So I’m looking to upgrade my server to an 45homelab 8-bay model when they come out (or several months after, not sure)
My current server is running unRAID. I have 5 6TB hard drives (almost all full and one is parity) and a 1TB NVME SSD. My case is very problematic to work with and it needs a new PSU.
With the new server I would be using 18TB drives.
Has anyone else tried unRAID on their 45HomeLab server? How did it go?
Anyone? This is a potentially expensive purchase I want to make and I want to make sure everything will work.
Addressing the deleted post (which really isn’t deleted)
I am after the 8-bay server that is coming soon, NOT the 15 bay.
I wish to buy the server fully built (depending on cost) and getting new 18TB drives to fill it. I would then bring all my data over.
I currently have an Intel® Core™ i7-8700K CPU. The rest of the particulars of my build are in the first post.
There are about 35 posts here mentioning Unraid. Some are from people like yourself planning a purchase and asking questions, not actually running it on the HL hardware yet, but none I see mentions any issues attributable to Unraid incompatibility. In fact one person says “Running Unraid 6.2.16. I’m supporting Unraid as paid support specialist, so I wanted to test it well on this platform”.
Unraid is intended to ship with enough hardware support to make it hardware agnostic. The only place I have seen Unraid not support the hardware is 10-year old pods running Highpoint Rocket 750 cards. The current motherboards, HBAs (onboard or off), CPUs are all supported.
Not sure what board they’ll use for the HL8, but for the HL15 I don’t think there is an internal USB port on the motherboard, so your USB dongle is either going to be plugged in the back or you can use a SATA DOM.
The Xeon Bronze 3204 for the full HL15 build is sufficient for a file server, but not very well powered if you are running a lot of docker containers or VMs. For example. The 3204 has a passmark score of 4835 and your i7-8700K has a score of 13,657 before overclocking it. If you are running tasks within Unraid that are CPU bound and/or overclocking your K you’ll probably want to upgrade the CPU to a 4210 or something. Again, no idea what the stock mobo and CPU will be on the HL8. The Xeons also won’t have Intel Quicksync if you are relying on that to do Plex transcoding. This also isn’t an Unraid problem, though, that’s why it’s important to know your use case/expectations from your current system. Will it run Unraid? Sure. Will you be happy with the experience? Insufficient details of use case.
I’m running TrueNAS and I just got the case/PSU not the full build. Thought I’d respond even though I’m not the an actual Unraid user you’re seeking assurance from.
I bought the chassis + PSU and moved what at the time was an unraid setup. It was a super micro board with an E-2236 Xeon and ran fine before I switched it to Rocky+Cockpit. I can’t think of any reason you would have any issues with the full built system. The backplane is all direct connect and unraid had zero problems with it if that is your concern. Half my drives went to my HBA and the other half went to the onboard controller so I just put the drives on the same respective controller when I migrated. Way better than the cable nightmare of my previous tower case with a power and data cable to each drive.
I don’t even think about the cost now given the improvements this case provided. If you aren’t doing the full build, you just need to make sure you get the cabling right and consider some new fans.
I have 7 dockers currently running and I use plex for transcoding regularly.
If I have to upgrade the processor when ordering my build, so be it. I intend to get the full build.
CPU upgrades aren’t available from the store configurator, but they have a few you can contact sales for directly before placing your order and they will hook you up. This was the availability and pricing as of January;
You can of course buy your own CPU, but I’m not sure they’ll sell a full build sans any CPU, so you’d have to resell the 3204. Easier to get the better CPU when ordering. The price for the 4210 at least didn’t seem unreasonable. That won’t help with transcoding though. I don’t think any CPUs for the LGA3647 socket support Quicksync, so you may need a separate GPU for that.
I’m looking at the HL15 configuration page and you can upgrade the processor when ordering the build.
OK, cool. Glad they added that.
Im Running unraid fine on my HL-15, but I am using my own Mobo and went Chassis only. Using the previous gen version of the HBA card they use, but it works fine and have had no issues with running unriad bare metal.
If heavy transcoding, stick with the original CPU and spend the extra on a used 1650S (or better) - anything with Turing or newer chipset. It’ll be both cheaper to buy, and depending on “how heavy” the transcoding work is, cheaper to operate as well thanks to efficiency.
While DigitalGarden is correct that there are no internal USB ports on the Supermicro X11SPH-nCTF motherboard in the HL15 build, you can also use these to convert a USB 2 motherboard header into a USB port.
They are $7 for two, so won’t break the bank.
There are at least 3 internal USB 2 hearders on the Supermicro X11SPH-nCTF motherboard used in the full build. I actually use these on two unRAID builds using Supermicro motherboards, as well as on an HL15 that will also be running unRAID and in the 2 years I’ve had them in the older systems I’ve had zero trouble with them.
For unRAID, USB 2 is fast enough as it mostly just reads from the drive during boot and there is very little writing.
You can find a pdf of the manual here:
if you need help identifying the USB 2 headers on the motherboard.
HTH
Kevin
[Edited to complete post. Submitted it incomplete the first time. Edit #2 for clarity]
I went with the fully built solution so using Supermicro motherboard that comes with HL 15. When I ordered, they were only offering the Xeon Bronze so had to get that.
First I ran unRAID in stock configuration and it worked totally fine. I had put USB drive for unRAID in one of the outside ports and then on the port inside motherboard and there were no issues.
Over time, I have replaced the processor, added RAM and replaced the stock fans and no issues so far running unRAID. There appears a UI glitch after 20 days of running but, I do not believe HL 15 is the reason behind it. Too lazy to investigate so I just restart my server.