Hello,

I'm planning on building a PC that serves multiple purposes and I'm fairly sure that unRAID is the best choice for my plan, however I would like to verify that before I even buy the hardware.

I'm actually not interested in a parity disk since the data wont be crucial, and I have already verified that a parity disk is not necessarily needed and can be added at a later point in time.

However, the PC would stand beside a TV for occasionally playing back DVD/BR, surfing the web, checking mails and printing. Since my parents would do that and they're used to Windows, that would be the choice for that.

As a second OS I'd want a linux distro without any desktop environment that I can control via SSH, and it would function as a DLNA(transcoding wont be needed) and file server to be reached from the PCs and set-top boxes within the local network. Some other server tasks might be added as well, so going only with windows wont do.

 

Is unRAID a good choice for me ? Also, since windows will only be needed occasionally, is it possible to start and stop windows while the linux distro serves 24/7 ?

 

I appreciate any answer 

 

 

Since you wont need parity and want to activly use it.  You should juat have a linux on it.  Imo

The pain of teaching my parents how to use a linux desktop environment is greater than any pain I'd have setting up unRAID or anything else. It might seem easy for us, but at older age people like to stick to the looks and functions they have learned already. Windows is crucial in my case.

If it would just be me, I'd just use linux. yeah

unRAID is already a Linux, but if you aren't going to bother with the NAS functionality, I have to wonder why not just do everything your talking about with a Windows machine? Seems a lot simpler especially if this is for your parents to use.

Huh well I might just use the NAS functionality for file/dlna purposes then.

I do need a linux on the machine for other smaller things I have in mind.

unRAID is a customized slackware distro. You can of course install VMs for Windows or other Linux distros if you want. It is possible that dockers may make it unnecessary to bother with a Linux VM. See this sticky thread for the amazing number of dockers already available from this community.

Thanks trurl. Wish I had seen this earlier as I would not have had to open this thread. Im convinced