aiden

With the 3-in-2 cages modded with 80mm fans in my main server, I'm satisfied that I can keep the drives in the low 30s when building/checking parity. I like the flexibility of not having to open my case to swap drives. Call me lazy. With the S-915, I could put 2x 3-in-2 cages, and then a 2-in-1 or 4-in-1 SSD cage. That would make a 1 parity + 5 data drive box, with a cache drive pool. With 4TB drives that's a 20TB box. That's the config I'm thinking. Regardless, I'm loving the fact that the OEM manufacturers are coming up with so many good options for home NAS solutions!

Anyone see this? There's very limited information other than dimensions of the different models here. I can't find any internal pics or any reviews, or even a place to source one yet. But the loss of that 5th or 6th drive in the new Gen 8 HP Microservers has made me want to look for an alternative. The S-915 pictured above looks to be my ideal mini-server, although the S35 more closely matched the Microserver in dimensions (10.5 x 8.3 x 10.2 in vs 7.87 x 8.35 x 12.09in). With a 5-in-3 you can get that 5th drive back.

All the soho equipment I use is in a half height rack. The sexiness of the older Microservers is in their flexibility and small form factor. I just think the new model looses some of the flexibility in an attempt to get an even smaller form factor. Though I have to admit, creating their own modular system is good from a marketing perspective. To each his own though.

There's a lot not to like about the new model. Same number of drive cages, but a reduced 3.5" ODD slot to a slim drive means no real room up top, like we have with current gen models. A signed BIOS means modding will be extremely tough. I see there's an extra ethernet port and USB 3.0, and a beefier proc, but for a NAS, that's really not all that important. Capacity is, and this looks to me like reduced capacity.

I agree, although I would submit there's more to running in a purely clean evironment than disabling plugins. I mean running a default go script, disabling unMenu, etc. Purely a stock unRAID boot. This would remove any ambiguity when trying to diagnose issues. Yes, I agree here too, which is why I suggested putting it as another reboot option on the GUI as well. But I've derailed this thread enough.

just rename the plugins folder to plugins_old... That will stop them from loading on a reboot. Hm... this is an interesting idea though. Basically like a "Safe Mode" for unRAID. Could be as simple as adding an extra option at the MemTest / Boot unRAID screen, and even a "Reboot into Safe Mode" button on the GUI. Much more user friendly than trying to rename a folder in Linux if you don't know the proper commands, or trying to rename a folder via Windows when SMB is down.

I think this is all going a little sideways. Suffice it to say that there seems to still be an issue with at least one of these boards. I also have one, but I'm not testing RC13 on it due to the runaway sync issue. However, there needs to be a little bit of patience here, because Tom did introduce a new kernel in this release. That clearly has added a few problems and fixed some others. Since he's already shipping 5.0 final with his new server that uses this exact board, it does indicate that at least in his testing, on his systems, this issue has been rectified. That's certainly not to say that he will ignore your issue going forward.

+1... seriously considering loading DSM on my N40L and relegating unRAID into a big backend storage NAS (as it was intended to be). DSM is SO much more mature, and plugins are well developed as well. I'm curious if anyone else is doing a double setup like this.

Just a quick note. I scored 5 of 5K4000s off eBay for ~$140 each, and they were all still sealed. That puts me at a total of 9 in my system. I have 3 cycle precleared 4 of them and they are perfect. The fifth is cooking right now. They have a manufacture date of Jan 2012, so I only have a little over 1.5 year warranty left, but still, they are out there. Before that I was buying them from B&H.

Haha... yeah, I was going low tech too. Just thought there was some kind of app I hadn't heard about for that.

How are you setting your timer?

There are a couple of snipers out there... one of them pushed the price to $160 and I backed off. But the most I paid was $141 (today), and the lowest I paid was $138. I really wanted to get 10, but I was afraid I would be sleeping on the porch.

Ebay auction... I purchased 5 for around $140 each. I waited until I used up my budget before posting here. Don't need extra competition. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dcat=56083&Rotation%2520Speed=5400%2520RPM&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_nkw=4tb+hitachi&rt=nc&LH_Auction=1 These are the 5400rpm 4TB 32MB cache Hitachi's... last of an out-of-production breed. I have 4 right now and they have proven just as durable as their 2TB and 3TB versions. Good luck. DISCLAIMER: I'm not the seller, I'm a fellow buyer. I have no more information about these than you do, so contact the seller if you have questions. And clearly, buy at your own risk.

Out of all of my pics, I really didn't want you to use the inside pic of my build. It's so sloppy. I just posted that to answer Peter's question about why I put the enclosures "upside down". I would much prefer you use the first pic I posted.

Errr... aren't those drive cages upside down? The drives don't care. Also, I needed the fans in the rear to be up above the motherboard after I added a shroud increasing the size of the fans from 70 to 80mm, so this was the only solution that worked geometrically. It has the added benefit of keeping the exhaust air from the drives above the motherboard and CPU, and inline with the exhaust fan in the case.

I've done the same thing. They hook up with a regular sata cable. They're a lil sticky when trying to get the drives in or out, however they are very effective. Yes, they aren't very smooth mechanically, and take a certain finesse when getting the door to close and latch, but they are HIGHLY useful in large cases like mine that waste expansion slots.

All closed up and locked.

Another. Yes, technically those drive enclosures are "upside down". But the drives spin exactly the same, and it was necessary to get the modded fans above the motherboard for a proper fit. It also means the exhaust from the drive cages goes straight along the top to the vents in the back of the case.

Pic of the front.

I guess I should have made a build thread like others have done. But I put this server together before Raj started his UCD threads, and haven't taken it apart to do proper documentation. Here is a pic of the inside. You can see the spacing between the 80mm fans is as good as it gets for the 3-in-2 models. Also, it shows there is room for 4 of the PCI drive enclosures and still add 2 SATA controllers. The red/blue SATA cables are doubled over and are attached to the motherboard. If I had the desire to clean things up, I would buy shorter cables. If I add a second controller, I will have to do better cable management. Also note that I still can add another exhaust fan, but haven't had a need thus far.

Since the inside of my server isn't gorgeous, I elected to use only outside pics:

I've bought my last 2 from B&H. I have to say, they are just as dependable as the 2TB and 3TB versions before them. I have had a few die during 3 cycle preclears, but the ones that survived have been rock solid performers. I mourned the day Hitachi sold the business.

Awesome. I did not realize Monoprice had those enclosures. Thanks for the link! I agree. Even though Apple had an impossible task trying to break into the server market, no one can begrudge the fact they know how to make sexy look sexier. I was always partial to the XServe arrays...

Yes, I could (it's bare metal right now). It is something I've thought about for a while now, and I designed the system around that goal after moving past the Atom system I started with in 2010. I am, however, a victim of my own success. Apparently my wife and children can no longer get through the day without the server. So I've been piecing a Microserver together to work as a stand in while I rebuild the primary server with ESXi. I own a two pack license for Pro already, so the licensing isn't a concern to me. I just need to bite the bullet and get a pair of SSDs for the datastore. Ford's comments about building them with ZFS is an interesting idea. I agree. Based on the design of that case, it looks like he expects multiple drives for caching. I use a laptop hard drive as one of the data disks in my array, simply because it was going unused. Those expansion slot drive enclosures are pretty sweet. I'm also surprised he got iStar to make that as a 3U case. If they would make a 3U case that had 11 5.25" bays, it would be perfect. 11 5.25" bays are 17 7/8" in height, turned sideways that gives over an inch in a 19" rack. Put a slim power/reset button on one side. You could put 2 5-in-3 enclosures, 2 3-in-2 enclosures and a single 6-in-1 2.5" enclosure in the middle. That would make a 16 drive case with 6 2.5" drives for a mirrored datastore and 2 mirrored BTRFS cache arrays for each unRAID array (assuming 2 8 drive arrays, 7 data + 1 parity). I would buy that in a heartbeat. The best I could find was that 8 bay 4U case.

...almost what I was thinking...only that I would put the datastore on a ZFS-Array and share it via NFS back to ESXi (internal vswitch, almost as fast the CPU bandwidth)...instant snaps at no cost plus redundancy. This is not for VMDKs that hold the OS...easy replacable...this is for VMDKs holding data. I use some expansion slot 2.5" drive bays to add my cache and other drives - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998052. And I apologize for the confusion about the "exact same" cages. I should have specified "same series". I intend to rebuild this system to 2 unRAID arrays of 5 data + 1 parity per side, once Tom has added that feature to the OS. I don't like having too many disks on single parity, especially at the densities we're pushing. I can't argue with the lower cost. There's just no getting around the extra hardware involved in a trayless enclosure. I knew going into it that I would need to mod the fans to get the temps I wanted. A 120 would have been awesome, but there isn't enough width available on these units to go beyond 80mm. I just wanted to build something different that afforded the luxury of never having to open the box unless I have to pull the thumbdrive. And it looks sexy.