Media Server

Now that I have 8 20TB drives, I need to make the decision on either expanding Unraid or creating a second server.

Unraid Expansion¶

Pros¶

• Already set up, just drop the drives in and expand the size.
• Max cap of 28 drives, with these 8 I'd only be at 18.
• Dockers are mostly set up, so no 'new' way of installing etc. needed

Cons¶

• No xfs
• Parity checks take a long time (7 days for 80tb)
• Media serving can be slow
• Limited hardware speed and RAM

2nd Server¶

Pros¶

• Two servers means they can each specialize (I.E. storage on one, apps on the other)
• Drives are all the same make/model which is needed for building TruNAS/FreeNAS build, plus server case is built for 8 currently
• XFS for bitrot

Cons¶

• Cost of new MB/RAM
• Setup time
• Potential data loss when moving files around