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I've been using Unraid for a few years now and while it's served me well I hesitate to recommend it. Were I to start over today I'd definitely be looking at Tru

I've been using Unraid for a few years now and while it's served me well I hesitate to recommend it. Were I to start over today I'd definitely be looking at TrueNAS Scale or rolling my own. Unraid seems to be targeting a rather niche market of people who are used to building PCs for running Windows and would like to have a home server and self host some apps (usually Plex and the 'arr stack if we're being honest). It does a good job of making all this accessible via a nice web UI with basic hypervisor and container management features. The app store they have for Docker containers is great for exposing new users to what's out there. The problem I've found is that while it does a good job of offering a low barrier to entry, the ceiling is quite low as well. It seems to me that the type of user they're trying to attract is also the type who would want to learn more and tinker, at which point Unraid's limitations will start to chafe. If you've used other Linux distros you'll find the lack of a package manager and other atypical features frustrating. Once you want to go beyond their app store for containers the web UI becomes limiting. There's no first-party docker compose support. The hypervisor UI is quite limited as well, lacking even the ability to create and manage snapshots. Of course you can manage all this from the command line, but at that point you may as well use another OS with a more performant and reliable filesystem. There are also some bizarre security choices that they've seemed to have had difficulty moving past. The web UI is only accessible as root, for example.

tylergetsay 5y ago
In the same boat, I recently switched to running a VM on top of unRAID and treating that as my app server and unRAID as a software raid host, it feels safer than rolling my own
syshum 5y ago
Depends on your use case for me I use Unraid for my "production" home storage for 3 main reasons 1. It is easy to administer I dont want to have screw with it when I just want to watch a movie from my emby server, or get some file I am working on 2. It allows me to disparate disk sizes, and expand the storage at will. Something TrueNAS and other ZFS based system struggle with 3. The Docker interface is the easiest I have ever found I want the "one click" service experience for my home services server. I do not want a package manager, or to ssh in to the server and start doing things. That said i also run 2 other Storage servers that are TrueNAS, I use them for backups, and doing the things you talk about. However with TrueNAS I have to plan out my Storage like I would my enterprise arrays, a 5 year storage plan, and preallocate the space when I build the array, because expanding it after the fact is a pain in the a*. (an no I am not going to keep adding mirror pair vdev's) That is the key here, use the correct tool for the job, and for a production server to run "home services" like emby, plex, gitea, paperless, SAMBA shares, Home Assistant, etc nothing IMO beats unraid, not even TrueNAS
bendauphinee 5y ago
I’m a devops engineer, and I get my fill of tinkering at work. I use unraid because it’s just simple enough to fire all my slightly older smaller drives, and boot it up, and it works. It’s exactly the level of complexity I want when I just want to watch a movie.
myrandomcomment 5y ago
I ran a FreeNAS from 2014 until recently for my home network with zero issues. A few months ago I purchased a new system direct from IXsystems and installed the TrueNAS Scale beta. There were a few issues, none critical. It has been upgraded to the Scale GA and pretty much just works. I have better things to do then mess with / debug stuff. It just works.

tylergetsay 5y ago

In the same boat, I recently switched to running a VM on top of unRAID and treating that as my app server and unRAID as a software raid host, it feels safer than rolling my own

syshum 5y ago

Depends on your use case for me I use Unraid for my "production" home storage for 3 main reasons 1. It is easy to administer I dont want to have screw with it when I just want to watch a movie from my emby server, or get some file I am working on 2. It allows me to disparate disk sizes, and expand the storage at will. Something TrueNAS and other ZFS based system struggle with 3. The Docker interface is the easiest I have ever found I want the "one click" service experience for my home services server. I do not want a package manager, or to ssh in to the server and start doing things. That said i also run 2 other Storage servers that are TrueNAS, I use them for backups, and doing the things you talk about. However with TrueNAS I have to plan out my Storage like I would my enterprise arrays, a 5 year storage plan, and preallocate the space when I build the array, because expanding it after the fact is a pain in the a*. (an no I am not going to keep adding mirror pair vdev's) That is the key here, use the correct tool for the job, and for a production server to run "home services" like emby, plex, gitea, paperless, SAMBA shares, Home Assistant, etc nothing IMO beats unraid, not even TrueNAS

bendauphinee 5y ago

I’m a devops engineer, and I get my fill of tinkering at work. I use unraid because it’s just simple enough to fire all my slightly older smaller drives, and boot it up, and it works. It’s exactly the level of complexity I want when I just want to watch a movie.

myrandomcomment 5y ago

I ran a FreeNAS from 2014 until recently for my home network with zero issues. A few months ago I purchased a new system direct from IXsystems and installed the TrueNAS Scale beta. There were a few issues, none critical. It has been upgraded to the Scale GA and pretty much just works. I have better things to do then mess with / debug stuff. It just works.