[bossanova808]

I have for years now just been using an old windows box as our Home Server.  It has all our media (so music, books, tv and movies) - served mostly through Hanewin NFS - and also runs a bunch of backup, print serving, and housekeeping stuff.  On it I run a Linux VM for anything that is Linux only or just way better in its Linux version).

I have been tempted to move to Linux over the years (perhaps with a Windows VM for Windows only stuff!) - and probably will do it one day...but I had this machine spare way back in 2012 and it's been in daily use ever since. All the major media tools have windows versions so it's not a problem to use Windows. 

I have, before and since, setup many Linux servers - so for me it's just to keep things simple that this one is still on Windows, but it's super easy and perfectly possible to use Windows if you are more Windows/GUI comfortable than Linux.  Linux is of course great for servers but it can be a bit more complex if you're not already comfortable with Linux and the command line.  I much prefer a server to a NAS though, as it's a lot more flexible and you don't have to wait for package updates etc.

[noggin]

Unraid is the best thing since sliced bread!

Can you perhaps explain why, in simple terms?
My RAID experience is like the proverbial 'bit', I have dealt only 0 and 1 so far. 

I've been using unRAID for about 10 years or so. It 'just works' is one major reason I like it. It also offers parity protection for your media, but doesn't use a proprietary file system, so each drive is still readable outside of the unRAID ecosystem. If you have a single drive failure, you can reconstruct that drive from the others + parity drive, if you have two drive fails, you only lose the data on those drives. (Unlike a lot of RAID systems where if you have failures that are not reconstructable, you lose everything). You can add drives at any time, and they don't have to be a fixed size (the only requirement is that the parity drive has to be as big, or bigger, than the largest data drive). The system only spins up the drives it needs for reads and writes, allows for 'virtual' shares (so you can have a single 'Movies' share which is spread across lots of different drives - but to Kodi appears as a single mount point), and is customisable to allow you to do things like add SSD cache drives (to increase write speeds), where data can then be transferred to the main array in the background.

The unRAID system also allows for VMs and Docker containers to run on the unRAID server, so you can run other software that is 'always on' on your unRAID system, but in a way that is pretty robust and won't take your system down.
 
It's actively developed - but in a really robust manner. You can use it in a very simple way, or in a massively customised way, it's up to you.

I'd say it is a lot more advanced than most NAS solutions - and you can chose your hardware requirements (I run on low power Celerons as I don't do much other than file serving) I have one unRAID running on an HP Microserver, another on a home-built server (that's been a bit like 'Triggers Broom' (for UK readers), in that I started building it in 2008, and every single bit of hardware has been replaced in an evolutionary way - drives, motherboard, PSU, case, RAM, CPU etc. - but in a way that has allowed me to migrate the data and system)

[Klojum]

@noggin

Thank you for this quite useful explanation

[tjay260476]

Personally I haven't found a 'need' for ay RAID solution - My Media Server uses rsync cronjob to backup all my media to two external disks which can be read by my two RPi boxes running Libreelec, and my company server (which is in my living room LOL) using Windows Server Backup onto another disk.

At the moment there isn't anything 'mission critical' on my network... only time will tell if that changes LOL

[ozkhan1]

He is talking about unraid.

I know, that's why I asked
A gui is always nice, I just wondered about the technical side of things.
Guess I'll have to google that myself. No biggie.

Technically speaking, yes probably not a whole lot of differences compared with a DIy linux server but it’s so much easier simply sticking a new HD in and expanding your array using the GUI.

I believe that process involves a little bit of CLI usage with a linux server without the gui.

[tjay260476]

Yes, but knowing how is only a Google Search away!

[speedwell68]

He is talking about unraid.

I know, that's why I asked
A gui is always nice, I just wondered about the technical side of things.
Guess I'll have to google that myself. No biggie. 

Technically speaking, yes probably not a whole lot of differences compared with a DIy linux server but it’s so much easier simply sticking a new HD in and expanding your array using the GUI.

I believe that process involves a little bit of CLI usage with a linux server without the gui. 

I have a GUI on my server but I never use it.  I reckon I could add a new drive and setup an export for it faster in using the CLI than I could in a GUI.

[tjay260476]

@speedwell68 me2!!

Shall we have a race?!!

[ozkhan1]

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the CLI works great for a lot of people but for some it’s not worth the time and energy. It’s not a competition and not everybody’s demands the same.

[black_eagle]

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the CLI works great for a lot of people but for some it’s not worth the time and energy. It’s not a competition and not everybody’s demands the same.

True enough, although you can do so much more from CLI than GUI.

<On-Topic> - Ultimately, I guess it depends on if you just want an 'off-the-shelf' solution where you can just literally plug it in and go, in which case Synology and Qnap both make good kit.   If you don't mind learning along the way, and/or you're on a budget, then home built is the way to go.  Both solutions have their pitfalls and bonuses and there is no 'right choice' as such.  If you're going to spend your cash on an off-the-shelf solution, research it first and make sure it does what you will need it to do before buying it.

[tjay260476]

Hense one of my previous posts on this thread I said, TL : DR - use what you feel more confortable with!

It is  a time vs money situation, sure you can DIY and save a fortune but you you are going to have to take time to learn, wheras buying a NAS is going to cost you more money but takes less time to learn somethig new.

[speedwell68]

TBH anyone not up to speed with the terminal on a Linux server should have a look at Webmin.  I have recently been playing with it on another project and I am quite impressed.

[tjay260476]

+1 to that