I have a PC I built that I never used.  Asus M5!97 RE 2.0 LE MB, AMD FT4300 processor, DDR 3 1600 memory.  

Several years ago I read about FreeNAS and considered using it but have since learned that it is more popular with people who want to use sever grade equipment.

 

My wife and I probably have less than 2 T worth of data between us.  I am not even sure I I want to run a media center.

 

My main objective is to build my own cloud.  I would also like to be able to access that cloud remotely to backup a laptop and a PC I have at another location other than our home.

 

I ran into a guy at Microcenter who said he used Unraid using essentially the same hardware I have.

 

While I have been using PCs since the DOS days and am pretty tech literate, I am getting a little long in the tooth as they say and want to keep things simple.

 

Of course I could simply purchase an Asuster, QNAP, or Synology NAS.....which if nothing else has the advantage of taking up a smaller footprint.  I have yet to find a case for the MB I have that will hold two to 4 drives.

 

I figure I need no more than two WD Red 4 gig drives at this point.

 

I understand that Unraid uses some kind of proprietary RAID setup......I want something closer to RAID 1 ....or if possible both striping and redundancy....one drive fails, I get notified and stick in another and it rebuilds on its own.

 

The guy at Microcenter was not able to tell me how one sets this up for remote access.....I also want to minimize hacks/attacks on the netowrk.

 

Is Unraid the way to go?

 

If I am not mistaken, it appears that this runs from a USB.  Is it possible to use an SSD to run it rather than have a USB stick hanging out of the case all the time?  Sure, a USB stick is cheaper but a 120 or 60j gig SSD is not all that expensive.

 

Any help about all of this would be greatly appreciated.  (If it is better to just buy a NAS...just let me know.....but, why waste a perfectly good PC....if it can do the job

Edited November 27, 20196 yr by andrew124C41+
Addition

Unraid IS NOT RAID. Each disk is an independent filesystem, there is no striping. 1 (or 2) parity disks provide redundancy to allow 1 (or 2) disks to be rebuilt from all the other disks using the parity calculation.

 

Since each disk is an independent filesystem, each file is completely contained on a single disk, and each disk can be read on any linux if needed. Also, independent disks allows Unraid to mix different sized disks in the array, and to easily replace or add disks without rebuilding the array.

 

Even though each file is completely contained on a single disk, Unraid allows folders to span disks (User Shares).

 

Unraid is a standalond OS and it can also host VMs and dockers. There are hundreds of docker applications available that will let you do what you want and much more.

 

See the Product pages linked at the top of this page and this Wiki Overview for more details:

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/UnRAID_6/Overview

 

 

 

 

 

16 minutes ago, andrew124C41+ said:

DDR 3 1600 memory

How much?

Thanks, I really appreciate your help.

I have plenty of memory.....one 16 gig (8 X 2) as well as 8 (2 X 4)

One thing I don't understand is why to run from a dedicated USB which hangs outside the case rather than an internal SSD.

Also, how does one set this up simply as a NAS and be able to access it from another location via the internet......and do it safely to minimize malicious hacks/attacks?   I did not see anything in the Wiki

What is the advantage over FreeNAS

Edited November 27, 20196 yr by andrew124C41+

3 hours ago, andrew124C41+ said:

One thing I don't understand is why to run from a dedicated USB which hangs outside the case

Many people put the flash inside the case using a motherboard USB header. Unraid doesn't "run" from the flash, it runs in RAM. At boot, the archives on flash are unpacked fresh into RAM and the OS runs in RAM. Think of it as firmware except easier to upgrade. Configuration settings you make in the webUI are also saved to flash so they can be loaded at boot. The GUID of a flash drive is associated with the Unraid license. If you ever need to change hardware all you need to do is move the flash to the new hardware and your license is still valid.

 

3 hours ago, andrew124C41+ said:

able to access it from another location via the internet

Virtual Private Network. There are several dockers and plugins to create a VPN, including OpenVPN and builtin Wireguard support in the current release candidate. Also many newer routers have VPN builtin.