Maximum number of drives and other questions

I currently have 24x3.5" bays + 2x2.5" bays 4U NAS server running vanilla linux (drives are 6x8TB, 6x6TB, 12x3TB and 2x1TB<-2.5"). I want to move to either unRAID or FreeNAS. I really like that I can easily use different drive sizes with unRAID. If I go with FreeNAS I'll have to buy some more drives and retire several good drives. All my 3.5" drives are used for data and parity, while the 2.5" drives contain the OS + mirror.

Questions:

• What is the current maximum number of drives for unRAID 6.2?
   
   
   
  
• Are parity and cache drives included in the  maximum number of drives?
   
   
   
  
• Can I start with a single cache drive and add a second one without rebuilding the array? (i.e. wipe data, create new array, and recover from a backup)
   
   
   
  
• Can I start with one parity drive and then at a latter time add a second one without rebuilding the array? (i.e. wipe data, create new array, and recover from a backup)
   
   
  

Thanks,

Mike

Questions:

• What is the current maximum number of drives for unRAID 6.2? 6 for Basic, 12 for Plus, unlimited for Pro.  Trial also has no drive limit but has 30 day operation limit and requires internet connection to validate upon each array Start.
   
   
   
  
• Are parity and cache drives included in the  maximum number of drives? Yes, all block devices are counted, even ones not assigned, except the USB boot flash does not count.
   
   
   
  
• Can I start with a single cache drive and add a second one without rebuilding the array? (i.e. wipe data, create new array, and recover from a backup) Yes
   
   
   
  
• Can I start with one parity drive and then at a latter time add a second one without rebuilding the array? (i.e. wipe data, create new array, and recover from a backup) Yes
   
   
  

Thanks for the reply 

Unlimited drives is good to hear. That and the old single parity drive kept me from trying unRAID a couple of years ago. I just need to dust off an old computer so I can test out unRAID with a trial.

One last question, I want to have a single SSD drive to use for tmp files (transcoded Plex files, etc). Can I NOT include it in the unRAID array and still use it from say a Plex docker?

TIA,

Mike

One last question, I want to have a single SSD drive to use for tmp files (transcoded Plex files, etc). Can I NOT include it in the unRAID array and still use it from say a Plex docker?

Sure.  You can manage it yourself using command line, or utilize the Community plugin "Unassigned Devices".  Note that such drives, though not part of the unRAID-managed array or cache pool, still count against device limits.

One last question, I want to have a single SSD drive to use for tmp files (transcoded Plex files, etc). Can I NOT include it in the unRAID array and still use it from say a Plex docker?

Aren't the cache drives supposed to be used for this kind of enterprise?

I'm not entirely sure if our understanding of a "cache drive" is the same.

My understanding is that you can use the cache drives for this but it's not required and it takes up cache space.  My plan is to have an unassigned drive set up that's not part of the cache pool to put all my dockers, apps, VMs, etc so I'm not using up my cache to store that type of thing.