Is Unraid Right For Me?

[Light]

Hello,

 

I very recently got into the server side of computers. I've been a developer for a few years and have built my fair share of computers. At the recommendation of a friend, I set up a computer with FreeNAS and currently run that as my NAS as well as Plex & NextCloud.

I've started to think about using this machine to host some game servers as well as a few Linux VMs for my development and was suggested I take a look at Unraid.

Can someone tell me what the support for Unraid is like for someone that knows basically nothing? This is what I'm hoping to get out of it.

 

NAS - so I can backup my local machines (I record a lot of gameplay)
NextCloud - So I can access my data outside my house if needed (personal cloud lol)
Plex - Currently, I have NextCloud users for friends, so if we want to share a video that is too large for Discord, they can drop it in a folder using NextCloud, and Plex will see it. Right now I'm paying for Plex Pass, but I don't get hardware encoding
Game Servers - Like Minecraft or Space Engineers
VMs - For when I need to test something, or want a clean Linux env for development. Maybe even Windows 10 VM who knows (if I can pass it a GPU?)

Sorry for the long post, but thanks in advance!
Light

[opentoe]

All you need is this forum for any support. No tickets, no work logs, no queue. There are some users on here that know Unraid from the roots up. I've come here for help a hundred times and someone has always come to save me with nothing expected in return. Support for Unraid would be the least thing I would be worrying about.

 

[Light]

3 minutes ago, opentoe said:

All you need is this forum for any support. No tickets, no work logs, no queue. There are some users on here that know Unraid from the roots up. I've come here for help a hundred times and someone has always come to save me with nothing expected in return. Support for Unraid would be the least thing I would be worrying about.

 

Thanks! Is it okay for someone like me with no background in server IT to do this though?

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, Light said:

Thanks! Is it okay for someone like me with no background in server IT to do this though?

Yes, you just described a large portion of the user community.  Those who know are willing help those who don't; then, they become those who know and help others who come on board. 

 

EDIT: Since you mentioned you have FreeNAS experience let me say that support here is not like it is for FreeNAS (from what I hear from many unRAID converts) and I mean that in a very positive way.  I have no personal experience with FreeNAS but I hear there is some "you dummy, why don't you know that" attitude in their support forums. This is not intended as a slam on FreeNAS.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Hoopster

[Djinn]

I do believe you can pass a Windows 10 VM a GPU. 

Unraid for VMs seems to work fine.  Is it as easy to set up VMs as like Hyper V no but it does still do a good enough job. 

Support this forum is awesome and most people can help you out.  Just try to be as verbose as possible in describing your issues. 

 

But if you are looking for a  home/development server I wouldn't say unraid is a bad way to go at all.  That being said I know TrueNAS is going to be going through a bit of a fundamental transformation and they are going to ditch BSD in favor of linux in an upcoming build and that could open up a lot of options on that platform but this one is pretty sweet since you don't need a gig per tb of storage for ZFS like you do with truenas