To UNRAID or NOT and more

[tessierp]

Hi,

 

I would like to have the opinion of a few people. I am debating if to build myself a UNRAID system as storage or to go with a Synology or QNAP box. 

What I like about Synology and QNAP is that it is ready to go, you buy the disks, you set it up like you want deciding on RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 6, voilà. I have a QNAP right now, it has been working well for me but now I find myself rather limited by space, processor is kind of slow as I installed stuff like a PLEX (granted I could host a Plex Server somewhere else). A disadvantage I see with QNAP or Synology is that, while you can buy storage expansions, you can make only very limited hardware upgrades to it. I also realized that RAID 5 and 6 are probably not ideal, especially if 1 drive fails for example and the system needs to rebuild, that puts a lot of strain on the drives. Given that I have a 5 bay QNAP, going with RAID 1 or 10 vould have limited me in terms of space.

 

UNRAID on the other hand, since you build your system, if you bought a decent case, gives you more flexibility in terms of hardware, upgrades, adding disks of different sizes, adding caching SSDs for speed, adding parity drives to protect your data against failures. Of course, depending on what you build your system can less expensive to way more expensive even than a Synology (depending on the hardware you get). The only thing I don't like personally is that you have to boot from a thumb drive. Some people see that as an advantage but yeah that is the only thing I don't like about it.

 

So my first question is, for those who had NAS systems like Synology, QNAP, etc, and also built UNRAID, what was your experience, did you regret it? Did you have many issues?

 

Also, I have seen many people saying that in order to avoid wasting a lot of power on just UNRAID, if you have for example Ryzen 3900X or better, some people have been using PROXMOX and they hosted UNRAID as a VM under it. I hear Proxmox is very good and Virtualization is amazing but, in this case, is this something you would do and if you did it, did you encounter many problems?

 

Thanks

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 minutes ago, tessierp said:

I also realized that RAID 5 and 6 are probably not ideal,

Just saying, unraid basically uses these same leves(yea not exactly the same, but same issues ifyou have mutlipke drive failues). Keep backups aswell.

 

DIY nases are pretty easy to setup, so unless you need support or want super simple id go unraid.

 

13 minutes ago, tessierp said:

I hear Proxmox is very good and Virtualization is amazing but, in this case, is this something you would do and if you did it,

I use proxmox a lot, and it works well, but for a simple nas, Id just use unraid unless you need advanced vm features. You can already run vms in unraid.

 

 

[tessierp]

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Just saying, unraid basically uses these same leves(yea not exactly the same, but same issues ifyou have mutlipke drive failues). Keep backups aswell.

 

DIY nases are pretty easy to setup, so unless you need support or want super simple id go unraid.

 

I use proxmox a lot, and it works well, but for a simple nas, Id just use unraid unless you need advanced vm features. You can already run vms in unraid.

 

 

Thanks for answering. Yes, backups are important no matter what kind of NAS system you build.

 

As for PROXMOX, the real question is, would you build a UNRAID system as a VM under PROXMOX or would you build 2 separate systems and why?

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 minutes ago, tessierp said:

Thanks for answering. Yes, backups are important no matter what kind of NAS system you build.

 

As for PROXMOX, the real question is, would you build a UNRAID system as a VM under PROXMOX or would you build 2 separate systems and why?

I would run os or anouther.

 

Run proxmox is vms are important, and you want the most vm feautres.

 

Run unraid if you want ease of use, and its storage system.

 

Id let proxmox or unraid(pick one) manage the storage. poxmox can do simmilar storage configs with snapraid + merger fs, or 

[jake9000]

Just wanna throw this out there, both unraid and proxmox are fronts for a hypervisor called KVM that actually runs your virtual machines. You will find both to be competent for your use. 

Also, Unraid has a nice docker component that can run applications. I run my plex and related software all in unraid's docker and do not have any VMs configured at all. 

[tessierp]

33 minutes ago, jake9000 said:

Just wanna throw this out there, both unraid and proxmox are fronts for a hypervisor called KVM that actually runs your virtual machines. You will find both to be competent for your use. 

Also, Unraid has a nice docker component that can run applications. I run my plex and related software all in unraid's docker and do not have any VMs configured at all. 

Yeah I knew UNRAID made it possible to create VMs and installing micro-services via Docker. But I imagine that PROXMOX is more specialized than UNRAID in that regard, even think PROXMOX supports Kubernetes but not 100% sure, just something I read.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

12 minutes ago, tessierp said:

Yeah I knew UNRAID made it possible to create VMs and installing micro-services via Docker. But I imagine that PROXMOX is more specialized than UNRAID in that regard, even think PROXMOX supports Kubernetes but not 100% sure, just something I read.

IDK about Kubernetes support but if you wanna run VMs you're gonna have a better time with Proxmox than Unraid from my understanding

[Salacious B Crum]

9 hours ago, orbitalbuzzsaw said:

IDK about Kubernetes support but if you wanna run VMs you're gonna have a better time with Proxmox than Unraid from my understanding

X2 if your interest is vm's as the priority go with proxmox if you want a solid home NAS with a ton of configuable options go with unRAID my box is built around a prebuilt I7 6700 and has been flawless running 10-15 dockers including an exstensive PLEX media server had terrible time with vm's in unRAID but full disclosure that area is a weak point for me so operator error prolly won the day on that front

[tessierp]

1 hour ago, mrbilky said:

X2 if your interest is vm's as the priority go with proxmox if you want a solid home NAS with a ton of configuable options go with unRAID my box is built around a prebuilt I7 6700 and has been flawless running 10-15 dockers including an exstensive PLEX media server had terrible time with vm's in unRAID but full disclosure that area is a weak point for me so operator error prolly won the day on that front

It seems like not many people are running UNRAID inside PROXMOX. Not that it couldn't be done but I guess it is not because you can do it that you should? There was a valid argument from someone in the UNRAID forums when he said that having a PROXMOX server alone seemed like a waste of resources. I guess it depends just how many VMs you are but, still a storage system perhaps is best to be on its own hardware.

 

I also noticed you're not using ECC ram in your official storage server, of course the motherboard probably does not support either. I know this is just an insurance policy and even if you have a NAS you should make adequate backup because you never know but since many seem to be religious about NAS and ECC ram, have you had issues like corruption of data, things like that?

 

Your "Why did I buy this server" really made me laugh.

[Salacious B Crum]

2 hours ago, tessierp said:

It seems like not many people are running UNRAID inside PROXMOX. Not that it couldn't be done but I guess it is not because you can do it that you should? There was a valid argument from someone in the UNRAID forums when he said that having a PROXMOX server alone seemed like a waste of resources. I guess it depends just how many VMs you are but, still a storage system perhaps is best to be on its own hardware.

 

I also noticed you're not using ECC ram in your official storage server, of course the motherboard probably does not support either. I know this is just an insurance policy and even if you have a NAS you should make adequate backup because you never know but since many seem to be religious about NAS and ECC ram, have you had issues like corruption of data, things like that?

 

Your "Why did I buy this server" really made me laugh.

I have had no issues regarding EEC ram I have the system protected by a UPS which has saved me a dozen times at least, best investment for a piece of equipment that does only that and diligently works in the background

 

Yeah its funny I had misgivings when I first got it and for some unknown reason I bought another one a 1U R410 which makes me appreciate that R710 this R410 is loud as all hell I don't even use it but for a few experiments with different os's the R710 is also an unRAID server and serves as a backup system

[tessierp]

1 hour ago, mrbilky said:

I have had no issues regarding EEC ram I have the system protected by a UPS which has saved me a dozen times at least, best investment for a piece of equipment that does only that and diligently works in the background

 

Yeah its funny I had misgivings when I first got it and for some unknown reason I bought another one a 1U R410 which makes me appreciate that R710 this R410 is loud as all hell I don't even use it but for a few experiments with different os's the R710 is also an unRAID server and serves as a backup system

Yes I already have a UPS for my QNAP TS-563. It is just there to give enough time for my NAS to shutdown in case of power loss. And I do regular backups using a external drive bay. I would buy ECC if it was easily available and not so damn expensive but only a handful of boards have it (Asrock and server boards) and there is also the issue of Registered ECC vs ECC Unbuffered, etc. It protects you for a very specific scenario. If I could I would buy it but, many people have been running UNRAID without ECC Ram without an issue so..

 

Yeah those rack servers are VERY VERY loud, the operate on very tiny fans. Those things are meant to operate in a room that is cooled down, isolated.

[Maticks]

I've had a Synology box doing my home NAS stuff, Plex and other apps. yeah it works well its low power and all that.

It doesn't Transcode a heap of files, yeah sure it does a few streams at good enough quality but if you hit a limit thats it you are at a limit.

Also its propitiatory hardware, my power supply died in my Synology and it was a pain to get the data off of it.

I've also had two hard drives die at once in Synology and lost all my data before.

 

Unraid i've been running for 5 years and love it.

With a "true" Raid setup  RAID5/6/10 you get a lot of performance, this is what FreeNAS and others use.

Unraid has adopted a different approach, the trade off is a little bit less performance but there are gains in other area's.

 

With a True Raid setup you have to put all the same size disks into your system, when you add a new disk to the array you must rebuild it for upgrading.

If you have a two disk failure setup you lose your two disks and thats is your data is gone.

 

With Unraid you put in your largest disk as your Parity Drive or Two Parity Drives.

Unraid lets you add in Data Drives of that size or smaller.

If you have Two Parity Drives you can lose either a Parity Drive or Two Data Disks and can rebuild them.

You can add up to 28 Data Disks that are protected by the two Parity Drives.

Unraid doesn't consume part of the array Data Drives for space for the Array.

 

If you lost more than 2 Data Drives you only lose the Data on those Disks.

The Data on the Data Drives isn't stripped across several disks like normal Raid a loss of the Array isn't complete loss of everything.

You only lose the data on the Data Drive you lost if you also lost 2 Parity Drives as well.

 

Unraid has VM, Docker Management. You can put your CPU in Power Save Mode.

Because of how Unraid works with Share Folders you can tell it to populate the least used disk with Data or move on when a Data Disk is full.

It is really up to how you want to load up data on the drives, but you can also spin down all your disks to save power if you wish.

 

Unlike normal Raid where all drives need to run 24x7 Unraid doesn't require all disks to be running unless doing a Parity Check or Drive Rebuild.

 

If you have a complete meltdown your Data Drives are independent you can always put all your disks and build a new set of Parity Data without issue.

Though you won't get the performance of a Raid the trade off is true flexibility.