Media Storage + Mini Server

[TacosWillEatUs]

Hi there,

I recently upgraded my PC so I have a backup PC just sitting downstairs, currently using it as a 24/7 server for certain things I have running but it doesn't need the total specs that I currently have (4770k OC to 4.2, 16gb ddr3 ram, 1tb SSD)

I currently have a 2tb m2 for games and boot stuff, and a 4tb sata ssd that I use for media storage (basically only 4k movies to ~50-70 GB per movie) and it gets filled up rather quick. Rather than constantly deleting stuff, I would prefer to get a NAS going and just have more space that way. I don't want to get something like a synology since I think the specs vs the price isn't really worth it.

I was looking into unraid and thinking I could divide my resources up 50/50, so 2 cores/4threads and 8gb ram for the media storage NAS and 2cores/4threads and 8gb ram for the mini server (currently it's running the one program that I need it to run 24/7 and it only uses ~25% max on cpu and ram so I figure it should be good.

I was looking into Unraid because I remember the video where they did NAS + gaming PC and they used unraid for that.

Just had a few questions if you guys could help me out.

I saw in other videos some people get dedicated raid controllers (something like https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01M2AC40Y/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=AE2OZG2NN3099&psc=1), do I NEED to have one? The plan is to just have 5 drives with 1 drive redundancy, and then use the 1tb SSD as cache and just keep 100-200gb of it for the windows VM

 

For the windows VM, do I need to have a GPU for it to work? I don't plan to access it much via the monitor itself, mostly just via RDP. I can always pick up a cheap GPU but thought I'd check

 

In the future, if I want to upgrade the storage from say 8TB drives to 12TB drives, can I do that without losing the data? As far as I understand, I should be able to replace one drive at a time and rebuild everything onto 5 new drives

 

Any other tips or suggestions? I'd tried to read up as much as I could just want to know anything I should know before I drop a lot of money on drives and unraid itself

 

Thanks for any help  

[NelizMastr]

18 hours ago, TacosWillEatUs said:

I saw in other videos some people get dedicated raid controllers (something like https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01M2AC40Y/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=AE2OZG2NN3099&psc=1), do I NEED to have one? The plan is to just have 5 drives with 1 drive redundancy, and then use the 1tb SSD as cache and just keep 100-200gb of it for the windows VM

You don't need one as long as you have sufficient SATA ports and 3.5" drive bays available. The main benefit to a card like that (especially in IT mode, where it acts as a HBA or passthrough device that shows the disks as if they were directly connected) is expandability or compensation for lack of onboard storage options. Unless you

go for a RAID card with a beefy cache setup and backup battery, it won't speed up anything, it also shouldn't slow anything down.

 

Do the RAID setup from UnRAID and you should be fine either way.

 

18 hours ago, TacosWillEatUs said:

For the windows VM, do I need to have a GPU for it to work? I don't plan to access it much via the monitor itself, mostly just via RDP. I can always pick up a cheap GPU but thought I'd check

As I'm not familiar with UnRAID, I'm not too sure on this one. My custom build server machine runs headless but I did need a GPU for the initial install. You might need to do the same, unless UnRAID emulates the generic Windows Basic driver. You certainly won't need a GPU post-install if you've setup RDP access.

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In the future, if I want to upgrade the storage from say 8TB drives to 12TB drives, can I do that without losing the data? As far as I understand, I should be able to replace one drive at a time and rebuild everything onto 5 new drives

In theory this could work, yes. Be aware that that resilver or rebuild operation is very hard on the remainder of the array so drive failures wouldn't be an uncommon sight.

I'd personally do a full data backup, create the new array, copy the data back. That's the safest way to go about this. You should have a backup in addition to the redundancy anyway, so keep that in mind. RAID is never a backup.

 

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Any other tips or suggestions? I'd tried to read up as much as I could just want to know anything I should know before I drop a lot of money on drives and unraid itself

I'd undo any overclocks to maintain optimal stability and reduce power consumption, also consider a UPS if it needs to be on 24/7 and, by all means, get a good backup if any data has any value at all.