unraid Good alternative for UnRAID?

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

Hi there! I was wondering if there was a good alternative for unRAID since I wish to use my extra system power for a small (file) server, I have tried a lot of different things but unRAID still seems the best option out there, but I just don't have the budget to buy a license. Is there any free operating system out there that does the same as unRAID?

 

Thanks in advance for helping me!

[Mr.Humble]

What OS are you running? Can you just set up Windows Storage Spaces and map it as a network drive on other machines you want to have access to that data?

 

That's what I intend to do in the near future.

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

Just now, Mr.Humble said:

What OS are you running? Can you just set up Windows Storage Spaces and map it as a network drive on other machines you want to have access to that data?

 

That's what I intend to do in the near future.

I'm currently running Windows 10 but I need to run certain features that just aren't availible on Windows.

Thanks for your reply!

[NoxOps]

It depends on your hardware and what you want out of the product, like Mr. Humble say's Storage spaces might work just fine. If you want to go zfs route you are looking at FreeNas/nas4free/bare OS with zfs. You will need to post more info on the hardware you want to run it on.

[Mr.Humble]

Just now, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

I'm currently running Windows 10 but I need to run certain features that just aren't availible on Windows.

Thanks for your reply!

What features do you have in mind? Can you be more specific please?

 

What is your current system? How many drives do you (want to) use for this file server? What configuration do you want in terms of redundancy? You say you don't have a budget for the unRAID license, but what is your budget?

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

9 minutes ago, NoxOps said:

It depends on your hardware and what you want out of the product, like Mr. Humble say's Storage spaces might work just fine. If you want to go zfs route you are looking at FreeNas/nas4free/bare OS with zfs. You will need to post more info on the hardware you want to run it on.

Do the OSes you recommended support running a vm on the same device you are hosting on?

 

8 minutes ago, Mr.Humble said:

What features do you have in mind? Can you be more specific please?

 

What is your current system? How many drives do you (want to) use for this file server? What configuration do you want in terms of redundancy? You say you don't have a budget for the unRAID license, but what is your budget?

I plan to run more than vm at a time without losing performance significantly.

 

My current hardware is as follows:

 

CPU: i5 6400 (I don't use CPU intensive applications, so I have plenty of headroom there)

GPU: GTX 1050Ti 4GB

RAM: 8GB (2x4GB)

The drives I plan to use are two 2TB HDD's (maybe in RAID, but I'm not sure about that right now) as well as a 128GB SSD for caching since I am planning on using those drives quite a lot. And i plan to install it on a 32GB USB 3.0 drive.

 

By the way, I'm planning to spend as little as possible. I'd really like a OS which supports running multiple VM's simultaneously while being able to work on the same PC that I'm hosting those VM's on. But I don't need to use those VM's all the time.

[IgorM]

Check out FreeNAS

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

1 minute ago, IgorM said:

Check out FreeNAS

Is it possible to use the VM's on the host server?

[NoxOps]

1 minute ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

Is it possible to use the VM's on the host server?

Yep

[Mr.Humble]

8 minutes ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

I plan to run more than vm at a time without losing performance significantly.

8 minutes ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

CPU: i5 6400 (I don't use CPU intensive applications, so I have plenty of headroom there)

10 minutes ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

But I don't need to use those VM's all the time.

Im sorry, but you're not exactly making perfect sense here.

 

Makes one wonder what would be the purpose of those VMs since they would get 1, maybe 2 CPU cores, which definitely will mean they will be slow AF, especially if you intend to run Windows VMs.

 

11 minutes ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

The drives I plan to use are two 2TB HDD's (maybe in RAID, but I'm not sure about that right now) as well as a 128GB SSD for caching since I am planning on using those drives quite a lot

I understand the general appeal of SSD caching for hard drives, I was myself playing with the idea, but I wonder what application that benefits from fast(er) storage won't be bottlenecked by the CPU availability.

 

Perhaps it would be best for you to take a bit of a step back, and assessing your needs, intentions, and budget. Right now it seems like you're enthusiastic about a solution that, while certainly interesting, may not provide the value you are looking for.

 

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

1 minute ago, NoxOps said:

Yep

Is there a video on that?

 

Thanks for answering!

[IgorM]

1 minute ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

Is it possible to use the VM's on the host server?

yes it is check out on it's documentation (which seems to be very good btw) https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/virtualmachines.html

 

Disclaimer I haven't installed it myself and don't have experience with it, but since it's quite famous you can find a lot of info online

 

[IgorM]

Just now, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

Is there a video on that?

 

Thanks for answering!

 

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

1 minute ago, Mr.Humble said:

Im sorry, but you're not exactly making perfect sense here.

 

Makes one wonder what would be the purpose of those VMs since they would get 1, maybe 2 CPU cores, which definitely will mean they will be slow AF, especially if you intend to run Windows VMs.

 

I understand the general appeal of SSD caching for hard drives, I was myself playing with the idea, but I wonder what application that benefits from fast(er) storage won't be bottlenecked by the CPU availability.

 

Perhaps it would be best for you to take a bit of a step back, and assessing your needs, intentions, and budget. Right now it seems like you're enthusiastic about a solution that, while certainly interesting, may not provide the value you are looking for.

 

I'm planning on just running Linux VM's, and using another lightweight VM to share movies, etc. thats why i'd like caching.

 

Thanks for answering!

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

11 minutes ago, IgorM said:

yes it is check out on it's documentation (which seems to be very good btw) https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/virtualmachines.html

 

Disclaimer I haven't installed it myself and don't have experience with it, but since it's quite famous you can find a lot of info online

 

I mean to host the VM's, while using the same PC to work on them.

 

So:

 

I plan to use the pc to host the VM's, and then using the same PC to access them so there is no need for a extra computer like on this video from Linus: 

 

[Mr.Humble]

17 minutes ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

I'm planning on just running Linux VM's, and using another lightweight VM to share movies, etc. thats why i'd like caching.

 

Thanks for answering!

I see.

I don't know what you intend to do in the Linux VM, but I can understand the movie sharing.

 

However I don't think you need SSD caching for that.

 

In my opinion, you really are better off sharing the folder or drive that has the content you want to share in Windows, then mapping it as a network drive in the other PCs, as read-only for any potential third party users.

Windows 10 Pro also integrates a native hypervisor - Hyper-V - which allows you to set up a Linux VM on a virtual disk located on any drive you want, and I'm certain there is a way to set the computer up to even autostart it.

 

I'm specifically mentioning Windows 10 Pro since that is what I use, and I set up an Ubuntu VM for learning following this guide: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-run-linux-distros-windows-10-using-hyper-v

 

EDIT: The article states that you need the Pro license, so if you don't have that I understand that is a major problem 

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

1 minute ago, Mr.Humble said:

I see.

I don't know what you intend to do in the Linux VM, but I can understand the movie sharing.

 

However I don't think you need SSD caching for that.

 

In my opinion, you really are better off sharing the folder or drive that has the content you want to share in Windows, then mapping it as a network drive in the other PCs, as read-only for any potential third party users.

Windows 10 Pro also integrates a native hypervisor - Hyper-V - which allows you to set up a Linux VM on a virtual disk located on any drive you want, and I'm certain there is a way to set the computer up to even autostart it.

 

I'm specifically mentioning Windows 10 Pro since that is what I use, and I set up an Ubuntu VM for learning following this guide: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-run-linux-distros-windows-10-using-hyper-v

 

EDIT: The article states that you need the Pro license, so if you don't have that I understand that is a major problem 

Alright, I will look into this. Thank you!

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

I mean to host the VM's, while using the same PC to work on them.

 

So:

 

I plan to use the pc to host the VM's, and then using the same PC to access them so there is no need for a extra computer like on this video from Linus: 

 

then why not just use windows 10?

You can easily share files over the network.

Use hyper-v for vms, and storage spaces for raid. 

 

And then you can easily use it for a desktop

[2FA]

Not really mentioned yet but if you want the drive flexibility that UNRAID offers, an alternative to that is MergerFS+SnapRAID. I've not personally used it yet but from what I've read it's pretty good. You can run it with regular Linux distros from which you can install a hypervisor and/or Docker.

[Salacious B Crum]

3 hours ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

Hi there! I was wondering if there was a good alternative for unRAID since I wish to use my extra system power for a small (file) server, I have tried a lot of different things but unRAID still seems the best option out there, but I just don't have the budget to buy a license. Is there any free operating system out there that does the same as unRAID?

 

Thanks in advance for helping me!

I'm an unRAID proponent there are many features with unRAID that are nice, you say your budget is holding you up well unRAID will be the cheapest part of the build and you can throw literally any drive at it at any size and just pop it in and it will run you will get the full raw storage of those drives as long as your parity is the largest drive in the rig you should test it out with the free trial I think you will change your mind and may reconsider in the end

[Jarsky]

Why are you adding complexity to this?

Windows 10

Run the disks independently

Run the VM's in Hyper-V, VMware Workstation (trial) or Virtual box for free. 

 

Share what you need through Windows File Sharing (SMB/CIFS)

[JustAnotherRandomUser]

2 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Why are you adding complexity to this?

Windows 10

Run the disks independently

Run the VM's in Hyper-V, VMware Workstation (trial) or Virtual box for free. 

 

Share what you need through Windows File Sharing (SMB/CIFS)

I don't want to lose performance significantly. That's why.

[GimmeGaming]

With such low end hardware for virtualization, you would be better off running Windows 10 as your main OS and using it day to day then just use Virtualbox to power on VM's as you need them.

You could also give your Windows OS a file server role instead of building a VM for it?

[GimmeGaming]

1 hour ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

I don't want to lose performance significantly. That's why.

You will loose more by running unraid as you can't assign full resources to your main rig when you power these systems off.

 

[dalekphalm]

8 hours ago, JustAnotherRandomUser said:

I don't want to lose performance significantly. That's why.

Your Linux VM's will run just as fast in VMWare Workstation Player (free version) or VirtualBox (or even Hyper-V) as it would from unRAID, so no problems there.

 

Additionally, you're likely going to be bottlenecked by your 1Gbps LAN, so running an SSD as your Share won't have huge benefits (especially for movies, which are large sequential files - perfect for a HDD). A decent HDD can get pretty close to saturating a 1Gbps LAN connection.

 

Do you have any other concerns?

 

I would: Create a folder (either on your main drive, or a separate drive) - share that folder

Use VMWare Player or VirtualBox to create a Linux VM or two

And that's about it - bonus points if you use Storage Spaces, but I don't think that's even required here.