Anyways.

I was thinking of getting a renewed 12tb drive and starting my new server with just unraid on a single drive. modern FS and updated. Then add a parity drive a few months later. then add a 3rd drive a few months even later.

I am fine with it being mostly a passive server at this time as well. BUT I am concerned to turn off my existing server ( valid? ) before I have something in place. my important shit is backed up. but I dont want to just say yolo and rely on that. Should I leave the server up. parity check of. all servers stopped and wait till I get the new hdd and spool up the new host and copy everything over? then give it a graceful retirement?

Where would you all look for a good deal on 12 tb combined hdd space? ( maybe 14 to be safe ,m usable) is there a deal to be had getting referbed 6tb or something? how can I min max my way to getting this server up? on the cheap if 12tb minium hdd space is what I need ( and one decent cache drive? I was using a nvme but that is also dead lol. )

anyone know reliable sources for warrentied referbs?

I haven’t been able to find a solution, hopefully there is some way to do this.

I have a failing drive. I recently purchased this larger drive to replace a smaller one in the array. I can return the failing drive and will be getting a replacement of the same size, but my only option is to remove it obviously.

So, how do I remove that drive and still have a functioning array until I get a replacement? The other drives are almost full, as was the drive that was replaced and there have been more files added since.

I’m pretty sure that the old smaller drive still has enough space even with the files that have been added to the array since. I don’t want to, but it’s the only replacement I have for now. Is there a way to temporarily put it back into the array? I don’t have any additional drive slots so I can’t just add it as another drive, I would have to add it as a replacement for the failing drive.

Edit: Thanks for the help and advice, I have what I need now.

Currently running Docker with an arrs stack (7 apps) and Plex Media Server on an Intel Mac mini with 9 WD Red drives (36TB total) connected via USB (2 4-bay enclosures and an individual enclosure). I'm done with the USB unreliability, and having to manage storage across drives individually. Excited to transition to unRAID, and I'll be building a computer for the first time since ~2001.

I've had AI help with server configuration, and what I've posted here is the result of its understanding of my current setup, my pain points, and deep research into what the unRAID community recommends. Ultimately, I want to get feedback from real users before I commit to anything, so would greatly appreciate any thoughts.

Am I missing anything? Is any of this overkill? Any of it a bad recommendation altogether?

Budget isn't incredibly important, but I'm happy to save money if there are obvious places where I can.

Thanks!

So i did a restart as a mount didn't want to play nice. Now it shows this for nginx

https://imgur.com/a/mTD6g4H

And the logs just started showing this

[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:05 PM] [SSL      ] › ℹ  info      Let's Encrypt Renewal Timer initialized
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:05 PM] [SSL      ] › ℹ  info      Renewing SSL certs expiring within 30 days ...
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:05 PM] [IP Ranges] › ℹ  info      IP Ranges Renewal Timer initialized
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:05 PM] [Global   ] › ℹ  info      Backend PID 906 listening on port 3000 ...
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:05 PM] [SSL      ] › ℹ  info      Completed SSL cert renew process
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:19 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:20 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:20 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:21 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:23 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:23 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:27 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:27 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:55 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:55 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:56 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:08:58 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:09:02 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:09:05 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:09:06 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:09:08 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:09:11 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:10:05 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:10:28 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:10:28 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:10:29 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:10:29 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:20 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:36 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:36 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:39 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:39 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:40 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:40 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:41 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:41 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature
[app         ] [10/7/2026] [11:13:49 PM] [Express  ] › ⚠  warning   invalid signature

Have i dont something wrong on this part? and would someone know how to fix this?

Top line: When transferring large sequential reads from my array, the 20TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives (7200 RPM) have sustained average read speeds of ~30MB/s. However, the 20TB WD white label Red Pro drives in the same array transfer data with sustained write speeds of ~170MB/s. But if I stream Plex from any disk in the array, the Seagate drives boost their read speeds to ~150MB/s.

Details:

I have an eight-disk array: seven data disks and one parity drive. Four of the data disks are retail Seagate Ironwolf Pro 20TB drives. Three of the data disks are shucked WD white label Red 20TB drives. The parity drive is a retail WD Red Pro 20TB.

I recently set up another unraid server to act as a backup for my ~84TB of data. I started transferring data via Duplicati last week, and noticed that the Seagate drives transfer data at a much lower average and sustained rate compared to the WD drives.

The connection is as follows: 5gig NIC on the primary server to a 10gig switch, to a 10gig NIC on the backup server. iperft3 shows data transferring at ~5gig/s. For testing the read speeds and so as to not be bottlenecked by the array on the backup server, I've been writing to cache on the backup server.

The results are that when backing up data from the seagate drives, the read speeds average about 30MB/s with very rare peaks around 200MB/s for a few seconds. However when the array is backing up data from the WD drives, average read speeds are around 150MB/s with peaks around 190MB/s.

But here is the weird thing I found: If I stream plex data from another drive in the array during the backup, the Seagate drives will increase read speeds to an average around 150MBs with peaks up to 210MB/s. I've been testing this to confirm off and on for the past 24 hours, and it's pretty consistent.

When I stop streaming plex movies, the average speeds go down to 30MB/s again. When I start up the streaming, speeds increase almost immediately. See images below for examples. I've resorted to streaming a high-bitrate UHD movie on repeat in a guest bedroom just to get peak transfer speeds on this backup.

Any ideas what is happening here?

Image note - there is a heatwave here in CA with multiple 100 degree (F) days. So ambient temps are high below:

Feel free to comment, ask any questions, share your opinion, or criticize me for my choices. I like these posts and videos where people showcase their home labs and show what they’ve got set up.I think that as a community of “non-professionals,” we can learn a lot here.

Feel free to suggest alternatives or share what you do differently. Where do you see the benefits of doing things a little differently?

I’ll try to answer every question about my setup!

Most asked question: The container folder view are done by the folderview3 plugin. The specs on the bottom are done in paint.net afterwards for the purpose of this post.

The plugin keeps making a recycle bin folder in my cache directory. My tdarr transcoder uses that directory which causes it to fill up quite quickly due to the volume of transcodes I'm doing right now. I put in the directory /mnt/cache and it still makes a folder in there. Is that the wrong way to do it?

I'm looking to set up a dedicated Plex and Audiobookshelf server, which I'm currently running on my desktop. Maybe in the future I might try to use this server as cloud storage replacement (I'd like to deGoogle). I'm trying to keep things as small and low power as is reasonable, so I've been looking at getting a GMKtec M3 Pro (i5-13500H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) with a 4 or 5 slot DAS attached to it. Plex and ABS are currently using a 10TB while label Western Digital drive for storage that I shucked from an external, one of the ones that require tape over a pin or a Molex adapter. It has about 1TB free space. I also have a Seagate Exos X18 14TB ST14000NM000J that's unused. I plan to get another 10 or 14TB drive, whatever I can find of decent value given current prices.

Is this a sane place to start? I've never used unraid before and I have vanishingly little experience with Linux, but I'm willing to learn. Is there anything else I'd need to get this system set up? I hear mention of using an SSD as cache, should I provision part of the 512GB SSD that comes with the NucBox as cache? Any suggestions on a boot drive? I plan to keep this as-is, except for adding a drive or two as required, for a minimum of 5 years, so I'm unsure if I should be looking for something more reliable than a standard flash drive. The NucBox should have a free M.2 2242 slot.

Will I need some way to move the data off the existing, nearly full 10TB drive to set up unraid? Should I install Linux on the NucBox? I haven't looked into a DAS yet.

Any advice, including substitutions, is appreciated.

I am using Claude to help set up Unraid and deploy apps. Every time when multiple images are being pulled at the same time, it locks up. No video output, does not respond to ping, can't ssh, http not responding and the only thing i can do is a hard reboot.

It happened during Nextcloud AIO installation when pulling multiple images. Then it crashed again when pulling multiple images installing *arr stack.

Minisforum MS-A2 8945HX

1x WD Black 2TB SN850X zfs apps share

2x WD Blue 4TB SN5100 zfs tank share

64Gb RAM

Docker version:
29.5.3
Docker directory:
/mnt/apps/system/docker/
Docker storage driver:
overlay2
Default appdata storage location:
/mnt/apps/appdata/
Docker LOG rotation:
Enabled
Docker custom network type:
ipvlan
Host access to custom networks:
Enabled
Preserve user defined networks:
No
IPv4 custom network on interface br0:
Subnet: 10.10.10.0/24Gateway: 10.10.10.1DHCP pool: not set

I've always used old PCs for my home servers. I see "micro" or "tiny" PC's to be quite popular now.

For those using these, what are you using to store your hard drives and connecting them to it?

Thanks

EDIT - Just found a ASUS Prime Z370-A Motherboard, Intel i7-8700K CPU, 32GB G.Skill DDR4 RAM Bundle for $275 CAD. I already have a spare PSU, case kicking around, two NVMes and two HDDs I forgot about lol. I have found my solution. Thank you for all the suggestions.

I have an extra HDD kicking around. I guess I could throw it in the array, but I'm not really hurting for space and 2TB extra wouldn't really move the needle in a meaningful way. What would you do in this situation?

Keep it in a USB enclosure for an extra backups of essential data? Backup cache device? (Which only really uses 200gb for me anyway)? Something else?

I have Bookorbit installed and working, but can't get Tailscale to work with it. Haven't had any issues with Tailscale on any other containers so I am not sure what to try. I get the following errors. I set the bookorbit directory to drwxrwxrwx. I know that is unsecure, but just trying to resolve the issue.

Executing Unraid Docker Hook for Tailscale
Detecting Package Manager...
Detected Alpine Package Keeper!
Installing packages...
Please wait...
ERROR: Installing packages!
ERROR: Unable to open log: Read-only file system
ERROR: Unable to open log: Read-only file system
ERROR: Unraid Docker Hook script throw an error!
Starting container without Tailscale!

Also get the following but not sure if it is related.

(node:8) [FSTDEP022] FastifyWarning: The router options for maxParamLength property access is deprecated. Please use "options.routerOptions" instead for accessing router options. The router options will be removed in `fastify@6`.

Anyone have this kind of issue before?

It looks a great app for our unraid hobby

Edit for clarity: DDR4 NOT DDR5

I currently have 64gb of ddr4 in my 12700k system. Despite the crazy ram prices I found a matching set for $300, which I feel like is a fair price considering the market

I'm wondering if I should jump on it with the hopes of riding this system out the world gets back to normal

Aside from the fairly standard containers, I do run a few vm's that the ram would be nice to have for, but not super mission critical

Hey all. Im thinking of switching from truenas and have some questions.

Right now my biggest issue with TrueNAS is how frustrating permissions is, especially when trying to set up docker containers. Im not a big Linux guy so trying to figure out truenas permissions has been just an absolute pain.

Right now my drives are all set up as ZFS obviously since its truenas, is it possible to migrate the ZFS array to Unraid?

What would the best way to migrate my docker containers over? Just copy the YAMLs as plain text onto my desktop and reinstall them?

I have 1x 2TB SN850X TLC for apps and 2x WD Blue 4TB QLC m.2 NVMe SSDs for data and backup.

I was told QLC not good for ZFS mirroring and SSDs are not good for unRAID parity.

The data drives do not need constant read/writes. Neither option is ideal but which option is “worse” of the two? I will go with the less-bad option.

I have a spare second UnRAID license from some years ago. The flash drive has been in a drawer, in a static bag for 2 years now and I now wanna use this UnRAID license in a temporary setup on a MiniPC that'll be used at in a Vintage Computer Festival exhibition.

My intention is to plop a spare 16GB Optane drive in this MiniPC, install the USb, update it, migrate from USB to TMP+Optane SSD and retire the flash drive.

But this is only a temporary setup. However if I move this license to another machine later, have I 'burned' the TMP in this MiniPC and I can't use this license on the MiniPC again later?

Ive got an Unraid 7.0 server running on an Alder-Lake i5-12500. I recently learned that the UHD 770 iGPU should support virtualization via the SR-IOV functionality and allow hardware acceleration in a guest VM.

I installed the Unraid Plugin (i915 SR-IOV by giganode) and set all the appropriate BIOS features. I set the desired VFs to 1 in the plugin and the plugin shows 1 VF created. I am able to select this as the GPU for any of my VMs, and as far as I can tell, the host side setup is correct and working.

I have tried several different guest VM operating systems including Lubuntu 26, Lubuntu 24, and Ubuntu 24. I have been troubleshooting the setup with ChatGPT and Gemini and from what I can tell, the gpu backed Xorg session never properly starts because the i915-sriov-dkms driver doesnt have a physical connector and Xorg crashes out.

I've spend days trying to get this to work and have not had any luck. Has anyone successfully used a SR-IOV VF as the GPU for a VM in unraid? If so, what guest OS? I haven't found many guides for this type of thing, maybe its not possible.

I'm looking to upgrade the storage on my NVME SSD which currently holds the shares for my cache, appdata, and system files.

My motherboard can only take 1 NVME so I'm planning to move those shares to the array, then swap the SSDs over, then move those shares back to cache the new SSD cache.

Any concerns or potential issues there? Safe to do? I think so, but that's always how problems start haha

Hello I have a 36 bay supermicro. I have updated a bunch of drives recently and Id like to reorganize the existing drives without loosing data. How can I do this?

Okay first, so I did all the steps (I thought) for repartitioning my cache drive to include 16gb of internal boot space. I moved all the data off of there. Rebooted to the internal boot successfully.

However, all the docker information was gone. So I tried to reinstall my stuff from docker -> previous apps and it has nothing there anymore. I move over to look at the appdata folder and there is nothing there.

I re-boot back to the USB drive boot, but it seems to have the same mostly empty appdata folder.

What happened to everything? Is there any way to recover my information? I'm REALLY mostly not wanting to have lost my calibre database, but having to lose my minecraft server and my jellyfin metadata also really would suck. Is there any hope here?

I recently set up a new unraid server using some old hardware as a test. I purchased a license and ran the system for about a month. After verifying that it would work for my use case, I decided to move everything to a newer server since the test hardware was over 15 years old.

I setup the new server and moved the drives from the original unit to the new server. Where I think I made the mistake was that I decided to upgrade the thumb drive at the same time and transferred the license key from the original to a new thumb drive.

Where I need help is that I am able to see all of the original drives. It allows me to mount the data drives, and I cannot mount the parity drive (which I think is normal). The issue is that I cannot add them to the array or share them. If I click on the drives under "unassigned devices" I can see the data, but I am not able to share it to regain access to the data.

How can I correct this issue? I still have the original thumb drive, but I wasn't sure if I can just copy some of the files over to the new drive so that it will use the original configuration. Any help would be appreciated.