Questions Before Switching to UnRaid

[ridley303]

Disclaimer: I know enough about the topic that i realize I don't really know anything. So if one of the questions is stupid, please help me understand why.

I'm currently using OMV with 5*3TB WD Reds in a Raid 5 (12TB usable).
However I have had several problems with OMV over the years and want to switch to a more user friendly, reliable and easily maintainable solution.
The biggest issue with my OMV install is that I don't feel comfortable upgrading to newer versions since that requires a wipe of the boot drive and I don't want to risk any of the data on the array. Because of that, it's still running on 2.2 (based on Debian 7) which hasn't seen security updates in years.

 

Goals/Reasoning:
One of my main goals is to never having to radically change the OS through any hardware changes like adding drives or upgrading the CPU. There's a lot of photos with sentimental value and I like knowing that there's a system that always knows where to find the data.
The other goals are to use a mix of consumer and server hardware and to upgrade the storage as it is needed, prefferably one drive at a time.

 

The reason I'm looking at UnRaid for this is because it's supposedly one of the most user friendly solutions and you can add and replace drives 'on the go' with little to no trouble.
Also it supports dockers which I would exclusively use to add functionality (plex, openvpn etc.) to keep the OS itself clutter free and performant.

 

Questions:
1. Can UnRaid be upgraded, not just from release to release but also in the future from v6 to v7 with the click of a button or preferrably automatically?

 

2. Does it make sense to spend extra on a SLC USB stick if the goal is to keep the same install?

 

3. According to the How-To on replacing a drive you can't hot swap drives, is that simply impossible or could it be a future feature?

 

4. Is there or will there be support for StoreMI for better and easier SSD 'caching' on AMD based systems?

 

5. I've heard many good things about ZFS. Do you lose the ability to easily add new drives if you use the ZFS plugin for UnRaid?

 

6. Speaking of ZFS, does UnRaid fix corrupted data if there are 2 parity disks or is ZFS strictly needed for this functionality?

 

7. Is there special hardware required to conect multiple HDDs to a system running UnRaid (LSI controllers, RAID cards etc.)?

[trurl]

6 minutes ago, ridley303 said:

photos with sentimental value

Regardless of your choice, you need backups. You must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable. 

 

8 minutes ago, ridley303 said:

can't hot swap drives

You must stop the array to make any change to disk assignments. What advantage do you think hot swap would give? 

 

10 minutes ago, ridley303 said:

keep the same install?

A backup of Flash, or just the config folder on Flash, are all you need to keep everything about your configuration.

 

13 minutes ago, ridley303 said:

special hardware

Unraid is not RAID and RAID controllers are not recommended.

[ridley303]

2 minutes ago, trurl said:

Regardless of your choice, you need backups. You must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable. 

If the build works out, I'll build a second box at my brothers place and rsync the most important files for off site backup.

3 minutes ago, trurl said:

You must stop the array to make any change to disk assignments. What advantage do you think hot swap would give? 

It would be more convenient. Getting a notification that drive xy failed and replacing it directly takes less time.

6 minutes ago, trurl said:

A backup of Flash, or just the config folder on Flash, are all you need to keep everything about your configuration.

What is saved in the config? Would I have to for example reinstall dockers after an upgrade?

7 minutes ago, trurl said:

Unraid is not RAID and RAID controllers are not recommended.

What kind of expansion card is recommended to add more sata ports to a system?

[nicksphone]

32 minutes ago, ridley303 said:

Disclaimer: I know enough about the topic that i realize I don't really know anything. So if one of the questions is stupid, please help me understand why.

I'm currently using OMV with 5*3TB WD Reds in a Raid 5 (12TB usable).
However I have had several problems with OMV over the years and want to switch to a more user friendly, reliable and easily maintainable solution.
The biggest issue with my OMV install is that I don't feel comfortable upgrading to newer versions since that requires a wipe of the boot drive and I don't want to risk any of the data on the array. Because of that, it's still running on 2.2 (based on Debian 7) which hasn't seen security updates in years.

 

Goals/Reasoning:
One of my main goals is to never having to radically change the OS through any hardware changes like adding drives or upgrading the CPU. There's a lot of photos with sentimental value and I like knowing that there's a system that always knows where to find the data.
The other goals are to use a mix of consumer and server hardware and to upgrade the storage as it is needed, prefferably one drive at a time.

 

The reason I'm looking at UnRaid for this is because it's supposedly one of the most user friendly solutions and you can add and replace drives 'on the go' with little to no trouble.
Also it supports dockers which I would exclusively use to add functionality (plex, openvpn etc.) to keep the OS itself clutter free and performant.

 

Questions:
1. Can UnRaid be upgraded, not just from release to release but also in the future from v6 to v7 with the click of a button or preferrably automatically?

 

2. Does it make sense to spend extra on a SLC USB stick if the goal is to keep the same install?

 

3. According to the How-To on replacing a drive you can't hot swap drives, is that simply impossible or could it be a future feature?

 

4. Is there or will there be support for StoreMI for better and easier SSD 'caching' on AMD based systems?

 

5. I've heard many good things about ZFS. Do you lose the ability to easily add new drives if you use the ZFS plugin for UnRaid?

 

6. Speaking of ZFS, does UnRaid fix corrupted data if there are 2 parity disks or is ZFS strictly needed for this functionality?

 

7. Is there special hardware required to conect multiple HDDs to a system running UnRaid (LSI controllers, RAID cards etc.)?

1. its a click of the button but be sure to backup your usb drive first.

2. as the usb is just used to boot you can use any drive realy as usb2 drives are fast enough for booting.

3. no hot swapping is not an option but with the party disks a failier will not need imitate shut down.

4. i dought it as its a amd is phasing it out.

5. zfs locks you into your current config you cannot add or subtract drives. unless you need the speed from it stay with the standard unraid config.

6. zfs is zfs and has its own faill over mecs and is the same no matter what os you use.

7. it depends on how many drives you are wanting to add. if your going past the 10-12 drive mark you will want a mini sas controler that has it mode. otherwise a sata addon card will work.

8. you can setup notifications in the system to let you know of any issue.

9. your docker info is saved either on your cache or spinning rust depending on how you set it up. so if you backup your thumb drive and it fails everything will still be their from the backup drive. the dockers are usally not effected by a system update just make sure you update your plugins and dockers before the system update.

 

[ridley303]

4 hours ago, nicksphone said:

1. its a click of the button but be sure to backup your usb drive first.

2. as the usb is just used to boot you can use any drive realy as usb2 drives are fast enough for booting.

3. no hot swapping is not an option but with the party disks a failier will not need imitate shut down.

4. i dought it as its a amd is phasing it out.

5. zfs locks you into your current config you cannot add or subtract drives. unless you need the speed from it stay with the standard unraid config.

6. zfs is zfs and has its own faill over mecs and is the same no matter what os you use.

7. it depends on how many drives you are wanting to add. if your going past the 10-12 drive mark you will want a mini sas controler that has it mode. otherwise a sata addon card will work.

8. you can setup notifications in the system to let you know of any issue.

9. your docker info is saved either on your cache or spinning rust depending on how you set it up. so if you backup your thumb drive and it fails everything will still be their from the backup drive. the dockers are usally not effected by a system update just make sure you update your plugins and dockers before the system update.

 

Thanks a lot, this exactly what I was looking for!

 

Follow up to Question 6 

4 hours ago, nicksphone said:

6. zfs is zfs and has its own faill over mecs and is the same no matter what os you use.

The feature of ZFS that I'm most interested in is that it handles checksums really well and can repair corrupted files using those checksums.

Does the standard UnRaid config have a similar feature?

 

So this is not about redundancy but read/write errors that could lead to a file not displaying properly.

[nicksphone]

59 minutes ago, ridley303 said:

Thanks a lot, this exactly what I was looking for!

 

Follow up to Question 6 

The feature of ZFS that I'm most interested in is that it handles checksums really well and can repair corrupted files using those checksums.

Does the standard UnRaid config have a similar feature?

 

So this is not about redundancy but read/write errors that could lead to a file not displaying properly.

you can use a plugin Dynamix File Integrity to create a checksum so you know you have file rot but as far as correcting it that is what your offsite back is for as there is no file correction in unraid.