So I've been playing with unRAID for the last 10 days now, after spending way to long researching various options before that. And after using it now, I've come to the conclusion that it's probably the perfect system for my desired usage (personal home storage server, media server, etc.). However, I really wish that some of the ways that it works were far more prevalent in the documentation. If I had found this stuff earlier, I wouldn't have had to spend a month looking at and debating options. I would have gone to unRAID right away. So here's my list of things I wish I could have found more easily (in no particular order).

 

Parity occurs in real time

You'd think this would be obvious, but when I first started looking at unRAID, I couldn't find it anywhere. I knew files were stored whole on disks, and then parity information was written out to the parity disk, but no where was it obvious that this was done in real-time to maintain data integrity, or done on a schedule (like SnapRAID). Also, that unRAID calculates parity at the block level, not file level was helpful to finally discover. Once I figure this piece of information out, the inner workings of the data integrity system made a lot more sense.

 

unRAID doesn't have data caching, it has data tiering

Calling them cache devices really is a disservice to the ability of the setup and the control that you have in how you use them. One of my hesitations and what I spent a lot of time trying to research was how I could create virtual machines that had their main storage on SSDs, since I knew that using an SSD as an array devices was frowned upon. It never occurred to me that a share could be set to use the cache array as it's main form of storage (and either not use the main array at all, or only use it when the cache is full). The difference between "Prefer" and "Yes" for the share cache option could also be more clear in the help dialog. That one took me a while to figure out.

 

You have a lot of control over which disks your files are stored on

Yes, unRAID can be used in a set-and-forget manner. But if you've got OCD about where your files are actually located on disk, it fully supports that too. Between the include/exclude disk options on the shares, and setting the split levels, the user has a lot of control in telling unRAID which disks should be used to store which files. And if unRAID puts a file on a disk you don't like, just go into the terminal and move it like you would any file in Linux.

 

Dockers remove a lot of the need for VMs

Admittedly, this one isn't so much about unRAID, but my lack of exposure to dockers/containerization. When I first started conceptualizing my home server, I was thinking that I'd have the base OS as my NAS layer, and then I'd need one virtual machine to run Plex from, a second virtual machine a my "media acquisition" server so I could isolate it behind a VPN, etc. But once I got the server running, and read a couple install guides, the power of dockers has been made very apparent. I'm really glad I've made this first build on an old system, rather then going out and buying new hardware first, as I would have drastically over provisioned the amount of RAM I'd need.

 

So this is my list from my first 10 days. I'm curious what things other have learned using the system that they wish they knew earlier.

On 4/6/2018 at 6:43 PM, Caldorian said:

So I've been playing with unRAID for the last 10 days now

 

Thank you very much for your feedback.  Often we can't see the forest because of the trees - meaning, as developers we are around the product so much it's easy to lose the perspective of a new user.  Yes, our website/documentation sucks, that is an area we are committed to improving in the coming weeks.

On 07/04/2018 at 2:43 AM, Caldorian said:

So I've been playing with unRAID for the last 10 days now...

...

The difference between "Prefer" and "Yes" for the share cache option could also be more clear in the help dialog. That one took me a while to figure out.

...

So this is my list from my first 10 days. I'm curious what things other have learned using the system that they wish they knew earlier.

 

Really good post.  I've been using unRAID for over seven years* now, and it's a great platform and has evolved massively over that time, as I have gone from one, to three, to four unRAID licenses (main, backup, daughter, spare).   To be honest, you've done well to gain such a grasp of its capabliities in such a short time.  

 

Your feedback is valuable, not only to Lime Technology, but also as an concise overview of the capabilities and strengths of the system.  I singled out the comment on the cache settings in particular, since that is something that often trips up new users who end up asking why their cache drive is full and none of the files are being moved... 

 

* Wow!  I just checked - didn't know it was that long.