I'm looking to build my first unraid server. Primary use will be file storage backup (documents, photos, music, miscellaneous items) along with my media backup.

 

I would like to store all of my movies and music collection on it and use Plex to pipe it to my media machines throughout the house. The most I would ever have playing at one time is 2 streams.

 

I already have a brand new Antec 300 case sitting in my basement that I haven't touched yet.

 

Looking to do a semi-budget friendly build. Looking to spend around 500 or so max. I have 5 hard drives in current PC that I would like to transfer over. Most of them are WD Green's 2TB and 4TB.

 

Looking to build one here shorty as I currently have everything stored on main PC with no backup on anything!

 

Any good recommendations/advice?

 

Thanks

I'm looking to build my first unraid server. Primary use will be file storage backup (documents, photos, music, miscellaneous items) along with my media backup.

 

I would like to store all of my movies and music collection on it and use Plex to pipe it to my media machines throughout the house. The most I would ever have playing at one time is 2 streams.

 

I already have a brand new Antec 300 case sitting in my basement that I haven't touched yet.

 

Looking to do a semi-budget friendly build. Looking to spend around 500 or so max. I have 5 hard drives in current PC that I would like to transfer over. Most of them are WD Green's 2TB and 4TB.

 

Looking to build one here shorty as I currently have everything stored on main PC with no backup on anything!

 

Any good recommendations/advice?

 

Thanks

You may need to get some more drives or consolidate the data on the ones you hope to reuse. unRAID must format any drive it uses in the array. You should also at least check the SMART of any old drives and test any new drives.

 

And make a backup plan. unRAID is not a backup unless it is used to store a backup.

I do plan to consolidate that data and slowly transfer everything over to reuse the hard drives that I have. Although the process might take me awhile, it will allow me to save my data along with reusing my current drives.

 

If budget allows I will buy a few more WD Red 4 TB's.

 

I will have to look into a decent backup solution, thanks for the tip.

I'm looking to build my first unraid server. Primary use will be file storage backup (documents, photos, music, miscellaneous items) along with my media backup.

 

I would like to store all of my movies and music collection on it and use Plex to pipe it to my media machines throughout the house. The most I would ever have playing at one time is 2 streams.

 

I already have a brand new Antec 300 case sitting in my basement that I haven't touched yet.

 

Looking to do a semi-budget friendly build. Looking to spend around 500 or so max. I have 5 hard drives in current PC that I would like to transfer over. Most of them are WD Green's 2TB and 4TB.

 

Looking to build one here shorty as I currently have everything stored on main PC with no backup on anything!

 

Any good recommendations/advice?

 

Thanks

I'm not sure what you have for media players so I'll assume that you will need to do some transcoding.  Shoot for a minimum of 5,000 Passmarks in order to handle basic unRAID (1,000) and 2x1080p streams (2,000 each).  That's a minimum and based on a rule of thumb - it won't hurt to go higher.  This puts you in high end Core i3 territory, or Core i5 / low end Xeon.  8GB of RAM is fine, though 16GB wouldn't hurt.  Consider ECC RAM, it's a great choice for an always-on fault tolerant server (but does require a motherboard and CPU that support it).  The Antec 300 is a full tower case so you have lots of motherboard options - I like Asus, ASRock, and Supermicro personally.  Get a good power supply with a single 12v rail.

The passmark rating is only important with Plex if the media players throughout your house have to have the streams transcoded in order to play.  If they can play the stream direct, then its pretty much irrelevant how fast your CPU is.

Living Room - PS4

Bedroom - Amazon Fire TV

 

I don't believe any of my devices require transcoding that I'm aware of.

 

I was thinking along the lines of using a server motherboard with a Xeon e3 v1220 and 8GB of ECC ram.

 

Would I need an SSD for the cache drive, does it make that much of a difference?

 

I know my Parity drive needs to be the largest drive in the system as well.

 

I would add hard drives to it as I went along, instead of all at once to save some money up front.

Whether you need transcoding is dependent on the format of your source materials and the capabilities of your players.  If your media is all H.264 encoded material using codecs that your PS4 and FireTV can play directly then Plex should serve them up via Direct Play / Direct Stream.  Even if Plex decides you need transcoding an E3-1220 will get the job done nicely.

 

The cache drive is the defacto "application" drive in unRAID 6.  You store your Docker image and data files there by default.  An SSD is a great choice for the cache drive, and you do want one - it's not a great idea to put Dockers on the storage array.  You can also use an HDD for the cache drive but it's slower, uses more power than an SSD, and will constantly be spinning.  (I'm using an old HD for my cache drive at the moment, it's got a bazillion hours on it and refuses to die - kind of entertaining, actually).  It's entirely up to you whether you also use the cache drive for its orginal purpose of high speed caching of new files written to the array - I don't feel the need personally.

 

You can definitely add hard drives as you go along, that's one of the great things about unRAID.  If you ever decide to start using larger drives you'll also have to upgrade your parity, but that's not a big deal.

I'm pretty much running the same setup.

 

various HDD's for the storage array.

1TB laptop SSHD for cache / apps

all shares set to not use cache.