Unraid’s “killer feature” is the ability to mix and match disparate drive sizes and only requiring the parity drive to be at least as large as your largest data disk, a la MergeFS/Snapraid. Also ZFS chugging RAM like there’s no tomorrow so not really an option for underpowered devices like some NASes. But yeah, TrueNAS is nice.
Thats is a very budget-friendly choice for UnRAID to accept varying drive sizes. As a backup destination, especially a cold backup, the RAM requirements of ZFS should be less impactful. I had lots of use from my TrueNAS box with 16GB, and my dedicated cold backup build is just 8GB on 5x1TB WD Blue (gasp!) HDDs. I always wanted to try other NAS platforms, but I’m away from all my tech for a few years.
Well as long as you’re aware of the risk and prepared for it, its not so bad to run in a volatile way like that. I ran my TN box for almost a decade on the same USB boot before I finally caved and picked up three Intel enterprise SSD for the job, with one as a cold spare. Nothing in the vox was critical or would be missed for more than a few beers of crying.
Could always use UNRAID for the backup if you’re trying to be storage efficient, but it’s really no better than RAID5
Obligatory "TrueNAS is free " comment
Unraid’s “killer feature” is the ability to mix and match disparate drive sizes and only requiring the parity drive to be at least as large as your largest data disk, a la MergeFS/Snapraid. Also ZFS chugging RAM like there’s no tomorrow so not really an option for underpowered devices like some NASes. But yeah, TrueNAS is nice.
Thats is a very budget-friendly choice for UnRAID to accept varying drive sizes. As a backup destination, especially a cold backup, the RAM requirements of ZFS should be less impactful. I had lots of use from my TrueNAS box with 16GB, and my dedicated cold backup build is just 8GB on 5x1TB WD Blue (gasp!) HDDs. I always wanted to try other NAS platforms, but I’m away from all my tech for a few years.
Removed by mod
Well as long as you’re aware of the risk and prepared for it, its not so bad to run in a volatile way like that. I ran my TN box for almost a decade on the same USB boot before I finally caved and picked up three Intel enterprise SSD for the job, with one as a cold spare. Nothing in the vox was critical or would be missed for more than a few beers of crying.
Removed by mod