Recommendations on Office Server

[incetatag]

I work for a Small Business Architectural and engineering company. We are looking to grow our storage space. We have Synology that crashed a year ago and was a pain to get the whole box replaced. I am looking to build something inhouse by using hardware from Greenleaf technologies or similar vendor. Want to get community opinion on unraid and if its even recommended for office environment setup where all the work files reside. 

 

I am looking into 50TB setup and additional space for backups. 

Also if any recommendations on hardware if someone is using unraid in office space. 

 

[CrashnBrn]

As much as I love unraid, and I do. I wouldn't recommend something that doesn't have hardware/software support (or an SLA) for any business environment. 

[ashman70]

I concur, it's ok for a home setup, but for business critical stuff, I would not recommend it either.

[incetatag]

Thanks for the input. I will look into other platforms such as TrueNAS and Synology. 

[Jessie]

I'll throw in my 2 bob.

If you primarily want to store a lot of data, I think its a good option for a small business.

 

You can expand the array by simply adding a disk.

On other (non unraid) disk arrays, you can't expand the arrays without a complete rebuild, else the only other option is to replace the original disks with larger ones.

 

You can run a second parity disk.  I normally don't worry about this on systems with say 6-8 drives, but it would give protection during a build in the event of a second disk failure.

 

All of the data is intact on the same disk. So in the event of a catastrophic failure, the data can be retrieved intact from an individual disk.

By comparison, more than 1 disk failure on a striped array and you lose the lot.

If you do lose a disk, like other raid arrays, the system will carry on deriving the data from the failed drive courtesy of the parity drive.

If the parity drive fails, all of your data is available intact in the original disk but not protected until parity is replaced. (unless you run 2 parity's)

 

Unraid is hardware agnostic.  If the box blows up, you can move the drives and the usb to another "different" box and carry on.

My experience with those Nas type devices is if they fail, you can't just pull the drives out and retrieve the data.  High risk of losing the lot even if the drives are intact.

 

Maintenance requirements are low. Unraid just works. (Been using since version 4.0)

 

Access control to shares is very easily maintained. 

 

Replication would be nice. It can be achieved by the utilization of sync dockers.

 

A good platform for a nextcloud server. Nextcloud supports versioning so a good one to mix in with the system.

 

Easily maintained through modem to modem ipsec links or openvpn. But that is a separate topic.

 

It is also a good platform for vm's.  I'm looking at replacing SBS servers.  Looking at Nethserver as a vm on unraid to give active directory functionality to 8-10 workstations.  Haven't rolled that out yet.

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Jessie