Bulding a unRaid Server

[Aussie]

Hello unRaid community,

First of all, I am German, so my english might not be perfect, sorry for that.

I came here, because I need to get my storage needs fixed, and I have never done anything like a RAID/DAS/NAS before.
Right now, my data is spread across 5 internal WD Blue/Green 4 TB drives and 2 external WD My Book 8 TB.
Some of the more important data is backed up to 4 external WD Green 2 TB drives.
I know pretty much nothing about linux and programming, so I prefer user friendly solutions.
My files are about 75 % Videos, 15 % Pictures and 10 % other small stuff.

 

My current PC (but I will upgrade later this year and would like to use some/all of the exsisting parts for the archive):
- Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 5 Rev. B
- Mainbord: MSI Z170A Gaming M3
- CPU: i7-6700K
- CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2
- RAM: Corsair 16GB (2x8) DDR4-3000
- GPU:  MSI GTX 1080
- PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 650w

 

What I need:
- About 25 TB of usable Storage (e.g. 4x16 TB IronWolf Pro)
- I want all of my files in one, save place
- Redundent storage (e.g. Raid 6) for 1 local User
- The archive only needs to run while my PC is running (about 5 hours a day)
- Easy way to add additional drives in the future to increase my storage (wich is why I lean towards unRaid)
- Some way add additional drives in the future (MSI Board has only 4 Sata Ports if I use 1 M.2)
- System will be placed in the living room, next to my PC, so it should not be to loud
- I want to use Plex on my TV (same Room)

 

What I don´t need:
- Network access fro multiple Users
- Cloud Storage

 

Can I do what I want/ need with unRaid?
If you don´t think unRaid is the right fit for me, I am open to suggestions.
And what else do I need to get this done?

[trurl]

1 hour ago, Aussie said:

Redundent storage (e.g. Raid 6) for 1 local User

Unraid IS NOT RAID, but it does have the redundancy of 1 or 2 parity disks. There is no striping in Unraid.

 

Each data disk in the parity array is an independent filesystem, and can be read all by itself on any Linux. Each file is stored complete on a single disk, but Unraid does allow the top folders to span disks, a feature known as user shares.

 

Because there is no striping, Unraid read speed is limited to the speed of the single disk the file is on. Write speed in the parity array is somewhat slower than single disk speed due to realtime parity updates.

1 hour ago, Aussie said:

Easy way to add additional drives in the future to increase my storage

These differences from traditional RAID designs allows you to easily mix different sized disks, easily replace disks (whether due to failure or just for upsizing) and easily add disks. Each parity disk must be at least as large as any single data disk.

 

Unraid also has cache, which can be a multiple disk pool with various btrfs raid models supported.

 

1 hour ago, Aussie said:

I want to use Plex on my TV

You can certainly run Plex server as a docker on Unraid. To view it on the TV will require a Plex client. Lots of ways to make that happen that don't even require the server in the same room.