NAS + Plex media server - Plex media backup + HomeLab, architecture ?

Hammoud.MA · February 1

Context:
In an earlier post, I asked about the hardware and what software to use to achieve this and I landed on the following:
- Using unraid to achieve this

- I will be using amd ryzen 7 5800 (oem), ECC unregistered ram, Starting out with 3 HDDs

- I managed to get 2 Nvme ssds

The bit were i am confused is about how would all of this work. I want the HDDs to be a backup of my documents and the plex media I will add. At the same time, I think that the homelab (which for me is a linux virtual machine) should be running on one of the ssds right? Should it be? Does unraid support that kind of setup? Will i be able to add media to plex on the cache, and then automate that to be backuped at night for example so that the new added media is saved in the right directories on the HDDs?

If what I have in mind is completely crazy and stupid, please let me know how I can make the most out of the hardware I already have. And make it live as long as possible.

voyager_ · February 1

That's a fairly normally use case for unraid. The three drives will go in the "Array" with one acting as the parity drive. With the SSDs you have a couple options, if they match you can use them both in the cache so one is a backup of the other. (I would go this route, I've had a cache ssd die that I had been meaning to add a backup for and never did and it was a pain).

When you set up your shares in unraid one of the options is to use the cache and mover. What this will do is when writing data to the array it will store it on the cache and move to the array at a later time. I have never changed the default schedule. You can change when it runs and manually trigger the mover. You do not need to do anything special when coping files, just put them where they need to go and they will sit on the cache drive until the mover runs and transfers them to the array.

Under the shares you can select what drives a share can use, meaning you can lock it to your cache drives and keep it off the array or get a plugin called unassigned drives. That plug in allows you to use drives in the server that are not part of the array or cache. I've always left any dockers or vms on my cache drives and use unassigned drives as a target for downloads from a specific vm for certain uses that shall not be named.

when setting up plex look at a video from Space Invader on youtube about ram transcoding. Instead of writing a bunch of temp data to the ssd it will write it to ram saving some wear and tear. Byte my Bits also has a bunch of great plex and unraid videos. Defiantly check out space invader for setting up the vms too, he has some great content on setup and passing hardware through, plex hardware transcoding, etc...

I don't know about your earlier build post but unless you have a network connection that can really utilize the nvme drives I wouldn't use them. The reason I say this is most motherboards disable some of the sata ports if an nvme drive is present.

Make sure to also join the Unraid facebook group and forum, there are a ton of helpful people there.

Hammoud.MA · February 2

On 2/1/2024 at 3:29 PM, voyager_ said:

That's a fairly normally use case for unraid. The three drives will go in the "Array" with one acting as the parity drive. With the SSDs you have a couple options, if they match you can use them both in the cache so one is a backup of the other. (I would go this route, I've had a cache ssd die that I had been meaning to add a backup for and never did and it was a pain).

When you set up your shares in unraid one of the options is to use the cache and mover. What this will do is when writing data to the array it will store it on the cache and move to the array at a later time. I have never changed the default schedule. You can change when it runs and manually trigger the mover. You do not need to do anything special when coping files, just put them where they need to go and they will sit on the cache drive until the mover runs and transfers them to the array.

Under the shares you can select what drives a share can use, meaning you can lock it to your cache drives and keep it off the array or get a plugin called unassigned drives. That plug in allows you to use drives in the server that are not part of the array or cache. I've always left any dockers or vms on my cache drives and use unassigned drives as a target for downloads from a specific vm for certain uses that shall not be named.

when setting up plex look at a video from Space Invader on youtube about ram transcoding. Instead of writing a bunch of temp data to the ssd it will write it to ram saving some wear and tear. Byte my Bits also has a bunch of great plex and unraid videos. Defiantly check out space invader for setting up the vms too, he has some great content on setup and passing hardware through, plex hardware transcoding, etc...

I don't know about your earlier build post but unless you have a network connection that can really utilize the nvme drives I wouldn't use them. The reason I say this is most motherboards disable some of the sata ports if an nvme drive is present.

Make sure to also join the Unraid facebook group and forum, there are a ton of helpful people there.