caseyparsons

Pretty good deal. The Greens are $20 more at Amazon. The Reds at $165 seems like a great deal and probably what I'll be getting.

Best deal I've seen so far.

So I bought this HDD and it will arrive tomorrow. I'm new to Unraid... Do I need to preclear it or can I just plug it in and start running? Do I need to worry about firmware or settings for the HDD?

The WD RED 3TB is down to $183 at Amazon with Prime shipping. Sold one to me!

at Amazon: Green: $150 Red: $185

Looks like the WD Reds are back in stock at Amazon. $200ish for 3TB. Western Digital 3 TB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare or OEM Drives WD30EFRX

+1

Crucial 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-10600 DDR3 Desktop RAM Kit for $29.99 + free shipping

Ah that's why! I was wondering why it was there at first but went away. Make's sense, and would be a good little tidbit to include in the FAQ. Or maybe it is there and I missed it.

I'm up and running!! I'm pretty happy with how the case came together. For now I'm just using one case fan, the 140mm on the top rear of the case. That will be enough air flow for a while until I can upgrade to a full controller. For now I have only a single drive, so not much heat. I threw in a single 300GB sata drive I had laying around, just to get the server up and functional. I'll be adding 3TB drives one-at-a-time as the budget allows. I expect to have three by the end of the year. I installed SimpleFeatures (beautiful interface!) and unMenu. I still don't know how to interact and manage this thing. I've read the FAQ and Getting Started wikis. But simple things like where do I keep track of disk operating temperatures? Here is a crappy pic of my basement setup. From L-R, T-B... D-Link DNS321 2 bay NAS (not very fast but has served me very well for a few years) Netgear 16 port Gigabit JGS516 unmanaged switch Cisco 1841 router (Pretty old but works so much better than a Linksys. Have a Linksys WRT300n with dd-wrt wired up as my access point upstairs). Old HP MedaCenter case, but all new Core i3 guts inside. This is my main server box that I run headless. Currently running Windows 7 with a bunch of VMs in Virtualbox. One of these days I'll convert it to ESXi. The awesome looking black case in the middle is my new UnRaid server!! The crappy old Dell is a P4 machine someone gave me for free. Hasn't been booted in 3 years. In the process of donating it to a friend for his 11-year old kid to use as a Minecraft server.

Any specific recommendations? Is it possible for auto-temp control, or just a manual knob adjustment for speed?

Unboxing and building. Just realized an oversight... This mobo only has 1 connector for case fan. So all other fans need to be hooked only to PSU, I guess? That's not optimal that they would just run on full all the time. I'd prefer that the fans can be controlled by mobo to spin slower or faster when needed.

That is cool and deserves it's own thread!

Current status:

Awesome, thanks. For my own reference, 5.0-rc6-r8168-test2 can be found here.

All my hardware should be arriving today!! I haven't ordered any drives yet, so I won't be fully operational for a while. But at least I can start putting it together this weekend. I'm going to try to do it as patiently and methodically as possible, as I want really clean looking cable management. I hope to take pictures of the process and create a build thread. BTW, which version of OS should I use? Which rev of v5 is most stable?

Quad core i5 is what I'd be buying. That supports all the virtualization stuff, right? Edit: Core i7 for the Hyperthreading. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processor-comparison/processor-specifications.html?proc=65524

Is this the right cable/adapter I want to power the SATA drives? http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=8800&seq=1&format=2

Gonna need a few 120mm fans too. Yay toys.

FWIW I have the non-elite version of the NZXT you list. Biggest difference: no USB3, no toolless clips included for the drives, and no top exhaust fan. I also personally have the white one. In short, Love it. I especially love the white inside as it makes working on it so nice. As for the Elite vs non-elite ... I already had fans to use so I didn't need the included one. But for $10 there is no reason to skip the Elite (it wasn't available when I bought mine) just for the tooless bits if not the extra fan and USB3 if you ever repurpose the case. Either way you'll front fans for the drive cooling. With your CPU choice, and a low power video card, you can likely save $$$, power, noise and ingested dust, by only using two fans in the front and ignore extra exhaust fans. With all that grating up top you should be fine with natural convection / the positive pressure created by the front fans. My final thought: as much as I love the Source for its overall internal design, I think the front bezel restricts airflow through by virtue of the design. The air is being pulled through a gap between the central plastic peice (white on the white version) and the outer frame (black on the white version). The gap is deceptively smaller then you might think from first impressions because it is further choked off deeper inside by strengthening ribs. I'm basing my airflow conclusion on a comparison with and without the front bezel in place. The fan speed and sound both noticably increase with the bezel in place. So ... NZXT in general internal design 100%. For the front bezel concerns I say go TEMPEST all the way. If they have it in white all the better bcause man it is so nice being able to really see inside a case without a flashlight!!! This case seems to be the winner for me. Has the cleaner lines of the Source case but with the mesh grill. $60.

No I don't require USB 3.0. My main search feature was for 6 Sata III ports on the board, so as to not require a separate PCI/PCIe card. You have suggestions?

Great input. I don't think I need this box to support that many drives. If I get beyond 6ish I will probably be looking at my next build and a more monster box. Thanks for the great feedback... Sounds like the M5A88 should fit my needs.

Thinking about ordering the Asus M5A88 motherboard for $110 because it has onboard graphics. As opposed to the original idea of Asus M5A97 for $99 with no graphics. Edit: the Asus M5A88 is available on Newegg for $100. Thoughts? Thanks!

Here is current purchase list...nothing bought yet. Case: NZXT Source 210 ELITE ($50) or NZXT TEMPEST 210 ($55, mesh grill) CPU: AMD Sempron 145 ($37) Mobo: Asus M5A97 ($99) Will need a video card for install. RAM: ALready own 4GB DDR3. PSU: Antec NEO ECO 400C 400W ($33) SATA cables: monorprice USB adapter inside case: monoprice

Thanks, everyone! I'm going to start pulling the trigger on ordering the components this week. Last chance for someone to recommend a different motherboard. Just want the AM3 for the Sempron 145 CPU, and 6 sata ports... Onboard video would be nice but not a dealbreaker. To spread out the cash-bleeding, I think I'm going to buy the PC components first and build the machine, then space out the purchase of the drives over the next few months.