lightweight but i am only really considering using it as a stop gap until i get some more cash together and then look at replacing it with a 2nd hand 4th gen i5 or i7 when i have some more money The storage plan i am thinking of is a 6TB WD red parity drive and to begin with 3 4TB WD red data drives as the ease of expanding the array in UnRaid is something that is drawing me to it
June 6, 201610 yr That's a good plan for the CPU, just watch how much you load it as you add Dockers, etc. Also a good plan for the disks, especially if you already have the 4TB drives. If you're buying all new you might want to just go with the biggest you can afford for both parity and data (i.e. all 6TB drives). I feel it's easier and cheaper in the long run to manage a smaller number of large drives.
June 6, 201610 yr I currently have a spare 16GB of RAM and a Celeron G1840 (dual core 2.8ghz) for the machine, I know that if i want to do virtualisation down the road i will need a better CPU but just to run some dockers (Plex, SABNZB, Sickbeard, couch potato) that should be a good enough CPU right? It will work fine for this, but with no more than 1 transcoding stream from plex at the same time. Each plex stream is around 2000 +/- passmark, and your have 2972 passmark
June 6, 201610 yr Author the reason for different sized drives is at the moment 6TB drives are just shy of £200 per drive - the 4TB drives can be picked up for £130ish so its a way to save money at the moment while giving me the option to move to 6TB drives when the price comes down/I get more money As i said the celeron is only really a temporary processor until i get more cash and soon i should be able to pick up a 2nd hand CPU and graphics card for the gaming VM with some luck as people will be upgrading CPU's and graphics cards when the nvidiea 1080's start shipping
June 6, 201610 yr I've been buying Toshiba Canvio 5TB drives in external enclosures and extracting them from their cases to use in my box. Only £110 delivered from Amazon, although you will void their warranty if you extract them from the case... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-Canvio-HDWC250EK3J1-External-Desktop/dp/B00J3OP7FW/ Something to consider if you're looking for the cheapest option Binky
June 6, 201610 yr Author Cheers for the idea - it is one to think about - the main reason my original plan has WD reds is that i have had 5 3TB reds in my current server for years with no issues and before that WD greens with no issues so its kind of i was planning to stick with what i know However the good thing is it looks like my thoughts on this build were about right
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