I finally pulled the trigger on unRAID. As mentioned a few posts ago, I had originally planned on the Pro version, but I just can’t justify more than 6 drives for probably another year or more, and the savings incurred now outweigh the upgrade costs later.
I will be moving to max those 6 drive slots out immediately, however. I’ve decided to make use of my IDE controllers and offload some mass storage devices directly to my unRAID server. Since it’s a dedicated device, I see no reason to be using other systems for storage also.
Currently, I have the NSLU2 with an attached 250GB Lacie USB drive. That drive will be removed, the NSLU2 taken offline and my unRAID server will make use of that 250GB for photo storage. I also have a 320GB drive in my VPN server for WSUS updates. I’m going to move WSUS duties back to my old media server and use the 320GB drive to move all the applications, drivers, etc. that are on the NSLU2 to. My VPN server will then be used for VPN access, FAX, YAC and it will become the new ActiveHome/HomeSeer (I have v1.70) server. It seemed to be a bit underpowered for WSUS anyways…just not enough memory.
Good news is that I don’t have to worry about housing those IDE drives since they can just go right in the unRAID case and next month, when I get my final TB drive for a while, I’ll just toss it in the remaining slot of the external enclosure. The NSLU2 is one device on the network (100Mb at that) and I have two drives that will spend the majority of their time spun down since they’re not accessed all that often. Power saving is a plus! I also like the fact that my NAS data will now be protected and on Gigabit. Considering the lack of use my secondary encoder gets (relatively speaking), I may even transplant the E6600 from that box to the server and benefit from one less system running. It would save power twofold - one less system and I’d be replacing a Pentium D 805. I’ll ponder that idea, but I hate wasting that nForce board. Maybe I’ll get another E1200 and use it to upgrade my son’s HTPC. It’s been acting real funky and I’d like to get Vista on there.
This evening I hope to at least get a few of the X10 outlets put in. I don’t know how long it will be before I get to start configuring them for use, but I do want to get them installed. I’ll be sure to update it here - along with my experiences - when the time comes.
Stay tuned.
