Hardware questions from a struggling newbie

[SFlix]

Good morning,

After having very bad luck with 2 purchased NASes, I am thinking of switching to unraid to use it as a download station and/or holding my media collection, but I would really appreciate your help before jumping in and spending more money on this. Sorry, for the long post and the newbie questions, but I’m really struggling at the moment to decide what to do.

What I’m aiming at the moment is automating downloads and having the possibility to expand my storage with 3-4TB disks.

Parity and transcoding do not really concern me, as media can be easily recovered and I practically always do direct play. So having them would not harm but it’s not my priority.

This is the hardware that I have available at the moment:

-          A Qnap TS-328, with a slightly broken OS, housing 3 3TB Toshiba P300 in Raid 5 (disk are fine, and only using 2TB of total storage).

-          A Minix Z64 Windows 10 version (Intel Z3735F 64-BIT, 2GB DDR3L, 32GB eMMC).

-          Selft built PC running Windows 10: (CPU) AMD Ryzen 5 2600, (MB) Asus ROG STRIX X470-F GAMING, (RAM) G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4 3200 PC4-25600 16GB 2x8GB CL16,  (GPU) Msi GeForce GTX 1060 Aero ITX OC 3GB GDDR5, (SSD) Toshiba OCZ TR200 SSD 240GB SATA3, Seasonic M12II EVO-520W 80Plus Bronze, NZXT S340 Elite.

-          Several Raspberry pi 3 B+

I would love to give some use to the Minix and make it a download station, but the ram might be a problem for running docker containers (sonarr, radarr, jacket, sabnzbd…), so I would like to make sure if it could before wiping out the OS.

The best bet with my current hardware is my PC, but I can’t afford to lose it as a working computer and I am not sold on having it on 24/7 in my bedroom.

So, the next possibility could be buying an Asrock J4105. What concerns me of this motherboard, is the disk expansion and reading speeds. With having a PCIe 2.0 x1 adding this type of sata expansion card (https://www.amazon.es/Tarjeta-puertos-expansi%C3%B3n-controlador-88SE9215/dp/B07ZT31GTD/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=mzhou+sata+iii+expansion+8&qid=1576148456&sr=8-1) would allow me to add more HDDs, but I’m not sure if I’m going to have problems with playing files. Normally I store 1080p h265, because my storage is limited, but if I can expand it, I would like to store some 4K. So, would I have speed problems playing this tipe of files on my client?

Ok, if that wouldn’t work, I’m left only with my pc, and here I’m at a lost. I really don’t want to touch it, but if push comes to shove, it’s probably the cheapest way out of my problem.

So I thought of buying a new case (maybe a new psu) and having 1 hot swap bay for booting windows when I need to use that computer the rest of the time with unraid.

After explain all theis, we can say that my questions are as follows:

Is it viable using the minix with the necessary docker containers to use it as a download station or is it going to struggle?

Is the PCIe 2.0 x1 going to give me problems playing files?

Is it possible having the hot swap bayin my pc and booting up windows when I need it?

 

Thank you for hearing me out.

[testdasi]

1. Is it viable using the minix with the necessary docker containers to use it as a download station or is it going to struggle? Not enough RAM based on my own experience. The dockers you are after, on my server, uses significantly more than 2GB RAM. That is even before considering the low processing power of the CPU.
2. Is the PCIe 2.0 x1 going to give me problems playing files? Marvell controller = forget it. PCIe 2.0 x1 = also forget it.
3. Is it possible having the hot swap bayin my pc and booting up windows when I need it? Yes but I don't recommend it (see below).

While it may be possible to make it work turning your main computer into a hybrid PC + NAS in 1 box, it isn't something I would feel comfortable recommending to someone new to Unraid.

 

This particularly takes into account your comment "I can’t afford to lose it as a working computer and I am not sold on having it on 24/7 in my bedroom".

 

You probably also may need to buy additional hardware to make it work.

In that case, you might as well save up and build a proper NAS server.

Edited December 12, 2019 by testdasi

[SFlix]

Thanks testdasi for your respons.

I was initially planning on testing unraid in the pc. I'm not using it every day, but it's the only one I have capable to manage my complex excels, so if a VM can handle them I'm ok with using one.

I read some people had buit a sistem with the asrock, so I was really hoping that a sata expansion card, could do the trick. 

 

if I had to build a new sistem,:

1) are there any sata contoler cards that work with unraid? 

2) is it possible to use rayzen apu?

 

I'm open to sugestions.