Recommendations: Switching from Windows 10 Storage Spaces to unRAID on older PC


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Old PC Specs: 
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (Yorkfield) @2.5Ghz 4 cores
- 4x 2GB DDR2-SDRAM 800MHz (F2-6400CL5-2GBNT)  
- Intel Motherboard DP35DP (LGA775 socket) 6x SATA ports
- 4x 6TB Toshiba X300 7200rpm (HDWE160)
- 1x 180GB Intel SSD for the cache (SSDSC2CT180A3)
- New Thermaltake 600W power supply and added fans
- A random 2GB USB-2 stick I own for unRAID

I'm currently running Windows 10 Pro with Storage Spaces in two-way mirror for all 4x hard drives. I also run Sonarr / Radarr / Sabnzbd / Tautulli in the background (without much monitoring activity and with only a few downloads a day). I then share that storage pool to my main PC on the local network as drive "Media (M:)" (A modern Intel 8700K PC that runs a Plex Server and all my every day applications). Everything is working well, but I loose half the space to two-way mirror, and feel locked into the Windows ecosystem for any recovery.

I want to reuse that hardware as much as possible and switch to unRAID with 4x 6TB drives + 1x 8TB parity disk + 1x 180GB SSD for cache (all connected to the motherboard's SATA ports). I don't support any virtualization, will it be enough to run unRAID with Sonarr / Radarr / Sabnzbd / Tautulli?

Thanks for any recommendations!

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On 8/20/2019 at 4:48 PM, trurl said:

Unraid must format any disk it will use in the array or cache.

No problem on that part, I borrowed a few portable 8TB drives to make the switch and formated the old HDD's. I managed to backup and remove my windows licence key from my old boot SSD drive and format it. I'm ready to install unRAID on a usb stick and set it up.

 

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My only concern left: How safe is it to use a single SSD as cache drive? Let's say the setup works well for a while, every night the system backs up the cache to the array, and then one morning the SSD dies:

  1. Do I simply loose the data that was not backed up yet on the cache (so the last 24h), or do I loose also everything in the array?
  2. With a broken cache disk: Will the regular array still be accessible? (at lower read/write speed I imagine...). Or, do I have to replace the broken cache disk before the array becomes available again?
  3. Can I choose to add a single SSD cache today, and later easily replace it with a larger capacity SSD?
  4. Can I choose to add a single SSD cache today, and later easily add a secondary SSD? (same or larger capacity) or are these decisions I should do from the start?

Thank you for your time!

 


 

Edited by CarloGaudreault
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40 minutes ago, CarloGaudreault said:

Do I simply loose the data that was not backed up yet on the cache (so the last 24h)

Rather than 'backed up', think 'moved' from the cache drive to the array.  So Yes, you lose all data that is still on the cache drive.  However there a utility that will create a back up of certain system information about Docker Apps and VM's for this type of scenario.  If you set up the mover to run once a day (it defaults to 3:00AM), you would only lose that day's files.

 

40 minutes ago, CarloGaudreault said:

With a broken cache disk: Will the regular array still be accessible?

Yes

 

40 minutes ago, CarloGaudreault said:

Can I choose to add a single SSD cache today, and later easily replace it with a larger capacity SSD?

Yes but ask (or find the instructions for doing it). Also see answer to next your question.  (I started with a 320GB HDs for the cache drive in both of my servers and switched them both out for an SSD's.  It was simple enough that I don't even remember exactly what steps were involved.) 

 

40 minutes ago, CarloGaudreault said:

Can I choose to add a single SSD cache today, and later easily add a secondary SSD? (same or larger capacity) or are these decisions I should do from the start?

Yes.  See the following link.  Be sure to read the 'NOTE:' under Cache Pool Operations about the required disk format if you start with a single drive!

 

    https://wiki.unraid.net/UnRAID_6/Storage_Management#Cache_pool_operations

 

EDIT:  Just took a quick look at the mover settings, you can also set the mover to run hourly should you feel that necessary.

Edited by Frank1940
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