Hey everyone, I'm about to embark on creating my first unraid setup to run perhaps a plex docker and a dual boot windows and linux (windows only for games and solid works mostly) and linux is my daily driver. My question (and I assume its stupid and suspect I know the answer already) is that when I set up the array, I have 4x 1TB drives and 1 m.2 SSD, my question is when I assign them all to an array and get it set up. Will the data be wiped from them all?? I'm fairly new to this but I assume when  the array gets "built" it will wipe each drive and depending on the type of raid setup I use (maybe the m.2 as a cache drive) they all get wiped and set up witha parity or sorts.

 

 

please forgive me for the horrible miss use of the terms or anything. I hope I didn't waist to much time not searching the forum I'm just running out the door and thought I would also say a Hello, I'm starting aha....

On initial array config Unraid doesn't wipe the data from the drives, except those assigned as parity, but for the devices to be usable they will need to be formatted, and so wiped.

18 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

On initial array config Unraid doesn't wipe the data from the drives, except those assigned as parity, but for the devices to be usable they will need to be formatted, and so wiped.

that makes sense, I'll be selective on what needs to be saved haha

1 hour ago, gravol said:

when  the array gets "built" it will wipe each drive and depending on the type of raid setup I use (maybe the m.2 as a cache drive)

Unraid is not RAID. There isn't different types of raid except in the cache pool. In the parity array there is just Unraid's unique method of providing some redundancy to a bunch of individual disks using a separate parity disk.

 

The m.2 drive will be fine as cache. Don't put it in the parity array.

not sure why but the damn usb won't become bootable. I have 3 different sticks, all same brand and 16gb I'll try another one when I get home.

5 minutes ago, gravol said:

not sure why but the damn usb won't become bootable. I have 3 different sticks, all same brand and 16gb I'll try another one when I get home.

USB2 works more reliably than USB3. This is especially true regarding USB2 ports instead of USB3 ports.

 

The flash drive is actually used very little, so doesn't need capacity or speed. The OS actually runs in RAM. At boot, the OS is unpacked fresh from the archives on flash into RAM. After that, flash is mostly just used to save configuration changes you make.

 

Just an update! 

 

wow just insane this software....Love it, got it too do some playing around with my kids in virtual systems to do some tinkering and playing with arduino etc....incredible, even setting up multiple "workstations" one tower stuff.  We LOVE it!! thanks to the team and everyone here whos helping and the help I got from this little thread!