Hey everyone, I'm currently using a trial of Unraid.  I've got 4 array/storage drives no cache drive and two parity drives, so I think a Basic license would cover me, but if I ever wanted to add more drives I'm unsure of I need to step up to the middle-tier. 

 

I've seen it said that all attached drives count for licensing, but I've also seen it said that cache/array/unassigned drives count.  So I'm looking for clarification, is is literally any attached storage device (parity/cache/array, but not the USB boot drive), or does it only count against drives that can be used for storage?  Thanks!

18 minutes ago, Steiner49er said:

Hey everyone, I'm currently using a trial of Unraid.  I've got 4 array/storage drives no cache drive and two parity drives, so I think a Basic license would cover me, but if I ever wanted to add more drives I'm unsure of I need to step up to the middle-tier. 

 

I've seen it said that all attached drives count for licensing, but I've also seen it said that cache/array/unassigned drives count.  So I'm looking for clarification, is is literally any attached storage device (parity/cache/array, but not the USB boot drive), or does it only count against drives that can be used for storage?  Thanks!

Hello and welcome! You are correct. If you think you’ll ever add a cache (recommended) or increase the amount of drives, it’s cheaper to go with Plus now. 

 

Thanks for trying us out!

 

It seems to me the different scenarios you want clarification on are all the same. Just to get that one thing out of the way, the boot flash does not count.

 

So, give an example where you think there is a difference between 

55 minutes ago, Steiner49er said:

any attached storage device

and

55 minutes ago, Steiner49er said:

drives that can be used for storage

 

1 minute ago, trurl said:

It seems to me the different scenarios you want clarification on are all the same. Just to get that one thing out of the way, the boot flash does not count.

 

 

Yeah, I wasn't very clear there, I should have said something like "is it literally any attached mass storage/hard drive, or does it only count against drives that can be used as storage.  I was curious if the parity drives counted against the number of devices or not, since (as far as I am aware) can't be used to store files on.

2 minutes ago, Steiner49er said:

I was curious if the parity drives counted against the number of devices or not, since (as far as I am aware) can't be used to store files on.

OK, I see. You are correct, parity does not store any of your data. But each parity disk counts anyway.

Any mass storage device, so the parity drives DO count

Actually, you could argue that parity stores just enough data to allow the data for a missing disk to be calculated from all the remaining disks. But parity by itself doesn't contain any files.