Question Advice on putting together a multi-drive storage box for to use for Plex media and general files

[havel68]

Hello, I am looking for advice on putting together a multi-disk storage system for my PC. I currently have several TB of data on the cloud which I want to start hosting myself at home. The data mostly media files movies, music and audiobooks for my Plex media server which is just my Windows 11 desktop PC. Currently I just mount the cloud drive on my PC using Rclone and point plex to that mount and it works pretty well. However cloud space is expensive and I need another option going forward.

I still intend to run my plex media server from my PC so I don't really need a NAS as such. The Plex is only used by myself and my partner and not more than a couple of hours a day. It doesn't need to be accessable at all times so I am happy for it to power down when my pc is off or for it to sleep when not in active use.

Looking at various options I am thinking of getting a 4 bay enclosure and adding 3 x 8TB HHD's and then setting those up with SnapRAID & Drivepool for some kind of back up with the option to add another 8TB drive later. I have a bit of a learning curve on this as I've never set up or used any sort of raid before but my data can stay backed up on the cloud until I am sure I have everything working ok.

My questions are if people here think that this is a good solution for my needs, like I say it is mostly Media files and then some personal files most of which will be static although I will need to delete off old files to free up space for new files as time goes on I understand this should be OK with SnapRAID as long as I sync after. I did also look at Unraid which seems similar to SnapRAID but it seemed like i would need a NAS to use that option and I don't really need a NAS and that would be getting a bit too expensive.

I already use an Ironwolf drive in my PC which I think has been good so planned to get 3 x 8TB Ironwolf drives to start with and a 4 bay enclosure but I am not sure which enclosure to get.

Enclosures I have been looking at are:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B085DQ5X2X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A22EAMR90FY8G9&psc=1 This gets good reviews but apparently does not support S.M.A.R.T. according to some reviews and normally I'd run that sort of test to check on the health of my drives.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009DH5Q2S/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_6?smid=A30DC7701CXIBH&psc=1 This gets decent reviews as well but some are for different models which makes it hard to work out which issue applies to which model.

If anyone has any suggestions on a 4 bay enclosure not to big and not more than about £200 I'd be very grateful, I am based in the UK so if it could be available here that would be ideal. Other than that I would be interested in if people think the above option would be good for my situation or if there are any issues I might not be seeing.

I do have some questions about migrating the plex media files and how plex would work with SnapRAID but I will ask that on a Plex specific forum. Like I say I can hold my data on the cloud until I am sure I have it right but I'm trying to do my homework to avoid wasting too much time and money!

Thanks in advance for reading!

 

[Misgar]

Remember the old saying. RAID is not a backup. If you download all your data from the cloud and delete the cloud, if your new device catches fire or some other calamity occurs, you'll lose everything.

If you're going to dispense with cloud storage, save your data to at least two separate devices at home, preferably more. You could save money by just buying a couple of large USB hard drives, but I dislike the way they get hot in their small enclosures.

If you do go RAID. backup to at least one more device. I have three multi-disk TrueNAS Core RAID-Z2 servers with 10GbE networking, but I've never interfaced them with Plex.

Buying a 4-disk enclosure and filling it with drives can be expensive, but so can a commercial Qnap or Synology NAS. The cheapest option is an old PC, but they consume more power than a 4-bay enclosure.

 

[havel68]

Remember the old saying. RAID is not a backup. If you download all your data from the cloud and delete the cloud, if your new device catches fire or some other calamity occurs, you'll lose everything.

If you're going to dispense with cloud storage, save your data to at least two separate devices at home, preferably more. You could save money by just buying a couple of large USB hard drives, but I dislike the way they get hot in their small enclosures.

If you do go RAID. backup to at least one more device. I have three multi-disk TrueNAS Core RAID-Z2 servers with 10GbE networking, but I've never interfaced them with Plex.

Buying a 4-disk enclosure and filling it with drives can be expensive, but so can a commercial Qnap or Synology NAS. The cheapest option is an old PC, but they consume more power than a 4-bay enclosure.

Yeah I know raid isn't perfect but as it will mostly be movies, audiobooks and music mostly ripped from my own disks then I can always get it again and I have some stuff backed up on bluray disks as well as any vital documents. The cloud storage is just getting too expensive although I may keep a small account for important data. The other option is something like backblaze to back everything up but I'd need to look into that further as I am not exactly sure of how backblaze works.

I think Snapraid uses one disk to create a parity drive of up to three disks of the same size or less and the actual data isn't split so if one drive fails you can rebuild from the parity drive or if the partiy drives fails you will still have all your data and just need to build a new parity drive. It seems like the best set up for me. As you say it gets expensive and I don't think I can afford to back it all up again on another set of HHD's. At the end of the day as much as I love it it is only data! I feel like I'm already spending too much!

 

[Misgar]

If you're dead set on using RAID, remember the more basic versions of RAID can only cope with one failed disk at a time. If you have problems (corrupted files, bad sectors) on two drives, you'll have great difficulty recovering the array and may lose large numbers of files.

It's a sad fact that when things go wrong in a basic RAID system, the most critical time is when you're trying to rebuild the array from parity (re-silvering). Drives tend to fail for a reason and if they're all from the same batch, you may get several failures within a few weeks or months of each other. If these failures go unnoticed, you're in trouble.

If you replace a bad drive and encounter read errors on any the remaining drives, you'll wish you'd used a more robust RAID configuration that can cope with two or three drives failing simultaneously. Alternatively you just reach for the backup.

I run RAID-Z2 in my three TrueNAS Core servers, which means I stand a reasonable chance of recovering all files if only two drives fail simultaneously, but it's not a guarantee. To guard against problems if a third drive fails, I have multiple backups on other systems.

RAID-Z2 and RAID-Z3 arrays require a lot of disk drives, which is why I said you might be better off with a couple of large USB hard disks, containing the same data. It's certainly a lot cheaper than RAID, but a lot less fun if you enjoy experimenting.

RAID tends to be more applicable to businesses or lower users who want fast access to their data all the time and cannot tolerate extended periods of down-time. A good RAID array will be sufficiently resilient to cope with most failures, including several drives dying simultaneously and be fast enough to re-silver in the background without users noticing any slow down.

A simple RAID array that can only cope with one hard disk failing is possibly not the best use for your money. I enjoyed experimenting with FreeNAS and TrueNAS, but it's an expensive proposition if you value data security.

 

[havel68]

If you're dead set on using RAID, remember the more basic versions of RAID can only cope with one failed disk at a time. If you have problems (corrupted files, bad sectors) on two drives, you'll have great difficulty recovering the array and may lose large numbers of files.

It's a sad fact that when things go wrong in a basic RAID system, the most critical time is when you're trying to rebuild the array from parity (re-silvering). Drives tend to fail for a reason and if they're all from the same batch, you may get several failures within a few weeks or months of each other. If these failures go unnoticed, you're in trouble.

If you replace a bad drive and encounter read errors on any the remaining drives, you'll wish you'd used a more robust RAID configuration that can cope with two or three drives failing simultaneously. Alternatively you just reach for the backup.

I run RAID-Z2 in my three TrueNAS Core servers, which means I stand a reasonable chance of recovering all files if only two drives fail simultaneously, but it's not a guarantee. To guard against problems if a third drive fails, I have multiple backups on other systems.

RAID-Z2 and RAID-Z3 arrays require a lot of disk drives, which is why I said you might be better off with a couple of large USB hard disks, containing the same data. It's certainly a lot cheaper than RAID, but a lot less fun if you enjoy experimenting.

RAID tends to be more applicable to businesses or lower users who want fast access to their data all the time and cannot tolerate extended periods of down-time. A good RAID array will be sufficiently resilient to cope with most failures, including several drives dying simultaneously and be fast enough to re-silver in the background without users noticing any slow down.

A simple RAID array that can only cope with one hard disk failing is possibly not the best use for your money. I enjoyed experimenting with FreeNAS and TrueNAS, but it's an expensive proposition if you value data security.

Its not that I wouldn't prefer to have total security for my files but I simply can't afford it. Pricing the drives and enclosures is already coming in at £700 for 3 ironwolf 8TB's and a decent enclosure. I'm in the UK I don't have a proper basement or attic to put a massive server with multiple disks. I still have time to chew it over I guess and learn more how snapraid works.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm in the UK I don't have a proper basement or attic to put a massive server with multiple disks.

Just regarding the space concept...
My 4 bay QNAP and 2x 4 bay external enclosures takes up about the same cubic space as a single mATX PC case.
12 drives, 90+TB.

Yes, that amount of drive space isn't cheap, but physical space is not really an issue if you do it properly.