Hello guys,

 

since my NAS is running full I want to upgrade it.

Currently I am running NAS4Free with 6 2TB WD Reds in Raid 5 with one Spare.

In addition to that, I mainly use it for Mediastreaming, Torrents and Storage. I installed a VPN using OpenVPN

The filesystem is ZFS.

 

If I want to upgrade, I need to buy e.g. 6x 6TB of WD Reds, which is a huge investment on my end.

So I stumbled upon UnRAID.

 

1. Can I import my ZFS into UnRAID and convert it into this JBOD with one parity? (this would allow me to upgrade bit by bit and feel the effects immediately)
2. I searched the forums and I think that Transmission (torrent) will be replaced by a docker called rTorrent. Open VPN is also possible and Plex for sure.

 

How can I proceed ?

Cheers, Tschuki

Hello and welcome.  

 

I think you'll like unRAID and it does support Plex, OpenVPN, and several torrent dockers.  However, you will need a data migration strategy - you can't directly import ZFS disks into the unRAID array and preserve the data.  How much actual data do you have?  And, do you have the ability to stand up two servers at the same time?

Hello tdallen and thank you for your reply,

 

having two servers up at the same time is a situation I'd like to avoid.

Nevertheless, my current server and MB do just support 2x SATAIII and the rest of the drives are running SATAII. Currently I get around 100MB/s speed (which is appropriate, I heard)

I think I need to upgrade anyways but the disc problem still persists:

I could:

• buy 6x 6 TB Reds, setup a new server and copy the files over (this would require me to buy all new hardware) 
• buy the discs and resilver them slowly using NAS4Free (I would still be using N4F and not unRAID)

I have around 10 TB of data

I guess I am out of options here.

Do you have your data backed up?

You say you have 6 drives - 2 TB each in raid 5 with one spare.
That would mean 4+1 for the RAID5 and then the spare. So 4*2 = 8TB max data.

 

You don't need to buy 6x6 TB right now, unless you need the space.

 

You could buy 3x 6TB drives and possibly one USB 3 enclosure (assuming your hardware supports USB 3, and no spare SATA connector)

- connect the first disk internally or using USB enclosure, format and fill.

- connect the second disk, format and fill with remaining files.

 

Then shut down the machine, strip out the old disks and insert your 3 6TB drives and boot+configure a unRAID system with 2+1 drives, giving you room for 12 TB files.

And you would still have room for at least 3 more 6TB drives to expand the unRAID installation at a later time.

 

If you want a higher level of redundancy, then you could run unRAID with dual-parity. That is better than running with a spare drive.