Good morning,

 

I been reading around a couple of forums last night and the unraid name popped up so thought I would pop over this morning and ask a couple of questions.

 

I want more storage but not a huge amount, I was originally looking at some form of 4 bay nas and fill it up as I need. The ones I have looked at seem to be out of my budget (€300 - €350) maybe I'm looking at the more newer/expensive side of things.

 

At the moment I have a popcorn hour c200 with a internal 2TB EADS and its full. I'm using most of my 500gb scorpio drive in my macbook at the moment with movies too. All I really need storage for is movies/tv/music and it has to run NZBget or Sabz and I probably should get into some type of backup for both my macbook and netbook in the house at some time.

 

I may get into using more features once I become comfortable with nas/unraid but I've never used one before, and prefer to learn things when I've got the kit there to do so.

 

I don't mind self build but its been years since I last built a machine and I know I'm not up to speed with whats in and not right now. I dont have any spares lying around so I will need to purchase everything. But I do enjoy diying and thats what keeps me thinking I want to build myself.

 

The only thing I have made my mind up on is I want it to look like a nas and picked out a case http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12789

 

Will unraid work out more expensive ? and would I be better off buying a premade unit ?

 

 

Your help is much appreciated

 

 

 

 

I'll step in here as no one else has as yet, but I'm no expert. To answer your concerns, I'm a 57 year old carpenter with no knowledge of linux and limited knowledge of computers in general. With the help of the experts on these forums (who I can't thank enough) as well as the wiki, I managed to build my own UnRaid server and it does exactly "what it says on the tin". I have become a huge fan of UnRaid and have no hesitation of recommending it to others.

 

UnRaid is ideally suited as a media server and has some unique features that you won't find in a commercial unit. Especially good is the flexibility. Who knows what the future holds and how your requirements may change? My first attempt was a very small server scraped together with parts from an old PC. I later built a much bigger, purpose made unit from scratch. What other NAS wil alow you to change the case, psu, motherboard, processor and memory and simply swap the hard discs from one to the other and then add more hard drives as needed?

 

Will UnRaid work out more expensive? That's entirely up to you. For example, the case you have chosen has hot swap bays but you could bring the cost down by using a cheaper case without the hot swap capability. Hell you could even salvage a case from scrap. In general it'll be cheaper because, although you won't have the buying power of manufacturers with regard to the price of the components, neither do you have to pay labour, marketting and allthe other business costs (nor make a profit from your endeavours.

 

I'd have to say (as I've said to many others) "Go for it".

I agree. I first bought a commercial NAS, which I now have up for sale after replacing it with an unRAID. The small form factor and hot swap are nice, but not really needed for a home media server IMO.

I a,m pretty much in the same boat as yannis, however, I dont even really work with my hands. To me unraid is kind of like a shop vac and an air compressor, you never really knew who much use you have for it till you get it. The best part is you can just about use any old computer that has 2 drives in it. Im sure you could probably scrape up one from a garage sale or a friend who has an old one laying around. Or you can do what I did and use some of Rajahal's designs and build as you go. I built a 5 drive budget box with a different case because I likes the way it looks and it can hold 7 or 9 drives with having to get some of the 5in3 cages or whatever. If I get bit by the unraid bug bad enough I can upgrade the power supply in a year or so and buy a cage and up it to over 15 drives. Its kind of like legos for big boys. The config tut is written in a way that walks you right thru step by step. If I could use it is well written. Just do it.

Evening all,

 

Thanks very much for all the replies, there is now no doubt in my mind that I'm gonna give it a blast. I had a look at the guides and seen a couple of ones that tickle my fancy, only problem I've found is the specific cases can be hard to get here in Ireland.

 

I found a site in the UK and that has a nice little case to start with, it will give me something to experiment with and costs half the price of the one I was previously looking at so happy days.

 

http://www.xcase.co.uk/Atomic-Home-Server-p/case-atomic-home%20server.htm

 

If the bug catches on then it will just be a matter of upgrading to a large case. Gonna do a bit more searching tonight for mobo and what not and I'm sure other things will cross my mind when I'm searching.

 

Thanks again for the warm welcome guys.

As your in the UK ( ) and looking for a small build id also checkout the below site.

http://www.mini-itx.com/store

 

Just built my own box for the sum of 160 notes, pretty darn good id say.

I came from a Drobo after only a few short months.  I ran out of room pretty quick and needed a new solution.  If you're comfortable doing a little tinkering, unRAID definitely would not be overkill simply for the future expandability.

I got into NAS via a Synology 2-bay unit.  I quickly filled those drives up, and researched an alternative.  I found unRAID,  and must say it was cheaper than the Syno...with capability to expand.  If I did it all over, I'd start with unRAID.

snip.......  there is now no doubt in my mind that I'm gonna give it a blast.........snip

Good decision and good luck. The guys on this forum will sort you out if you get stuck. The only other advice I'd give is to check that the hardware you decide on is known to be compatible (most is but there are some network chips that UnRaid doesn't like).