Help setting up my first UnRAID system.

[henchman05]

Hi guys and thanks for taking your time to read this!

My setup will be as followed:
 

- Case: CM Storm Enforcer: All the usb-ports are broken except for 3 USB 2.0 ports. Fans still work.

- CPU: Intel Core i5-7600K @ 3.80GHz

- Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. H110M-S2H-CF (U3E1)

- RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 2133MHz C13 (15-15-15-36)

- SSD: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB

- Power Supply: Be quiet! Pure Power 11 ATX PC voeding 700W 80PLUS Gold BN295

These are all parts from my old PC. However my question is about the drives i'd be using.

Will the following setu work?
- 250 GB SSD Cache Drive
- 10 TB Parity Drive
- 3x3 TB Data Drive


Is it ok that the sum of my data drives is smaller than my Parity drive itself? Will UnRAID just use 9TB and drop the other TB on the Parity drive?
It would only be a temporary setup until i can add more 10TB data drives this summer.

Thanks guys!

[trurl]

Parity is not a backup. It doesn't even contain any files. Parity is basically the same concept wherever it is used. It is just an extra bit that allows a missing bit to be calculated from all the other bits. The parity disk allows a missing disk to be rebuilt from all the other disks. 

 

Parity must be at least as large as the largest single data disk, so if your largest data disk is 3TB, a 3TB parity provides protection for many disks each 3TB or smaller. Or that 10TB parity will let you add more disks each up to 10TB or even replace any of those 3TB with a disk up to 10TB. 

 

Parity is never a substitute for backups. Plenty of more common ways to lose data than a failed disk including simple user error. 

 

You must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable. 

[meep]

Your proposed scheme is fine, and using the 10TB as parity will allow you add drives in the future up to 10TB each.