hardware recommendations and advice

[NotHere]

Hi all! So I am looking for info and help and I am sure it’s written somewhere and has been answered a lot but I am just still lost :/ and want to know if UnRaid is even for me.

 

Backstory: I have a WD PR4100, 4x 10TB HDD. It’s good. Raid 1+0. 20TB backups and 20TB files. Worked great for me and what I wanted but sadly, WD does not really have many add-ons/plugins so I wanted to get away from that. I wanted to go to Synology, but they are expensive and I really wanted more power. I decided to make my own NAS with spear parts I had around and this is what I have together.

 

-Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor
-ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
-Team Xtreem 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-2666 Memory
-Seasonic 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular Power Supply
-n560gtx-ti twin frozr ii/oc -Vector RS -5x 10TB HDD -1x 1TB SSD

 

So I have UnRaid running already. I was super excited about this until I started reading about the “split level” and maybe losing data.

With my WD NAS, all my data was saved and backed up to the spear HDD, but with UnRaid I was reading that you can lose your data even with the parity drives because there is “no raid”. So I am super lost, even after YouTube videos, still lost :/.

 

Regarding the split level, I have no clue if I am doing it correctly or not :(. I went to the wiki, it’s in plain English, but it’s just going over my head as I thought I was doing it correctly but after seeing what data in 1-drive only, I wanted to reach back out here and ask. Does the split level mean it saves the same files to all the HDD? My structure is:

SHARES NAME (Movies)

  >> Movies.HD

      >> the matrix (folder)

           >> the matrix.avi (file), the matrix.srt (file).

 

For this, I am using Level Two as in my mind, it places Movies.hd and UP in every HDD, and then the folder of the movie and the files inside together in the same HDD. But any other movie will be placed in another HDD but with all the files inside in the same HDD correct? I took some pictures of it not actually working that way. It seems all the files are going just in 1-HDD alone :( Not sure if that's fine or if that is bad and it should be spreading the MOVIE FOLDERS between the 3-HDD I have.

 

 

Lets say I can sell my current computer, and buy new parts for just an UnRaid server to VM desktops when I need to do something on them (I dont play games at all, but maybe if I am bored one day, I would play Counter Strike Source just want to factor this in if that is even possible). Would anyone recommend me getting the AMD 3900X/3950X, with an X570 mobo (recommendations would be appreciated) and some RAM (64GB preferable) with a 1080 I have around?

[trurl]

3 minutes ago, NotHere said:

With my WD NAS, all my data was saved and backed up to the spear HDD, but with UnRaid I was reading that you can lose your data even with the parity drives because there is “no raid”.

Not familiar with your WD NAS. Was that a single disk plus a mirror of that disk? As far as data loss, Unraid and RAID both have parity, but it's actually the case that Unraid is less likely to lose your data than RAID is.

 

Your discussion of split level is getting sidetracked by a different misunderstanding, Allocation Method. The default Allocation is High-water, and it is default for a good reason. It allows a user share to use multiple disks "eventually" but without constantly switching between disks. It will fill the first disk until the "high-water" mark is reached, then it will move to the next. Actually, it is a little more complicated than that, but that is the basic idea.

12 minutes ago, NotHere said:

Does the split level mean it saves the same files to all the HDD?

This sounds like you think maybe it makes copies of each file on all the disks. This is definitely not the case, but maybe I misunderstand you.

[NotHere]

You are 100%, I might have the wrong concept of this   

 

According to the info you provided, all my files will be saved to the same HDD unroll it deems necessary time switch HDD because of capacity. If that is the case, I will keep filling my HDDs back up and see if it does switch HDD. I appreciate the info. Do you think that my high waters split level 2 for my movie structures is fine/ideal? I thought that the split level made the same directory in each HDD, that is what I understood from what I read, but it seems I’m wrong then?

 

I appreciate your help very much!

[trurl]

1 hour ago, NotHere said:

I thought that the split level made the same directory in each HDD, that is what I understood from what I read, but it seems I’m wrong then?

Unraid will make folders on other disks as needed. Until high-water is reached, they aren't needed on the other disks yet.