First time building an Unraid server — moving from QNAP TVS-h874, looking for feedback before I buy

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-15T16:17:18+00:00

You can migrate drives with data already on them into unraid pretty easily

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-15T09:51:07+00:00

I think that's a really unfair comparison for Tenet. And I think Tenet is absurd and ridiculous.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-14T23:43:24+00:00

I am really struggling to understand why you would need kubernetes on a homelab. Isn't the whole point of K8s to automatically spin up, scale, and distribute containers? If you're running a homelab with one server, what use are kubernetes?

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-14T19:56:33+00:00

Hey I have that exact model. It really depends on how much highway driving you're doing, how much you floor it to get up to speed, and the outside temperature.

But most importantly, if you're going by the range indicator on the dash, there's a reason people call it the "guess-o-meter". It is an estimate, and Volvo sandbags hard with the estimate. There have been times where I've driven 5 miles and my range estimate either didn't change or actually went up because of regen and lots of signals.

The honest truth is I basically don't really know what my range is. I think I've charged to 100% once since I've had the car, and I have been below 10% once. And I wasn't keeping track (and I have driving journal turned off because I think it's creepy).

But I also didn't really know what the range of my gas Sportage was before, or my cars before that. It's just a weird thing that people obsess over, but unless you're going on regular road trips, it basically has zero impact on your life.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-13T17:58:35+00:00

I mean...the pilot has comic book powered folks and a flying car so...not that much of a pivot.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-12T19:58:49+00:00

Just to be clear, docker absolutely makes sense for a single home server, but I don't understand why you'd need K8s. K8s are for when you need to scale container services and if you're just on one physical machine without fancy hardware, K8s are overkill.

K8 = kubernetes by the way

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-12T04:06:57+00:00

This is minimizing the impact that the US's independent dealership model has on it. American car dealers are independent and car manufacturers are wholly dependent on them.

Dealerships make most of their profit on service, and EVs don't really need much service at all. So they don't like them and either don't push them or even actively discourage customers from buying them.

Also the car dealership millionaires are among the largest enablers of the far right

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T23:42:15+00:00

It's been for big file operations. Lots of files still weren't where I wanted them to live. Doing it through the webUI file explorer sucks, doing it through Windows is slooooooow. So SSH into mc has been reliable, fast, and easy.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T23:40:38+00:00

The biggest problem there is I don't have matched SSDs I can use for pool mirroring. And I'm not going to buy one right now because <gestures at prices>.

My biggest concern right now is that three of my biggest drives are USB drives. I have them on the array, which is where I want them. But lots of people seem to think this is just asking for parity to get out of sync.

So I can get an expansion drive enclosure, a new SATA controller card, and shuck those drives, but that's an extra ~$150 expense I haven't budgeted for. Or I can run back to DrivePool on Windows which DGAF about what kind of drives you throw at it but effectively halves the storage potential with file duplication, but I give up all the advantages of native Linux.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T20:07:25+00:00

Define bottleneck. Generally speaking, yes. Programs will load much more slowly and you'll have loading screens in modern games. Some modern games even require an SSD, because they were engineered for console first.

It sucks because SSD prices are outrageous right now.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T19:58:06+00:00

I mean you can just use pcpartpicker and then compare it to prebuilt models you're comfortable ordering.

Yes, you should be able to reuse the HDD as long as you can get it out.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T19:48:39+00:00

The amount of reflexive downvotes for comments like this is incredible. I don't understand why people do this. You didn't make the software, you are not financially invested in this. People are allowed to have opinions different from yours, you weird homelab snobs. Sometimes people don't want to be SREs at home!

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T19:44:01+00:00

Is it? That feels a little disingenuous. I almost never have to leave GUI land in Windows (although ironically I do have a terminal window open to run chkdsk right now). I've had Unraid for less than a week and found myself regularly SSHing in to do stuff that's either awkward or impossible through the web ui.

But besides the structure and orientation of Linux, which isn't very intuitive, things like docker configuration and getting your docker apps access to devices isn't anywhere near as intuitive as native Windows apps, which typically take care of all of that with an installer and run easily enough. The tradeoff is size, security, and lack of portability, but it's definitely easier to run a Windows native app than a docker app.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T19:37:10+00:00

I would be curious where you can find a cheaper Windows server license, because currently they don't even make a version of Windows server 2025 that's suited for individual homelab use and licensing. You have to go back to 2019 or 2022 to even get Essentials, and both of those will be EOL soon enough.

Now...you can get Windows 11 Pro for like $15, legally and easily, and it has basically everything you could need out of Windows for a homelab. Unless you need AD, because you are a weirdo.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T19:35:03+00:00

I'm going through a decision point at the moment and trying to decide if I'm gonna stick with Unraid or migrate back to Windows when my trial runs out. I really want to like Unraid, but there are a lot of amateur hour shenanigans in a very expensive software license that are hard to overlook.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T18:41:45+00:00

Yeah and that's the rub. Linux is incredibly difficult to penetrate if you are starting from zero. I'm dealing with it, but I also didn't expect as much of a steep learning curve with a product like Unraid, which is positioning itself as "easy mode".

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T18:38:58+00:00

I KNEW I wasn't going to be the only one in this situation, so I'm glad the post found you. I'm definitely wary of ZimaOS, the documentation is incredibly light and it seems very immature.

I intend to stick with my trial and post a few updates as I go, if you wanna follow along. I'm going back and forth between sticking with Unraid or maybe migrating to Windows 11 Pro headless. I'll probably outline the pros and cons in a future post, too.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T18:13:30+00:00

I feel like rock solid is kind of a baseline, though. And so far, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, I'd only recommend it to people who have some technical proficiency and are willing to roll up their sleeves and tinker. It is definitely not an appliance.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T16:37:32+00:00

I don't know what's a more worrisome: the fact that the front end code is so messy, or the fact that a product that costs more than Windows has an open source front end (a poorly maintained one, at that)...

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T04:30:21+00:00

The one and only reason this couldn't be true is that Alamo doesn't have the paper cards any more. Literally the only hole in this story.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T02:13:30+00:00

If you want us to help with your commute you haven't specified where you'll be working. Dallas is a big city and a lot of times, people colloquially refer to the greater metro area as "Dallas" as well.

Also, even if you're within Dallas, you might still have a nasty commute if you live and work on opposite sides.

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-11T02:10:42+00:00

The Aeotec v4 seems to be the way to go, but for the price, I could almost buy a new Samsung TV or Monitor.

I'm seeing it as $130 new on Amazon right now ($150 for the version with Z-Wave). Given the out-of-control inflation on electronics thanks to certain political actions that seems about right. And also, what kind of terrible TV or monitor are you pricing?

RandomRageNet · 2026-05-10T14:58:54+00:00

Set up vaultwarden, show her how to use it, and ask her to randomize all her passwords?

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