All in one or HTPC running apps and separate UnRaid server?


jrd680

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Hey everyone, 

 

So I've been researching and like the idea of using UnRaid especially from a storage aspect of being able to mix and match drives. As such, one person on the Reddit subreddit Datahoarder mentioned that he keeps things separate. A Windows box running Plex and other apps like Sonarr, Radarr, and NBZGET and a separate server running UnRaid to store his media. This person's arguement was that running VM's/dockers/plugin's make UnRaid run into problems with many of the issues in the UnRaid forums.  

 

What are the pros and cons of doing this arrangement versus spending more money to do the streaming and transcoding in one machine? Would appreciate any thoughts or advice. 

Edited by jrd680
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The person on reddit is either talking out of his butt or doesn't know what he is doing.  The initial setup of Unraid seems a bit scary but it is easy once you get in to it.  There are a bunch of tutorials from SpaceInvaderOne on this board that should help with that.  Unraid has been ultra stable for me.  The only time it has gone down unexpectedly is from power outages.

 

I run Unraid on a dual E5-2665 system with 64GB ram and ~40TB of disks. it is overkill but I have headroom to do a lot more.

 

VM1 : Plex Media Player with a GT720 video card and a USB IR Adapter passed to it.

VM2: Windows 10 used for Visual Studio, SQL 2014 among other things/ 16GB ram, 240GB SSD passed to it.

Containers: Plex, Guacamole, Crashplan, Sonarr, Radarr, NBZGET, NOIP, KRUSADER and LibreSonic

Plugins: Community Applications, CA Backup, Unassigned Devices, etc

 

One of the great things using CA Backup and containers I can backup all my settings for the containers automatically.  If I have an issue with the container I can blow it away and load it fresh and bring my config back in.  Running a windows box with the apps, doing settings backups and restores is a pain.

 

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+1 on reddit person talking smoke

 

Run it all on one machine. That's what unRAID is for! One stop shop to run all of those services in Dockerized format, all on top of a parity protected array.

 

Only issue I would see is if you're running a gaming VM on the unRAID box and Plex docker handling transcode jobs simultaneously while gaming.

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Silly talk.  Take a look at the posts and signatures of the many people who post here.

 

I wouldn't recommend running media server functions as plugins anymore, and would admit that getting things running under a VM is doable but a little  trickier - but unRAID and Docker are purpose built to support media server functions.

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On 3/10/2017 at 1:07 PM, spencers said:

+1 on reddit person talking smoke

 

Run it all on one machine. That's what unRAID is for! One stop shop to run all of those services in Dockerized format, all on top of a parity protected array.

 

Only issue I would see is if you're running a gaming VM on the unRAID box and Plex docker handling transcode jobs simultaneously while gaming.

 

Thanks for the reply. I don't intend to game on it and if so I'd build a separate system. Glad to hear the guy on Reddit was talking smoke.

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On 3/10/2017 at 1:16 PM, tdallen said:

Silly talk.  Take a look at the posts and signatures of the many people who post here.

 

I wouldn't recommend running media server functions as plugins anymore, and would admit that getting things running under a VM is doable but a little  trickier - but unRAID and Docker are purpose built to support media server functions.

 

Thanks I'll take a look at people's signatures and posts about their systems. 

 

As for media server functions as plugins, do you mean running Plex as a VM? I'm a newbie, please explain! 

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19 hours ago, sch1308 said:

Here is what I have running on mine, the longest ive had it up was 45 days straight. I havent tried any VM's but most motherboards and CPUs support it, plus theres like 25 different templates for OS's under unraid, or you can load your own iso. 

2017-03-10 19_46_02-Unraid_Dashboard.png

 

Your setup looks great! Do you love Radarr so far?

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On 3/10/2017 at 11:34 AM, TType85 said:

The person on reddit is either talking out of his butt or doesn't know what he is doing.  The initial setup of Unraid seems a bit scary but it is easy once you get in to it.  There are a bunch of tutorials from SpaceInvaderOne on this board that should help with that.  Unraid has been ultra stable for me.  The only time it has gone down unexpectedly is from power outages.

 

I run Unraid on a dual E5-2665 system with 64GB ram and ~40TB of disks. it is overkill but I have headroom to do a lot more.

 

VM1 : Plex Media Player with a GT720 video card and a USB IR Adapter passed to it.

VM2: Windows 10 used for Visual Studio, SQL 2014 among other things/ 16GB ram, 240GB SSD passed to it.

Containers: Plex, Guacamole, Crashplan, Sonarr, Radarr, NBZGET, NOIP, KRUSADER and LibreSonic

Plugins: Community Applications, CA Backup, Unassigned Devices, etc

 

One of the great things using CA Backup and containers I can backup all my settings for the containers automatically.  If I have an issue with the container I can blow it away and load it fresh and bring my config back in.  Running a windows box with the apps, doing settings backups and restores is a pain.

 

 

Glad it's been confirmed that the reddit user was talking out of his butt. I'll take a look at those tutorials. 

 

Do do you use a SSD in your system for Plex or just Windows 10?

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15 hours ago, jrd680 said:

 

Thanks I'll take a look at people's signatures and posts about their systems. 

 

As for media server functions as plugins, do you mean running Plex as a VM? I'm a newbie, please explain! 

UnRAID supports three different types of add-ins - Plugins, Dockers, and VMs.  Start by getting the Community Applications plugin.  It will give you access to all the other plugins (mostly OS extension type stuff) and Dockers.  Most media server functions are Dockers these days.  Spooling up a VM is only recommended if you can't find a Docker that does what you need.  

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UnRAID supports three different types of add-ins - Plugins, Dockers, and VMs.  Start by getting the Community Applications plugin.  It will give you access to all the other plugins (mostly OS extension type stuff) and Dockers.  Most media server functions are Dockers these days.  Spooling up a VM is only recommended if you can't find a Docker that does what you need.  


Thanks, much appreciated will do
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On 3/11/2017 at 6:26 PM, jrd680 said:

 

Your setup looks great! Do you love Radarr so far?

pretty great compared to couchpotato, it found pretty much everything I had and im now upgrading my older ones to blurays. im on the develop branch because nightly's were messing up my database. let me know if you have questions about it. Ga7Z0L8.png

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pretty great compared to couchpotato, it found pretty much everything I had and im now upgrading my older ones to blurays. im on the develop branch because nightly's were messing up my database. let me know if you have questions about it. Ga7Z0L8.png


I currently have my list of movies on IMDB in my Watchlist. I've also used Trakt before. How do you let Radarr know what movies you want? Manually?
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  • 1 month later...
On 3/15/2017 at 11:59 AM, jrd680 said:

 


I currently have my list of movies on IMDB in my Watchlist. I've also used Trakt before. How do you let Radarr know what movies you want? Manually?

 

sorry just checked this lol. i have it checking my imdb watchlist which is at 5,700 movies. 

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