Considering unRaid, moving from W2K16 and Hyper-V

[ptr727]

Hi, I've long been running two Hyper-V servers for all my needs.

I wanted to switch to docker for my utility services, but I find that docker on W2K16 is still just too many hoops, and docker on Ubuntu server on Hyper-V sucks up tons of memory (at least I don't yet know how to get docker to not use 2GB per container in Hyper-V).

 

My primary server has 60TB of data, backed by RAID6 on an Adaptec 81605ZQ, and the raw volume is mounted in a Hyper-V W2K16 NTFS volume serving as a file server.

This network storage volume is used by Plex (also running on a W2K16 VM) and my Milestone XProtect NVR (also running on a W2K16 VM), plus a few other VM's.

I have no intention of risking this data by migrating it anywhere else, maybe one day when a replacement is required, but for the foreseeable future Adaptec hardware RAID plus Windows Server and Hyper-V it is.

 

My secondary server is also W2K16 Hyper-V, and this is where I run all sorts of things I like to test.

I considered switching this box to Ubuntu Server, but frankly, I'm no good at all CLI, and this is where I'm considering something like unraid, not for the storage function, but for the utility function.

Other than storage differences, both servers are Xeon E3 32GB Supermicro chassis.

 

A few pertinent questions:

1) Is there a way to install unraid in Hyper-V, I want to test it out before I blow away a fully functional server.

2) Given that my primary storage server will still be W2K16 over SMB3, can I mount the shares in unraid over CIFS and make the data available to e.g. Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Sabnzbd running on unraid?

3) Does unraid support the Adaptec 81605ZQ and 7805Q RAID cards with configured volumes, not JBOD, and can I install the Adaptec Storage Manager tools in unraid to manage the hardware RAID volumes?

4) Are there any any other important things I should consider?

 

Thank you

[trurl]

1) Not necessary. unRAID boots from a flash drive and the unRAID OS is installed in RAMfs fresh on each boot from the archives on the flash drive. So nothing really gets installed on your server.

 

2) Not clear if you are asking to access unRAID shares from W2K16, or the other way around, but yes to both.

 

3) No to Adaptec Storage Manager. And you  must let unRAID format any disk it will use as cache or in the array. Almost always people use JBOD, but there have been some brave souls that have created a hardware RAID and then gave that to unRAID as a single volume to format.

 

[ptr727]

1 hour ago, trurl said:

2) Not clear if you are asking to access unRAID shares from W2K16, or the other way around, but yes to both.

Thank you for the fast reply.

 

To be clearer, I want to mount the Windows Server file shares in unRaid, and then mount them so Plex running on unRaid will stream files over CIFS from the Windows Server shares.

 

Since it is all on USB and memory, I'll try it out.

I assume no destructive disk edits will be made unless I say so?

[trurl]

9 hours ago, ptr727 said:

Thank you for the fast reply.

 

To be clearer, I want to mount the Windows Server file shares in unRaid, and then mount them so Plex running on unRaid will stream files over CIFS from the Windows Server shares.

 

Since it is all on USB and memory, I'll try it out.

I assume no destructive disk edits will be made unless I say so?

Unassigned Devices plugin can mount network shares.

 

Don't assign a disk to array or cache if you don't want unRAID to touch it. You will have to create a minimal array (at least one data disk) in order to start services.

 

 

[ptr727]

2 hours ago, trurl said:

Don't assign a disk to array or cache if you don't want unRAID to touch it. You will have to create a minimal array (at least one data disk) in order to start services.

 

 

Can I use a second USB drive for a data disk?

[JorgeB]

Yes, though recent releases won't touch an array disk with existing data unless you tell it to format it.