Will unraid be faster than my current set up

The point of my last post is that I agreed with what you are saying basically. Blu Rays do only max at 56 (and most never come close) and as that graph showed USB 2 can do way better than a 100 network which is well beyond 56. What I am saying is that in my experience most USB2 drives I have come across have problems with Blu Rays that max the standard. Its sad, by all rights such technology should blow away that limit but I think hard drive makers cheap out on budget large drives and playback can suffer.

In fact I recently got access to a new external HDD, a USB3 2TB Seagate and I tested it before I posted again. Just like you say the USB3 drive plays my Blu Ray rip of Avatar perfectly, so it certainly can work. I agree completely with you that it can work.

The OP had a bad experience with USB2 + Ubuntu. I threw out two reasons why based on my experience- either the USB drives are like ones I have dealt with in the past or the standard Ubuntu SMB is not fast enough. Either could be wrong- OP could have high expectations (beyond even Unraid), other network problems, etc.

But in any case I don't think that test should be an indicator for the potential of a Linux server like Unraid. USB2 at its best as that graph illustrates is still below a gigabit network. I think except for Firewire and USB3 drives a network device can have the best speeds.

I'll agree that using internal drives is better. If only for data transfers, sure you can do 20MB/s or more sustained over USB.20, but you can easily do 100MB/s on an internal drive. When you need to move a lot of data, that 5x improvement of speed can save you hours.

However, I don't think your experiences show that USB2.0 is insuffient for playback even of Blu-Rays (Agian, there are LOTS of external USB 2.0 Blu-Ray drives) and I think it's more likely that you have a history of buying REALLY crappy USB enclosures.