Hi All

 

Am thinking of going the unRaid route, but was wondering if I do me initial build can I:

 

A - Start with a single parity disk and add a second one at a later date?

B - Add a cache disk (pair) at a later date also?

 

This is all basically down to cost, and not wanting to wait 

 

Cheers, and a Happy New Year - Phil

A - Yes, you can start with single parity and add a second later.

 

B - Yes, cache disk(s) - single or a pool can also be added later.  There is a little more involved with moving appdata (if you are running docker apps) from an array disk to a cache disk/pool, but, it can easily be done.  Both of these procedures are well documented in these forums.

 

Since you are doing neither now, you can look for that information when the time comes.

 

Bottom line is that yes, you can set up an array with single parity and no cache and move to dual parity and cache drive(s) later.

Hey Hoopster

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll get right on it!

 

I notice from your build you are using WD Reds, are NAS certified disks a MUST? Again it's a question about cost...

 

Cheers again, Phil

...  There is a little more involved with moving appdata (if you are running docker apps) from an array disk to a cache disk/pool, but, it can easily be done...

Just set the appdata share to cache-preferred and when you get a cache drive it will automatically be moved to cache.

Hey Hoopster

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll get right on it!

 

I notice from your build you are using WD Reds, are NAS certified disks a MUST? Again it's a question about cost...

 

Cheers again, Phil

No, plenty of people use Green or other drives with unRAID.  That said, the NAS drives have been quite reliable, are built to deal with the vibration of a multi-drive enclosure and come with a longer warranty so they're pretty popular despite the slightly higher cost.

A lot of folks buy their drives based solely on the lowest possible cost.  Nothing "wrong" with that strategy -- it IS, after all, a fault-tolerant system so you can easily replace a failed drive -- BUT I think you're better off paying a bit more and using NAS-rated drives.  I'm a big fan of WD Reds, but the HGST units are also very well thought of; and the Seagate NAS drives are good as well.

 

Entirely a personal choice -- and with dual parity it's even less of a risk using cheaper drives, since even if you get a 2nd failure during a rebuild it can still finish successfully.  Personally, I prefer to use nothing but NAS-rated drives to reduce the likelihood of having those failures ... I think the small cost difference is good "insurance".

 

...  There is a little more involved with moving appdata (if you are running docker apps) from an array disk to a cache disk/pool, but, it can easily be done...

Just set the appdata share to cache-preferred and when you get a cache drive it will automatically be moved to cache.

 

True.  I forgot about that capability in unRAID 6.2.x.  Last time I messed with changing cache drive configuration was pre- "cache-preferred" and I did some manual file copying.

Hey Hoopster

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll get right on it!

 

I notice from your build you are using WD Reds, are NAS certified disks a MUST? Again it's a question about cost...

 

Cheers again, Phil

 

As others have said, NAS drives are not required, but, they are my personal choice.  I have built systems for others based on "lowest cost for required functionality" with non-NAS drives and they all continue to hum along just fine.  Depending on how many drives you plan to have, dual parity (when you decide to do it) is also an added layer of protection against drive failure and gives you a bit more peace of mind if going with lower-cost drives.

 

I have never had a WD Red drive fail, but, all the greens, blues, blacks and non-WD drives I have used in my systems and others have also (knock on wood) never failed either.

 

My personal choices are WD reds, HGST NAS and Seagate Ironwolf in that order.

 

The cost differential between NAS and non-NAS drives from any vendor -usually between $10-$20 for the same capacity- is just not a big enough difference to me vs. the advantages (real or perceived) of going with NAS-rated drives.