Hello everyone. I will try to keep my ramblings controlled and on point. Please forgive me if not everything makes sense at first. Please feel free to ask any questions.

 

My home server has changed a couple times over the past few years. The new current setup is going to be one machine with 6 hard drives: two 4TB WD Reds (media server), three 1TB WD Reds (data server), and one 250GB drive (host storage/VMs). I currently use Proxmox as my hypervisor with 2 virtual servers and one or two play around VM’s like Windows and Linux.

 

The reason for such configurations is mostly due to what I had on hand when putting together the server. I am more concerned with backing up my data instead of redundancy. The server could go offline and it would be no big deal but losing the data is. These servers do not see a lot of activity, mostly watching Plex and storing files here and there.

The media server is running Ubuntu Server with Plex and Teamspeak. It has the two 4TB drives that I directly passthrough from Proxmox (which is a huge pain). I use one of the 4TB as the daily driver and every night I have a cron job rsyncing that drive to the other 4TB drive. I then do a monthly backup to my USB external 4TB drive. I have it set up this way instead of a mirror because the data throughput would be generally slower and I don’t see the need for the extra workload on the backup drive if it is not needed.

The other server is my data storage (NAS) running OpenMediaVault with the normal file sharing services. It has the three 1TB drives running in Soft RAID 5, also passed through. Because I shuffled things around, I ended up with one extra 1TB drive than I had. Before, this machine was backed up in a similar manner as the media server. I have a 2TB external drive that I do my “monthly” backups to and 3TB would be over the drive capacity. Having it in a RAID 5 configuration allows me to have some form of data integrity of my data drive and the overall capacity will fit on the 2TB external. I just back it up a little more often.

 

Which leads me to unRAID. I have viewed the videos, did my research, and even used the trial copy on a dummy rig but I will not attempt to reconfigure my server or spend the money on unRAID if this doesn’t seem like a viable option for me. I mainly use the server for storage, being data or media specific, and a few other things here and there. That is why unRAID appealed to me as it is a NAS first with an added feature set. So this is where I ask you, the community,  for your input.

 

1) Would unRAID work in a similar manner as my current configuration?

2) Is there a backup plugin that would allow for me to backup up my drives separately or something similar?

3) I’m a little sketchy on having one parity drive for 5 other disks. Can I have different parity drives for a different set of arrays?

 

Any productive feedback and questions are welcome

 

Thank you.

unRAID only supports a single storage array per server instance.  You can protect your array with a single parity drive, or two parity drives in the upcoming 6.2 release.  You protect the entire storage array with parity, though - not a portion.

 

Once your array is established you can setup user shares.  User shares can be configured to use all the drives in the array or select drives if you want to segregate types of data.  So you could have a Media share and a Files share, or whatever.  Transitioning from your current drives will be a bit of a challenge if they're all full...

 

CrashPlan is one of several backup Dockers available via the Community Applications plugin.  Backups are critical - unRAID, like all RAID solutions, is not a backup strategy.

While I'm not an unRAID user (but considering it), here are my thoughts -

 

I would not use any form of RAID - the reason for this is RAID 5 does data striping and the files are not readable outside of the RAID array, which means if a disk goes bad your data is gone till you reconstruct the array (which can be error prone). This is precisely the reason unRAID works the way it does (and is named what it is  ).

 

Do you still wish to continue using Proxmox or would you run unRAID on bare metal? Either way would work. In any case, I'd consolidate all your storage (media and files) into unRAID storage pools, protected by a parity drive (or 2 if you decide to use the 6.2 beta) and have a couple of drives (e.g. the 4 + 2TB) for periodic backup - you can choose to have those drives connected in the same server and do backups from unRAID share via rsync, via CrashPlan if on a different pc, or plug them in periodically. Even if you don't backup that frequently, the parity drive will still ensure protection of data.

While I'm not an unRAID user (but considering it), here are my thoughts -

 

I would not use any form of RAID - the reason for this is RAID 5 does data striping and the files are not readable outside of the RAID array, which means if a disk goes bad your data is gone till you reconstruct the array (which can be error prone). This is precisely the reason unRAID works the way it does (and is named what it is  ).

 

Do you still wish to continue using Proxmox or would you run unRAID on bare metal? Either way would work. In any case, I'd consolidate all your storage (media and files) into unRAID storage pools, protected by a parity drive (or 2 if you decide to use the 6.2 beta) and have a couple of drives (e.g. the 4 + 2TB) for periodic backup - you can choose to have those drives connected in the same server and do backups from unRAID share via rsync, via CrashPlan if on a different pc, or plug them in periodically. Even if you don't backup that frequently, the parity drive will still ensure protection of data.

Not bad for someone who's only considering unRaid.  Obviously you like to do your homework.

unRAID only supports a single storage array per server instance.  You can protect your array with a single parity drive, or two parity drives in the upcoming 6.2 release.  You protect the entire storage array with parity, though - not a portion.

Thank you. That is part of my concern. I would obviously have to use one of the 4TB drives as parity. This is not much of an issue as I can exclude/include certain drives to store certain folders. I would just have to keep track of what drives are for what shares. I was aware that double parity is a thing that is coming soon, however, if I'm not mistaken this will add a second parity bit or just backup the parity drive itself. This doesn't work for me as I need one of the 4TB free for media files by itself.

 

 

I would not use any form of RAID - the reason for this is RAID 5 does data striping and the files are not readable outside of the RAID array, which means if a disk goes bad your data is gone till you reconstruct the array (which can be error prone). This is precisely the reason unRAID works the way it does (and is named what it is

Thank you. I am aware on how unRAID works and I would not carry over the RAID 5. As I mentioned, this was only done because I needed 2TB worth of storage to match my external backup....and add some sort of "data integrity".

 

 

Once your array is established you can setup user shares.  User shares can be configured to use all the drives in the array or select drives if you want to segregate types of data.  So you could have a Media share and a Files share, or whatever.  Transitioning from your current drives will be a bit of a challenge if they're all full...

Do you still wish to continue using Proxmox or would you run unRAID on bare metal? Either way would work. In any case, I'd consolidate all your storage (media and files) into unRAID storage pools, protected by a parity drive (or 2 if you decide to use the 6.2 beta) and have a couple of drives (e.g. the 4 + 2TB) for periodic backup - you can choose to have those drives connected in the same server and do backups from unRAID share via rsync, via CrashPlan if on a different pc, or plug them in periodically. Even if you don't backup that frequently, the parity drive will still ensure protection of data.

I would add user shares e.g. media share only to the 4TB drive. This allows me to keep the same amount of space for my external 4TB backup. Also I could use two of the 1TB for my data stuff which gives me the same space as the 2TB external...which actually frees up a drive bay or gives me an extra 1TB of space for something else. I plan on somewhat keeping my current config but tweak it a bit for unRAID. My drives are not full so this wouldn't be an issue. I normally plug in the external drives to my main machine or laptop and rsync the backup. I do not plan on using Proxmox as I don't believe it would be needed. unRAID would be on bare metal. I need a storage solution most, which unRAID provides, and the ability to run other things like Teamspeak, Plex, and OS's which unRAID does via dockers/VM's. Which is the main reason I was interested in it. I was mainly asking with my setup, on how to set it up or tweak some things that would give me close to my desired configuration.

 

 

CrashPlan is one of several backup Dockers available via the Community Applications plugin.  Backups are critical - unRAID, like all RAID solutions, is not a backup strategy.

Two of you mentioned this so I will do more research on CrashPlan. Thank you.

I would also like to ask about security concerns. I have heard/read many issues regarding unRAID security. I run Plex, which has an open port, Teamspeak which has open ports, FTP which has open ports....needless to say I have open ports to my VM's and their services they offer. So with my configuration I already have, what should I do/not do regarding security and what I should and should not open to the internet? What is secure...what isn't secure?

 

Thank you.

 

I would also like to ask about security concerns. I have heard/read many issues regarding unRAID security. I run Plex, which has an open port, Teamspeak which has open ports, FTP which has open ports....needless to say I have open ports to my VM's and their services they offer. So with my configuration I already have, what should I do/not do regarding security and what I should and should not open to the internet? What is secure...what isn't secure?

 

Thank you.

If you're comfortable running Plex and its open ports on a Windows box, then you should have no issues with running it under Linux.  Ultimately with programs on any OS you are trusting that the programs are error free and will not allow hacks into it or things like buffer overruns which can allow arbitrary execution of code.

 

Myself, I'm far more worried about a virus getting onto my devices which connect to my unRaid server and infecting the files on it than a virus or someone hacking into it and then getting onto my other computers.  But then again, I don't expose the server directly to the internet, and if I'm out of the house, I only access the server via a VPN.  And I would do nothing different if I was running a Windows system as my file server.

 

The ideal situation is to set up a VPN (many many routers support this natively) and only connect to your server via that.

 

Personally, I would never expose an FTP port to the internet without first making very sure that the security of the FTP server is correct (bans after x number of failed login attempts, etc)  Open port scans happen all the time over the internet, and when a BOT or other malware detects an open port, it will keep banging away using dictionary attacks until they succeed.  Doesn't matter what OS you're using.

If you're comfortable running Plex and its open ports on a Windows box...

I absolutely don't trust this...which is why I have it running under a Linux OS.

 

 

The ideal situation is to set up a VPN (many many routers support this natively) and only connect to your server via that.

 

Personally, I would never expose an FTP port to the internet without first making very sure that the security of the FTP server is correct (bans after x number of failed login attempts, etc)  Open port scans happen all the time over the internet, and when a BOT or other malware detects an open port, it will keep banging away using dictionary attacks until they succeed.  Doesn't matter what OS you're using.

I do not use a "normal" router for my public facing port. I have an old PC that is running pfSense as my firewall/gateway/router. The FTP server is a VM running on Proxmox and It does have bans in place plus it uses masquerading ports. I'm semi-confident that it is secure enough for my purposes, but I'm sure there is a way to get in if somebody really wanted it bad enough. I don't plan on allowing unRAID to be outside accessible. So my questions are things like memory leaking with the dockers or VM's, or a VM running FTP being able to loop back to the host or having unRAID in any situation like that in general. I've heard/read things but haven't found anything to damning other than "don't do it". So that's why I ask others who use the product to verify any detailed security concerns other than "it's not safe" yada yada.

 

I normally just SSH into the firewall and then go from there. I do need to set up a VPN though, haven't done that in a long time. I just never got around to doing it.

 

Thanks for the input.

I would also like to ask about security concerns. I have heard/read many issues regarding unRAID security. I run Plex, which has an open port, Teamspeak which has open ports, FTP which has open ports....needless to say I have open ports to my VM's and their services they offer. So with my configuration I already have, what should I do/not do regarding security and what I should and should not open to the internet? What is secure...what isn't secure?

 

Thank you.

 

For a server running a bunch of services, the setup I'd like to have is a reverse proxy (like nginx) so that you can access services wuth url's like 'myserver.com/plex' vs using ports and then add https on top of it using something like LetsEncrypt (free certs). I believe there are docker setups to automate all of this. And you can use a vpn to access everything via the router from outside the network.