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eskro
Posting Freak
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if your using your unRAID just to act as a NAS, u dont need more then the SEMPRON...
its when u start to install unRAID addons to do more like SICK COUCH SAB,
u need a stronger CPU
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Hi
I'm looking to build my own NAS for XBMC and came across UnRaid which appears to be very popular among XBMC users. At the same time I'm reading that Windows 8 has "unraid" built in with some added benefits (3TB support, faster read/write...). I am by no means an expert on this but wanted to hear some viewpoints as to whether it's worth investing in UnRaid now or waiting for Win 8 (arrives this summer?).
Thanks
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What are the major advantages of using a server install like Unraid? Right now I serve everything out from an HTPC (i3 2100t based) that is also running XBMC to my other htpc/xbmc locations...all running W7. Am I missing something that should make me consider having a NAS like Unraid?
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eskro
Posting Freak
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well yeah, when you'll run out of space on your hdd's,
what will u do?
unRAID acts as a big hard drive
and u can add more hdd to it to grow the space when needed.
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I figured I would add another drive with a new "video" share. Xbmc will see it as a single library right?
I am probably over simplifying this. I am seriously considering building an unfair server but I need to figure out how to pitch it to the spouse better than just thinking it will be a neat project I want to try.
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Diggs
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The advantage of Unraid or any RAID setup is redundancy. I have a lot of time invested in my media library and if a drive fails, then I get to do all the work over again to get it back onto a drive from either BR or DVD. With Unraid, if I lose that drive then I pull it from the server, drop a new one in and it will rebuild the failed drive. While the rebuild of the failed drive isn't quick, it is certainly simple and quicker than repopulated the drive by ripping the data again. The reason I chose to go with Unraid over a traditional raid array was the way it writes data to the drives. There is no stripe set across all the drives, so if I lose 2 drives I can still read the data off the remaining drives. If I went with a RAID 5 setup and lost 2 drives, then all the data is gone.
Raid is not a backup, you need a duplicate copy off site in order to achieve a full on backup solution, but it does add a big layer of security for your data where using drives on a windows 7 setup with no RAID offers no redundancy at all.