FreeNas Vs Unraid 6

[XxRubyxX]

Well guys i want to know which would ya pick for running plex and a mass storage server and such like which will be better if im going to run all the same drive brands and such and which offer more and better solution for data redundency?

[dalekphalm]

8 hours ago, XxRubyxX said:

Well guys i want to know which would ya pick for running plex and a mass storage server and such like which will be better if im going to run all the same drive brands and such and which offer more and better solution for data redundency?

If you're going to be running your array with a bunch of identical capacity/model number HDD's, I'd suggest FreeNAS. ZFS is definitely more resilient to failure and data corruption.

 

A couple of tips:

1. DON'T SKIMP ON RAM! You should use the Rule of thumb: 8GB Minimum, or 1GB of RAM per 1TB of HDD space if you've got more than 8TB of disk space.

2. If you can squeeze it into your budget, get a CPU+Motherboard that supports ECC RAM, and then get ECC RAM. Rule #1 above still applies.

3. Create the array you want from the start. Don't count on being able to easily expand or grow your array later on. If you think you'll need 12TB of space in 6 months, then plan for 12TB of space from the start.

4. I would suggest either RAIDZ2 (the equivalent of RAID6) or a mirrored vdev (Equivalent of RAID10), depending on how many drives you're using. If you're using more than 6 drives, I'd definitely suggest RAIDZ2.

 

Others can give you some more advice. Plex definitely works with FreeNAS - I believe it also works with UnRAID too.

[Aekim]

Unraid is easy to use and set up, you can use non ecc RAM (it's recommend with freenas but some say you could use it without).

So you could get away with lower cost parts with unraid

Just test the OSes and decide after. Perhaps look into rockstor and openmediavault, they are free and don't recommend ecc

[Mikensan]

I would argue they serve different purposes by design. UnRAID operates at the speed of the slowest disk in the array, so if you throw in a crap drive that only does 90mbps - that's all you're going to get. For a single user that's somewhat ok if you're only doing one task at a time.

 

FreeNAS is very flexible in your raid configuration thus you get better speeds (FreeNAS is data integrity first, speed second btw).

 

I would say UnRAID = long term storage or backup, and "archive" if you will. FreeNAS = active NAS. Both will handle plex just fine, if you start trying 3 1080p streams at once UnRAID because of limited disk IO and speed might start to struggle.

 

 

[79wjd]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

A couple of tips:

1. DON'T SKIMP ON RAM! You should use the Rule of thumb: 8GB Minimum, or 1GB of RAM per 1TB of HDD space if you've got more than 8TB of disk space.

That 1GB per TB isn't all that applicable to most people. That's more of a general statement to encompass any/all (most) use cases. For a simple file/media server 16GB of RAM is more than sufficient pretty much regardless of how much storage you have (within reason anyway). I was running 14TB (usable) off of 8GB without any major issues except for a slight stutter every once in a while (every 1-2 hours) while trying to transcode two (raw) bluray rips. Although, I never figured out if that was because I only had 8GB of RAM or if it's because I was using a Pentium G3250 (it's also worth noting that at the time I was lazy and I was using the same bluray rip, so it could also have been caused by reading the same file on the same drive with slightly offset timings? maybe...i don't know if that would make a difference).

[XxRubyxX]

At the end of the day im worried about data safety and ease of use, i know im going to run plex.im going to have 2 servers one for storage and streaming data across my network and outside of it. And the other will be gaming and webserver so i dont think unraid would be good for the other at all

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, XxRubyxX said:

At the end of the day im worried about data safety and ease of use, i know im going to run plex.im going to have 2 servers one for storage and streaming data across my network and outside of it. And the other will be gaming and webserver so i dont think unraid would be good for the other at all

I have no experience with Unraid, but FreeNAS is pretty easy to learn how to use and will keep your data safe if you do everything properly.