Hi. I am currently looking at simplifing my home set up and potentially moving away from windows. 

 

It would be a dell optiplex 560 with 8mb (as they cripple putting more in). 

 

I probably will run with 4 disks (2 x 2tb & 2 x 5tb) when done. 

 

Currently load is low as we tend to have one or two plex streams at the most on the go. 

 

I would like to back up data to live drive as that has a good package in the UK and it would allow me to reuse the 5tb external drives I use for backup of the 2 x 2tb (4tb) dynamic disk in the server. 

 

I would like to have at least one Windows vm as it will mean I can remove my other desk top which is mostly used for light room and remote interaction via rdp. That too is running on 8gb mem but I am seriously thinking about moving to mint as I have done on my laptop. 

 

My IT background is in Microsoft & I have fair experience in Linux so could go that route how ever this is about making life easier. 

 

I also like reusing old hardware to the max (capital spend / environment) and these dell's do seem to keep ticking. 

 

Questions:

Consider the above I am not that worried about raid as I would like to off site backup - do you need  a parity drive and if so would it need to be bigger than 5tb? 

 

I would like to consider going back to local backups at some point (I switch 2 drives periodically)... Is this possible and if so would they be part of the device count? 

 

How do you think unraid would work on the above hardware seeing as it is mostly io and network that is used heavily (cpu is higher with plexing but loads of head room) 

 

Any tips on moving the data from a windows dynamic disk to unraid? 

 

Thanks

 

Terran

Edited December 31, 20187 yr by ccsnet

49 minutes ago, ccsnet said:

I am not that worried about raid as I would like to off site backup - do you need  a parity drive and if so would it need to be bigger than 5tb?

Parity is not a substitute for backups. We always recommend backups in addition to parity. Parity must be at least as large as the largest single disk in the array.

48 minutes ago, trurl said:

Parity is not a substitute for backups. We always recommend backups in addition to parity. Parity must be at least as large as the largest single disk in the array.

Hi. Does that mean parity is a requirement or optional. 

 

Thanks

 

T

optional

Thanks Squid.

 

T

Hi all... I've spent some time reading up on unraid and starting to get to the point I'm going to trial it (usb on the way and data been backed from my server up so I can import it and test.).

 

One area I still do not have a proper answer for is incremental local backups of the whole system like Windows Server does using Wbadmin. 

 

I've watched space invaders excellent videos Inc the one as to where key files are saved but can some one advise on the right tool for nightly incremental backups of all data across the system (usb key, 'system folders' & data drives raid or unassigned) which also gives good compression. 

 

Thanks

 

Terran

 

Edit... Found another video... Duplicati. This looks like it may do what I want but would it treat local backup destinations like a pool as Windows server does or would I need a backup for each drive as I swap 2? 

Edited January 4, 20197 yr by ccsnet
Bad typing on my tablet