Array questions

[ibrahiemk]

Hello all,

 

First, thank you all in advanced for reading and any assistance you provide!

I'm excited to get started with my first unRaid build, but I'm getting a bit of information overload. Let me start with what I have to dedicate to this:

 

1x 250GB SSD (cache)

1x500GB SSD (cache)

3x2TB WD HDD (1Red,2Green) (array)

Gaming machine with a GTX 1070, 16GB RAM, i5 7600k. 

1xSynology ds1010+ NAS with 5x1TB drives. 

 

Wants in no particular order:

1.Gaming on a Win 10 VM.

2. Torrent seedbox with Radarr,Sonarr etc (never done this before).

3. Various VMs for testing (Linux, Mac, etc)

4. Plex 

5. OwnCloud, BT Sync

6. VPN. 

 

Questions:

1. What is the appropriate way to setup my shares/array/cache? I've read conflicting info on torrents especially with regards to the incomplete data. From what I gather best practice is for incomplete downloads to be on cache, with deluge/torrent client to move to array once completed. 

2. I want to automate torrent as much as possible. I've setup transmission before, but it doesn't seem to support labels. I'd like the files to be moved based on the content. So games ISO go to games folder, kids movies to kids movies share..you get the idea. 

3. Can I backup the unRaid to the Synology NAS? Can you recommend any better use for it(the Synology)?

4. I keep seeing references to "you don't want to spin up the array". Why not? This is confusing me. There is no way a seedbox can keep all the data on the cache, so would the array be constantly spinning while seeding? What if no one is pulling that particular file? 

5. For streaming the gaming machine, I have a nVidia shield tv. However, how are other VMs best used? So If I want to use, say a Raspberry Pi, to stream a full Linux or Mac VM, how do I get the best "experience". I would like to give my kiddos access to a VM or two to use..sorta like a thin client concept, but be able to watch video/youtube/netflix and so on. 

 

Thanks again. I'll continue to research, just wanted some expert opinions. I'm getting too old for trial and error