20% off Unraid licences (new or upgrades) until tomorrow 31/Oct.
Use code SUPERBOKI20 for 20% off everything including upgrades.
| License | No. of Storage Devices | Normal Price |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Up to 6 | US$59 |
| Plus | Up to 12 | US$89 |
| Pro | Unlimited | US$129 |
License upgrade normal prices
According to xe it's down ~14%, so still a 6% discount I suppose
i tried unraid many years ago (2016?) and have avoided it since. finally gave it another go a couple months back and love it - worth every cent
EILI5 unraid please :-)
It's an operating system which is used to run a NAS (network attached storage) server.
Unraid also allows you to run apps and do other things in addition to just providing network storage.
Key advantages of unraid:
- flexible drive sizes
- apps / docker support
- quite easy to set up
Disadvantages:
- costs money
- closed source
Alternatives to consider:
TrueNAS
Pre built NAS such as Synology or QNAP
Thank you Barney appreciate you.
No worries :)
Better free alternative is probably open media vault. Very flexible and can basically mimic the unraid way of doing "raid" backups.
Friendly reminder that redundancy is not a backup :)
@devondale16: What exactly does constitutes backup then? Because I still don't see DAT/LTO/DLT/QIC's in widespread use outside of corporate.
Unraid is also the slowest of the bunch as a key disadvantage, not that it matters much if you’re just storing large video files.
I learned TrueNAS Scale from the ground up and glad I did. Not even going to consider Unraid.
And it has a pretty committed support forum and plenty of decent guides already written for all the major apps. The other thing to keep in mind if thinking about a whole new system - if you don't care which hardware you use, go with the items that have the most users so trouble shooting is easier. Just visit their forums and have a look about.
Imo, it would be had to beat Synlogys user forums
I'll just add that (unlike normal RAID) UnRAID lets you add drives of different sizes together to make up your network storage, and still have a parity drive - meaning that if a drive fails completely, you won't lose any data.
It's ideal for turning a spare computer into network storage for your collection of completely legitimate movies and TV shows. Plus, since it's on all the time, you can run other software on top - such as Plex for sharing your legitimate movies and TV shows with your friends and family over the internet. Or Home Assistant for home automation. Or PiHole for network-wide ad blocking. Or a private Steam server, or…. whatever you want, really.
Can you add NMVe disks as cache?
Does it have Docker support OOB?
Can you add NMVe disks as cache?
Yes. You can have multiple cache pools now; so my Docker containers run on a mirrored pair of NVME drives, and my file cache is on a pair of SSDs.
Docker and VM support is built in (as is Wireguard VPN); I think you might still have to copy-and-paste one line to get the community run app store installed. The app store is just free plugins and Docker images combined with templates to make them more UnRAID-friendly - sane storage choices, icons, some context menu items so you can right-click on a container and go to the support page/GUI etc. It'll run stuff straight from Dockerhub if you prefer though.
How is this compared to OMV?
Personally prefer it. Tried truenas and omv, ultimately ended up with unraid despite the cost.
For home usage where you might want to just add drives of all types and sizes unraid is just perfect.
Docker system is very basic with a good gui as well.
Same OMV would always tank after a while usually after deploying an add ons and I would have to start again, OMV requires I higher level of knowlwdge of how to setup docker and all its pitfalls. Unraid just select from appstore clck install change a few paths. plugins make it east to use from adding nvidia GPU's to plex server, adding wireguard and a whole fleet of autodownloaders and media managers. does eat up a lot of system resources and disk IO is stellar fast with out SSD cache.
Read BarneyKB's explanation above?
currently stuck deciding between unraid or truenas I honestly don't know
Try “truenas scale”
how does it compare to core & unraid?
Scale is Linux based so easier docker and VMs vs core and more hardware compatibility, but newer so a few rough UX edges in using VMs / containers.
Truenas really wants you to add all the same size drive all at once, for that you get speed and the most resilient file system that exists.
Unraid will let you throw random drives at it one at a time and get the most storage possible out of it with your selected level of redundancy. Technically if you lost all drives but one (non parity drive) you’d still be able to get the data on that drive. It probably has the most community plug in. You pay for all that with speed (and it’s not free), it can slow to a crawl and become outright unresponsive while doing maintenance tasks (not a huge problem unless you have a huge amount of data)
I run all three and would choose Truenas scale provided I was ok with adding all drives at once. (Or at least in my case 8 at a time).
If you have a bunch of random sized drive’s hanging about Unraid will get some more life from them, or if you’re starting with few and and adding one at a time.
I wouldn’t choose Truenas core anymore unless I was sure I didn’t want VMs or docker. In some tests it’s marginally faster and it’s very very stable.
@[Deactivated]: I'm running TrueNas Core virtualised under ESXi (vmug). Is it worth moving to Scale based simply on Debian > FreeBSD?
@daitro: Possibly not if you’re already managing your VMs under ESXi. It’s not quite as good (somewhat subjectively) at managing VMs as ESXi (provided your hardware works with ESXi). It’s a way to avoid having to run ESXi because it will handle VMs itself.
Core is just as good or very slightly more performant at a pure storage role, at least for the moment.
@daitro: No. Core is better in terms of stability and hardening; just less flexible. BSD Solaris, vs OpenZFS is the reason.
If its working, just enjoy.
UnRaid if your data is replacable and uptime is your core need.
TrueNas (actually, xigmanas, imo), if your data is important and you dont have a spare array to test restore your backups to.
My data is definitely replaceable as my home server just runs homeassistant and whatnot. I have been testing unraid but it seems pretty lacking in features compared to truenas and omv.
As per true ozbargainer style, freenas is free whereas unraid is not ;) +10 points for that
TrueNAS all the way, mate. Once you learn it you'll be happy you didn't splurge money in something you could do yourself.
Out of curiosity, why would you say that UnRaid is if your data is replaceable? You are basically saying they failed at their core job lol
Their core job is to have an array that cant go down. They achieved that.
What their system doesnt do is protect data, or prevent corruption. Since the rebuild is at disk level, not block level. It just blindly recreates data, even if it was damaged.
Wow what timing, I was just on trial and about to sign-up in the next day or two. Thanks OP!
Sweet! I was about to drop some coin on a license and saw this
Fyi if you are using hardware drive controllers you can pass though the entire controller and doesn't count the drives
is it lifetime license with lifetime upgrades (all versions)?
Generally yes. Unraid updates often with improvements and features. If a huge OS overhaul occurs in the future they could possibly decide to charge. No different to other lifetime subscriptions. Eg Plex. I can't remember if this happened with v6.0
Yes it's a lifetime single purchase. They also do pro-rate upgrades for the licence, so if you buy one of the smaller licences (less disks) and decide you need more in the future, you don't have to buy a full new licence for the larger size.
UnRaid exists for one reason: You need an array that cant go down, even if data is lost.
This is its golden skill.
But in exchange for that, it offers only disk level, not block level protection. So if your data is important to you, you need not just the usual backups; but you need to verify your backups also.
For most people, the 'convenience' of setup is far outweighed by the work of verifying data.
I wrote a thing about it here :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/comments/sn9gcn/why_you_…
So I use a xpenology currently on a hp 4 bay micro server. Run docker and some other things.
Not too worried about data loss as everything important is synced to onedrive.
Would you say unraid would be better than xpenology? The one annoyance I do have is upgrading hard drives is rough as I have to upgrade everything.
Depends how its setup.
Xpenology can be using btrfs; in which case, its far superior to UnRaid. Because although UnRaid can also use btrfs, it doesnt leverage the LVM, and still uses its strange 'UnRaid' format on top.
So while it can now detect errors, it still can't do anything about them.
I honestly dont know why UnRaid is popular for home users, if they want to protect their data. The ease of use regarding dockers and such exists in almost every appliance OS, plus proxmox, and Its a full time job verifying file checksums and replacing ones that dont match, while also knowing which ones were edited, so shouldn't match… It takes up several hours of every work day I have until I manage to migrate the business to Rocky Linux, and OpenZFS.
You can achieve the same type of redundancy with snapraid and mergerfs. I can't believe they still get away with charging so much for what is effectively re-bundled free software.
Snapraid parity is a bad idea for files changed often, my files change everyday. Has less community support. Requires more ram for larger file systems. Probably some others too since I last looked. I'd pay for unraid for the available support alone
You can just run snapraid every day.
It does have that downside, but it does have upsides such no downsides with SMR drives unless a rebuild is necessary, all data on hard drives can work independently and more, see https://www.snapraid.it/compare
Yeah, imagine paying people for their work
UnRaid is worth the dollars. Foolproof, easy to setup and use, super stable and the docker functionality is chef's kiss. Highly recommend.
Best money ever spent, been running it for over 10 years, the growth and development are great, considering it was a 1 time fee.
It's technically still free if you install the trial and never restart the server ;) That's how I tested my box for 6 months before spending the well deserved $ on a licence.
Love unraid.
Worth it for anyone on the fence.
Love my unraid setup… I highly recommend it. A good channel for tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/c/SpaceinvaderOne even more crazy ones too.
I did the splitting of a PC with it… 1 part as a server, the other as a gaming machine. Worked great but it heat up my room like crazy. Not Unraid's fault but fun projects to do in unraid.
+2 for SI1 - excellent channel.
You can save $3 AUD if you want Pro in the OzBargain way by buying the basic at $42.8 then upgrading to Pro for $63.2.
$110.4 vs $103.2
Thanks! Finally was able to upgrade to the Pro Membership.
Wouldn't have thought i'd end up here when I started with Basic!
I wouldn't have thought I'd have ended with an unraid server after setting up my nvidia shield with PMS with a USB connected hard drive. I'm sure me 10 years from now will probably think back to my unraid server now with the same fondness
I want to get this and migrate my Plex to it. I am not planning to add anymore than 12 drives in. Are there any reason I should get the Pro over Plus?
The only limitation is the number of drives. Nothing else.
It's cheaper to buy pro first go rather than upgrade.
I started with the same intention of you years ago, and it's costed me more money. Plus any sales are very very rare with Unraid.
Would suggest going with Pro.
Highly recommend the binhex-plex docker. Available in the inbuilt unraid apps docker repo.
Anyone need 45% off code? I can do a post later today if required.
This requires temporary language change and paypal for payment. USD$70.95 for pro licence
Ummm… yes please, any hacks to save money!! Please post
Keen also if it works for a basic license!
Yes, I will post this "deal" after work.
Would love that ;)
Apologise All, I've decided not to post this deal. This deal requires Alipay Pay as the payment method which I believe will become the deal breaker for most of us as you need to upload your ID and get it verified by Alipay (CN).
if you are still keen, PM me and I will help make payment for you. What you need:
1. Purchase must be made via Unraid OS
2. Temporarily add Chinese language pack
Price after 45% Off
Unraid OS Pro USD $70.95
Unraid OS Plus USD $48.95
Unraid OS Basic USD $32.45
Thought it might be too good to be 'easily' true. I don't feel as bad getting just 20% off now :)
Can vouch. Man helped me purchase all went well :)
I too can vouch as of today. Very nice person, thanks tc423!
Happy to vouch for tc423 as well. All went smoothly, legend.
as an unRAID convert from late last year, its great - was previously running a Windows 10 box with StableBit DrivePool for many, many years, but I have definitely not looked back, unRAID is pretty great and I now have 2 boxes running it (primary server and a backup server).
I'm similar. I was running a Windows Server 2016 Essentials server with Drive Bender. There was always some kind of issue. Client backups stopped working ages ago. The minute I had the first sign of a drive failure, I took the opportunity to move to unRAID and it's been a dream in comparison. There's a slight learning curve but as others have said, there's tonnes of community info, which makes it much easier. I just Google '<issue> unraid' (insert your issue) and there's always some info on hand. Anyone afraid of the jump to a Linux distro, I've not had any need to dive into the command line so far. The GUI takes care of everything for you. It's really well thought out.
So far, I'm a massive fan.
unraid array speed is abominable - the key is to simply not use the unraid array for anything requiring any sort of speed. I have mine set up with 2x nvme as 'unraid cache' for dockers and VMs, old ssds 'unraid array' for NVR camera archive not needing much speed, and then everything else as a 100tb ZFS array on 3.5" spinning hdds using raidz. The ZFS array performance is great
Possibly truenas is more ideal for those who don't want the seriously horrific speed of unraid arrays, but if you like the unraid GUI and features you can also have performance by just using ZFS
What about use unriad for Plex server?
Thats fine; so long as you have roughly 3 concurrent users you wont bottleneck.
Unraid end up to be the best option to me as it gives me the lowest power consumption 6 HDD + 1 Cache + 8100T = 40W total.
If you need performance simply go OMV/Linux Server with ZFS.
I now have the software, couple of spare hdds.
Any recommendations on NAS with 4-6 bay?
Some tips if help
- A low profile CPU (e.g. min 8 gen 8100T/8500T or latest gen)
- BIG SSD cache
- ITX mobo make sure you get enough SATA ports, 2.5G ethernet is preferred.
If you have old hardware you can just start with that. UnRaid allows upgrading and switching of pc hardware without fuss. I used old pc hardware for 8 years before switching to my current Ryzen build
it depends a lot on your use cases.
any dockers/VMs/plex transcode? NVR? just pure file storage with perhaps automated backups or other basic stuff?
plans to expand in future?
want 10gbe/2.5gbe?
rack build or standalone tower?
etc etc
Never goes on sale, but AUD fell 20% so is there really a discount?