Tronic

Ahh! Didn't realize that was a break-apart cable.

Does the CX430 PSU not come with an ATX12V cable? If so, what are you guys using to power the CPU? Do I need to buy a 4 pin peripheral to a 4 pin 12v converter? Biostar A880G+ Sempron 140 Corsair CX430 Kingston 2gb 1333 Thanks.

As relating to boot drives, you are right. However, as relating to data drives, many motherboards on the market today can make use of the full 3 TB capacity without UEFI. Each particular piece of hardware requires hands-on testing to make sure one way or the other. As pertains to this particular hardware, I currently have some 3 TB Hitachi CoolSpin drives that I am going to be using to test out all the motherboards and controllers I have over the next couple of weeks. The Biostar A880G+ is one of the motherboards I will be testing. If you aren't in too much of a hurry, I suggest that you might want to wait for my test results before making any purchasing decisions. I will try to be expedient in my testing. Feel free to PM or email me for progress updates. I think i'm just going to start with 2tb drives and will add 3tbs along the way. Only other question is: Can I use a Sempron 145 in place of the 140? Only reason I ask is because it is $15 cheaper on Amazon. Thanks.

Planning on the following build but I can't decide whether I should go (or even can for that matter) with 3tb Hitachi's or 2tb WDs. Biostar A880G+ AMD Sempron 140 2gb DDR3 1333 Corsair CX430 Silverstone HTPC Case Has anyone tested the A880G+ with 3tb drives? Specifically Hitachi Deskstar 5400 3TB. They are the same price per TB as WD EARS 2TB. I plan on adding the Supermicro 8 Port Sata card, which I've read is compatible with the 3tb drives but I wasn't planning on adding it until I got up to 5 drives. Since 3tb drive support is only available in 5.0 beta, and this is my first build, should I just wait until it officially comes out? Thanks.

Their new one is even better: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514 (64MB Cache, and 4KB sectors. And that, at a lower price currently.) Ive heard that the 4kb sectors are causing problems in the microsoft world, as opposed to their other drives that are still using 512. Has anyone tried one out with unRaid?

Okay lol, unRaid is so easy and unpicky!

Okay thanks for clearing that up for me. Ill just stick with WD green drives. Now another question. It seems like lots of people are using the WD20EADS drives here, but is there any benefit to using the WD20EVDS? From what I can decipher from other forums, the benefit EVDS has over EADS is "SilkStream which Optimizes for smooth continuous digital video playback of up to 12 Simultaneous Video Streams." http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136494 vs http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344

Im trying to keep the watts and temps to a minimum, hence my choice of "green" drives. I was also under the impression that in the case of reading from the server, the difference between 5400 and 7200 was basically negligible and I would only be affected by the slightly slower writes.

we if I did get up to 14 drives I may switch to 5 in 3 vertical cages.

There will be one user writing, me, and up to a max of 3 users reading at any one time. There will be 6 users with access but I don't envision everyone using it at the same time.

Thank you for your response. The motherboard is the newly releases atom serverboard talked about in this thread. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5133.0 and as far as the hdd's I wasn't completely sure about the 7200 drive. Since you say it will make no difference, I'll just stick with the 5400s. I plan on starting out with just 3 drives and buy one at a time after that.

Okay, then I feel fairly confident going with the 450w. Thanks. Any opinions on the other hardware?

Any problems with this future build? Cooler Master 590 Supermicro X7SPA HF Corsair 2GB DDR2 - 667 Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 Corsair HX450W or HX650W, depending on what you think is needed. There also is the VX550W, but I would like to stick with modular cabling. Cooler Master 4 in 3 drive cages one Seagate 1.5TB 7200 for parity + four 1.5TB WD Green 5400's for data to start off with. I plan to add an additional 9 drives as needed. As far as the power supply at initial boot at max HDD capacity. MB = 65w Sata card = 10w 14 HDDs @ 28w = 392 total = 467 at idle: MB = 40w Sata card = 10w 14 HDD's @ 1w = 14w total = 64w 5 drives spun up: MB = 42w Sata card = 10w 5 HDD's @ 7w = 35w 9 HDD's @ 1w = 9w total = 96w So would the 450w be a mistake? Thanks

I've read up on IPMI but I'm unsure if I really need it. Can someone explain its use in an unRaid build and how exactly I would use it? Do I need any additional hardware in order to take advantage of it? Does an average user need it? Thanks.

Can Mini ITX boards be mounted into a normal ATX case? Like the status quo CM 590?