Spritzup

Afternoon All, My wife and I are quickly outgrowing our current storage solution and are looking to take the plunge into UnRaid. With that in mind, I have put together the following components. Ideally, I would like to pull the trigger on this tonight (stupid limited quantity sales), but I will wait until I get some good feedback. Thanks in advance MOBO = Supermicro X9SCM-F-O CPU = Intel Xeon E3-1220 *Overkill?* = Intel i3-2100 RAM = Kingston 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC CL9 DIMM w/ TS Server Elpida C = Kingston ValueRAM KVR1333D3E9S/4G 4GB 1X4GB DDR3-1333 240PIN CL9 FBDIMM W/ Thermal Sensor Memory PSU = Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750 Case = Norco RPC-4224 Parity = Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB Cache = Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB HDD = Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 2TB x2 SAS Cards = Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 x2 USB = OCZ Diesel 4GB = Lexar JumpDrive FireFly 4GB USB 2.0 = USB A TO USB MOTHERBOARD HEADER - I really liked the idea of keeping everything internal, so I really hope this works Misc 120mm Wall Bracket Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) Male to Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) Male Cable x4 Internal Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) Male w/ Latch to SATA 7pin Female (x4) Forward Breakout Cable x2 120mm Fan x3 80mm x2 I will be (initially at least) looking to run the following programs --> Torrent Client SABNZBD Couch Potato SickBeard Air Video Subsonic (or something similar) EDIT - I've also seen talk lately of an application drive. What is the purpose of this, and is it something I should look into? *I would also like to move some Windows folders to the array, but I have to figure out exactly what, and how I want to do this. I'll probably have questions.

I tried a few different media players and ran into many of the problems people here experienced. I love playing around with computers, but certain things I just want to work. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would need to build myself a separate HTPC, when I stumbled across the newly released Boxee Box. Figured I'd give it a try, and if it didn't work out, I'd return it. Well I've been using it ~6 months now and I couldn't be happier. I've yet to run across a file it doesn't play, it's responsive and it just works. Now this of course is for my needs, and they may not be the same as yours... take it how you will

So I assume that if I was to follow Raj's build for the 40 TB Beast, I would only need to buy one of the Supermicro cards instead of 2? If that's the case, I would say that's a pretty good savings...

Any thoughts on the Tyan S5512WGM2NR board? Looks like it could be promising, though I don't know if the build in SAS ports would be useful.

You would probably get more responses under the "Hardware" section. Also, "running" unraid with just one drive would be pointless... you can run anything with just one drive. To even begin taking advantage of doing Unraid (from my limited experience), you will need to have at least 2 drives... and even then it seems sort of pointless. In any case, save your money and wait to do it right.

Excuse my n00bness, but haven't people simply connect 2 cases together (ie - 2 CM 590's)?

I'm assuming that your gigabit switches are unmanaged. I wouldn't worry about all your cables being Cat6, so long as they're good quality Cat5e (and they're not in an area of high electrical interference). Also, you're probably better off forcing everything that can run as gigabit to gigabit. I would try switching the port that your unraid server is connected to and see if that resolves the issue. If it doesn't, try using the same port and cable that your HTPC system uses, but connect it to your unraid box. If that doesn't resolve the issue, then the problem lies with your network configuration and/or network card on your unraid box. Isn't troubleshooting fun!?

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that there is an issue with your network somewhere. For shits and giggles, try running a tracert from your desktop to your WD Live and post those results. Also, try running a tracert from your desktop to google, and then run the same thing from your unraid box. Finally, if it's not to much trouble, could you describe how your network is hooked up please? I'm a bit rusty with my networking, but I will do my best to help you. If it turns out to be an unraid problem, I'm sure one of those guru's will pop in and send me scurrying back to my n00b hole

Can you try running a tracert on your network? Also, what's the latency on your ping times? Are you sure that everything with your network adapter is set to default, (ie - Jumbo frames are turned off, etc)? Also, try forcing the speed of your NIC to full gigabit (instead of auto-negotiate). Finally, if you could post the output of ping and tracert, that would be great!

I have no need for a server grade chip (plus I don't want spend an extra $100 for a Xeon). In reality I have no need for a server grade motherboard, but that one I listed had everything I was looking for (plus I wanted to try out the remote management). Also, I like choice of expansion slots and that it uses Intel NICs. Unfortunately, with this motherboard, you're forced into using ECC ram, but it's a necessary evil.

Thank you for all the tips guys, much appreciated. After taking all of your advice under consideration, I think I've decided on the following --> Case = Coolermaster Centurion 590 CPU = Intel i3 530 Mobo = Supermicro MBD-X8SIL-F-O Ram = Kingston 2GB ECC un-buffered (Should I try for 2x 1GB for dual channel?) PSU = Coolermaster GX 650 Sata Card = Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (Possibly x2 for future use) Sata Cables = 3WARE Multi Lane Internal SFF-8087 to 4XSata x2 (Are these the right cables?) Drive Bay = Supermicro Black 3X5.25 to 5X3.5IN SATA Drive Bay x3 Cache Drive = Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB Parity Drive = Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB Data Drive = Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB x2

Actually, upon further investigation, it looks like this script that JoeL posted should minimize the amount of time that data sits on the cache drive.

With a mirrored cache drive, I've significantly reduced the chances of data loss.

So after more poking around, I'm thinking that despite the higher cost, this will be a better option.

On the forums, I found this gem --> Without a cache drive unRAID 4.5.3 - average 20-30 MB/s, peak reported 40 MB/s* With a cache drive unRAID 4.5.3 - average 50-60 MB/s, peak reported 73 MB/s* So generally speaking, a server with a cache drive has write speeds 2-3x faster than the same server without a cache drive. From this thread. I read the release notes from 4.5.3 to the current and I don't see anything that would have made a cache drive irrelevant. Did I miss something? If the above raid card won't work, any suggestions for a 2-port raid card that is compatible with unraid and will let me do raid-1? Thanks!

Hey all, Been lurking the forums now for a few days, absorbing as much info as I can (and probably missing twice that much), and I gotta say that this place is a wealth of information. To that end, I'm strongly considering building myself an Unraid server, as it will fill 3 needs for me... spending money, geeking out, and more storage. See, I'm getting married in less than 2 weeks, and lately every extra dime has been going to the wedding fund. In that time, I've watched my little DNS-323 start to lose the battle with storage (not to mention it's terrible network performance). So I've decided (don't tell the wife) that once the wedding is done, I'm treating myself to a new server. My initial plan was to build a single server that would be a storage/Sagetv/torrent box/home automation server using either VMWare or possible just running off the host OS. However, the main issue with that (for me) was the lack of upgradeability (I just made that word up) with a traditional raid array. Enter Google and stumbling across unraid. My thinking now is to move the storage off the "everything" server and have 2 dedicated servers. With the right components, I should be able to make the unraid box low power, and also reduce the power consumption of the other server. To that end, I've pieced together the following hardware... any thoughts/critique's/pointers would be more than welcome. Thanks in advance! Parity Drive = Western Digital Black 1.5 TB Drive Cages = Icey Dock 5 in 3 x3 PSU = Antec Neo Eco 520 Ram = Geil 2GB Single Channel Mobo = Intel BOXDH55TC Sata Raid Card = Highpoint Rocketraid 620 (for mirroring of the cache drive) Storage Drives = Western Digital Green 1.5 TB x3 CPU = Intel i3 530 Sata Card = Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 Cables for Sata Card = Multi Lane Internal SFF-8087 to 4X Serial ATA Breakout Cable 0.5M x2 (Is this the right cable?) Cache Drive(s) = Western Digital Black 640 GB Case = Coolermaster Centurion 590 I think this covers everything. I'd like to do my cache drives as a raid 1 array. My understanding from reading the forums is that it will have to be hardware level, so that unraid will see it as a single drive (and not the drives separately). I've tried to find out if the above controller is supported and if it does hardware level raid, but I have been unsuccessful so far. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers.