Chugiak

If you get one (or more) you can run the pre-clear routine over USB. This way you can verify the drive passes pre-clear before taking it out of the case and potentially having a warranty return issue if it's no good. Edit: Just logged in to Costco and it shows for $119.99 after applying instant rebate. Pretty smoking deal!

The Intel ARK database has all the information you can imagine for their processors. This is a comparison page showing the specs of each of those processors: http://ark.intel.com/compare/77481,81209 It looks like the only difference between the two is that the i3-4170T has a 10% clock increase and has the AES Secure Key instructions. Assuming the AES secure key isn't required then the i3-4130T should do exactly what you want the i3-4170T to do.

Pics or it didn't happen!

The system in my sig idles at about 35 -40 watts, based on a Kill-A-Watt reading at the AC outlet. Yours does seems a little high. Are all unneccessary motherboard features disabled? Also, what version of unRAID are you running? I seem to recall the AMD cpus having some issues with not throttling very well on Linux. Might boot up a v6 beta just to see how much power it draws. EDIT: Also, how are you connecting 17 drives? Your SATA expansion cards probably make up the difference.

Supermicro has a list of tested memory at http://www.supermicro.com/support/resources/mem_exclude_DDR3_135V_135V.cfm EDIT: Doesn't look like there's much on that list, a couple of Hynix modules is all.

What's the emoticon for 'I raise a glass in celebration?'

The E3C224 also has dual LAN and IPMI. I offered it as an example of a server oriented board based on its popularity in many threads. Myself, I am quite happy with the H97M Pro I have on my desktop. When (not if, but when :-) I build a new unRAID server I may be looking for those features. That's why I threw it out for consideration.

I have a Cyberpower UPS and it works just fine with the APCUPSD software. Most folks using Cyberpower have had simlar success. Can't speak to v 6 though, yet to upgrade.

Performance, power efficiency, and value seem to be best on the Haswell LGA1150 platform. Idle power consumption is low but the chips deliver top performance at various price levels. If you don't have a discrete video card, then for under $300 you can go with: Asrock H97M Pro4 motherboard and an i5-4590 CPU. If you have a video card, you could move up to a Xeon E3 (has no onboard video) such as a Xeon E3-1231v3 for a total of about $325 (based on Newegg prices) The H97 has limited SATA ports, so you may want to consider a server oriented motherboard such as Asrock E3C224 or Supermicro MBD-X10SLM-F-O. Lots of folks on these forums have put together systems using motherboards from both manufacturers. You can easily replace your mobo and cpu for under $500 and get a damn fine system. All of the above though are DDR3 1600 systems. I suspect they will all work just fine with your existing memory, and probably to a level where you could never detect a difference between 1600 and 1333 MHz. Final note, you can mess with this web page and filter out processors based on specific features you are looking for: http://ark.intel.com/Search/Advanced?s=t Once you have a motherboard targeted, do some google searches to see how much success folks have with virtualization.

You have exisiting DDR3 RAM? If so, what speed?

Not a hardware or software engineer myself, but I'll echo jonp's comments about it testing your system. I'll also throw in the notion that it's testing your PSU too. I've paid the wages of sin for buying cheap power supplies in the past, so that's usually the first suspect I have when errors like this pop up. If heat is an issue, you can rule that out by testing with the case open and a fan blowing on the motherboard.

Under $30/TB is a rarity, especially at 5 TB and up. Here's the direct link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1087201-REG/toshiba_ph3500u_1i72_5tb_3_5_desktop_sata.html EDIT: Looks like they are out of stock, but you can order at this price

Let me give a disclaimer up front: I have not done any VM builds and what I know about VM is what I glean off of these and other fora. The question i would ask is will this system work for the games you want? As far as virtualization you look to have all the bases covered. Although you may want to consider increasing the RAM in the system to 16 GB.

Yes indeed, there's an HDMI port right above the DisplayPort. My apologies, I overlooked that.

That's almost the same as my desktop system I put together a few months back. That's a lot more video card than necessary if it's only doing unRAID and dockers, but I reckon it will server other purposes too.

The nice thing about unRAID is that any computer that can boot up SATA drives and USB is a viable server. Maybe not optimal, but certainly viable. I appreciate the difficulties you have in trying to source a case that meets your needs. Do you have a link for that case? I tried googling what looks to be a model number 490664800 and didn't see anything useful. I ask because it would be nice to know what's under the gray cover. A pic of the backplane connectors wouold be ideal, without the three fans obscuring it. Is that ASUS motherboard the only Z77 that meets your specs? It has some bells and whistles that you don't need (WiFi for example) and you may be able to find something less expensive but equally functional. But if that's the best of your options it certainly ought to work just fine. Although I do notice a significant number of poor reviews on the Newegg.com web site: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131818 The motherboard only has DisplayPort video out. Do you have a monitor with DisplayPort?

I'm still poking along with unRAID v 5 myself, so wiegh the value of my comments appropriately. I think you should consider and decide whether you want to have your drives externally accessible in hot-swap cages. It seems like a very expensive proposition but if you end up having to manage a boatload of drives, the benefits of being able to swap one out without having to open a case, and potantially mucking up the cableing on other drives, are said to be almost priceless. The reason I state this is that there are far fewer models of suitable tower cases available today then there were a few years ago. A tower case that will accommodate three or four of the 5-in-3 drive cages needs to have 9 or 12 external 5.25" drive bays. A quick look at PC Partpicker http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/case/ will show you the limited availability. The models with no prices shown are older models that you can probably acquire used. I'll limit my comment to this topic, althuogh there's plenty of areas ripe for further discussion.

FrozenCPU is a US site that has catered to the case modding and enthusiast markets. http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g43/c12/s34/list/p1/Case_Parts-OEM-Misc_Case_Parts-CastersFeet-Page1.html

Your router and switch both are gigabit I take it? Assuming you have access to a Linux consile on each system you can run lperf or netcat. System Rescue CD (Good to have on CD and bootable Linux thumb drive) has netcat as one of the packages. http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage Then do a test like in this example: http://www.ryanchapin.com/fv-b-4-627/Simple-Network-Speed-Command-Line-Test-for-Linux.html

Some of the more recent 80+ efficiency tests include 10% load. You can find them at http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80pluspowersupplies.aspx For the most part this information falls into the 'nice to know' category, as I wouldn't choose one PSU over another based on it's 10% load peformance. Does the PSU provide the power you need at boot up and during parity checks, does it keep istelf cool and do so quietly? These would be my primary factors to consider. I admit though that I spend more time than is probably healthy calculating costs of operation at low wattages. :-)

I've got an Asrock H97M Pro4 with 2 x 8GB DDR3 1600 memory. I wanted a quiet system, so I had no intentions of overclocking. The Xeon E3 and the Core i7 are on par perfomance wise, and since I didn't need integrated graphics I ended up with the Xeon E3-1231v3. Again, this is my desktop system so I don't need a slew of SATA ports. One option: ASUS Z87-PRO motherboard (8 SATA ports, currently with $35 rebate at Newegg) Xeon E3-1246v3 (provides the graphics) 2 x 8GB DDR3 1600 memory Second option: ASRock E3C224 ATX motherboard (8 SATA ports, onboard graphics, has IPMI) Xeon E3-1241v3 processor 2 x 8GB DDR3 1600 ECC Unbuffered memory The second option will cost a little more but is all server components. The ECC memory provides some fauly tolerance compared to standard RAM, although I have no clue how frequently memory errors occur to say whether or not it's worth the extra cost. The lowest I would go on a Xeon is a 1230 or 1231. The 1220 & 1225 don't have hyperthreading, whereas the higher numbered processors do.

The problems identified here ( https://blog.algolia.com/when-solid-state-drives-are-not-that-solid/ ) seem to point to Samsung rather than Linux. Hope to see a detailed explanation on this, as I've been wantng to put my desktop OS on an SSD.

Did you see this posting? RM 420 case for sale by a forum member. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40607.0

unRAID itself is pretty frugal with the RAM. I'm still on v5 so don't have any firsthand experience to offer on v6, but I have the sneaking suspicion that you'll find a want, that soon becomes a need, that will make use of the spare processor cycles. It's just a thing with me, I always recommend building with as much RAM as you can afford. One thing to think about is the use of ECC memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory It's a feature that many folks want in their server systems. I offer no opinion, other than to suggest you look into it before deciding on a platform. By the way, I just stumbled on this web page: http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced?s=t You can filter based on specific technology or features. Pretty cool!

I was where you are now about 8 months ago when I decided to replace my aging Core 2 Duo desktop system. I've been a long-time fan of AMD but given the current state of affairs I settled on the Haswell processors for performance and value. Since this was for my desktop/gaming system I knew I would have a discrete graphics card, so the Xeon E3-1231v3 was a viable alternative to an i5 or i7 processor. Unless you want to pop a video card into your new server, you'll want to get either a processor with integrated graphics or a motherboard with such. The Xeon E3 1200 v3 processors that end with a 5 or 6 have integrated graphics, whereas the 0 or 1 models do not. Some motherboards (workstation or server grade) have built-in graphics chips so you can go with a CPU that fits your needs and have the mobo take care of the graphics. You just want to be sure you've got some video processor in the hardware mix, or your system will not boot.