AlanJayWeiner

Thanks, everyone! I looked at alternatives to my list... I didn't find any cases I liked better unless I got a lot more expensive. Looked at a lot of other power supplies. The reviews and the 10-year warranty kept me going back to, and I stayed with the EVGA PSU. In the end, I reduced the CPU to the i3-4150, and increased memory to 16GB. Hopefully the parts will arrive by Thanksgiving and I'll put it together next weekend. Thanks again!

I've had an unRaid box for many years. The motherboard has finally bit the dust so I'm going to rebuild it (keeping the current 7 hard drives) What I've decided on is: Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl w/ USB 3.0 ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Computer Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352020 EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 220-G2-0750-XR 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Power Supply Intel 4th Gen CPU Compatible 10 Year Warranty http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438017 SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O uATX Server Motherboard LGA 1150 Intel C222 DDR3 1600 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182821 Intel Core i3-4160 Haswell Dual-Core 3.6GHz LGA 1150 54W Desktop ProcessorIntel HD Graphics 4400 BX80646I34160 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117447 Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) ECC Unbuffered Server Memory Model CT2KIT51272BD160B http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148677 It's primarily a movie server (max of 2 movies being watched at the same time, although I guess we could be watching more on a notebook also...) No transcoding; they're all iso images. Some backups of the notebooks, photos, random data. I'll be replacing some of the drives soon; several are only 2TB and I'll be adding an 8th drive as a cache drive (I'll use one of the 2TB drives...) memory... I've seen some recomendations of 16GB instead of 8. I think the current system has 4GB; it might even only be 2... (it's wicked old, but has served me well) Is there really any need for 8GB? Would 4GB even be enough? CPU... Same question about the CPU - is it more than I need? Can I get a cheaper CPU that would work just as well for me? Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell Dual-Core 3.0GHz LGA 1150 54W Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646G3220 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116950 case... I can foresee adding more drives in the future; is there a better case than the R4? power supply... Is the 750W more than I need, even with a few more drives? This all comes in at just about $700. If I can do it for less, it'd have better Wife Acceptance Factor... (although she wanted to watch a movie the other day and couldn't, so that's helping the WAF... I'd appreciate any thoughts, comments, suggestions. Thanks!

Just to add to all this... PlayOn is on sale for 50% off; makes it $19.99/year or $49.99/lifetime. PlayLater is also on sale. I haven't used either one, but for the price I'm going to give it a go. (wouldn't it be cool if it could be an unRAID plugin??? maybe it'll run in a virtual machine...) FWIW, I've been using the Patriot Box Office for years now. As has been mentioned, its user interface is -uh- rather weak. I recently flashed it with MedeBO (Mede8er for PBO) - that's mostly sorta kinda better, but getting the video wall to show all the pretty graphics I want (wife acceptance factor...) has been rather painful. Trying to use ThumbGen to create them - requires way too much how-to-use research, and the templates aren't quite right, a few odd restrictions, etc, etc. Definitely not hands-off "just works"... I should probably just go buy a Popcorn Hour, but budget is tight right now. On the good side, the PBO plays everything I've thrown at it. I found one MKV recently that it wouldn't play, but upgraded to latest firmware and it works now. (both Patriot's version BETA_70R2 and MedeBO version MedeBO_V4.0.4_SHIZZL_MOD_3.2 play that file fine)

wow! quick responses! I just realized I forgot to mention I'm running unRaid version 4.7. I wondered if the PCI bus was overloaded, too; that's why I moved the drive being precleared to a SATA interface on the motherboard. It's possible the system is still being overloaded... The machine is old; the motherboard is an Intel D865PERL, 1GB memory. There's a Promise 300 TX4 with 4 drives on it and some other Silicon Image controller with 2 drives. One drive on motherboard SATA. The new drive is also on the motherboard SATA. The gigabit network card is also PCI. FWIW I think only the Promise is SATA II; motherboard and SI card are SATA I. The movies are not on the same card the preclear drive is on. Sounds like the system is just overloaded. I'm planning on upgrading eventually, but it'll have to wait for the budget... New motherboard means new CPU and new memory, and new PCI Express controllers... Can't budget it all right now. (ah, the days when I was single and had loads of disposable income... Thanks for the quick responses!

I've got a system that's been running for quite a while now. I'm about to add a new drive. I want to preclear the new drive to burn it in for a while. While the preclear script is running, the system pauses now-and-then. I have a ton of movies as iso files; playing any of them will pause for 20 seconds or so every 30-60 seconds (just guessing on these times; they're subjective...). This occurs whether I'm playing the movie on my media center (Patriot Box Office), or on my notebook using VLC. I run preclear in screen, via telnet from my (Win7) notebook. If I drop out of screen (ctrl-A D) then type ps -AH repeatedly, the ps response also pauses when the movie pauses. If I issue kill -STOP `pidof dd` then the pauses stop occuring - of course, the preclear is paused too. kill -CONT `pidof dd` continues the preclear. I don't remember this happening when I was preclearing my last set of drives, but that was a long time ago; maybe I wasn't watching movies at that time. I presume this isn't common behavior, is it? Anyone have any idea why it happens, and what I can do to allow preclearing without these pauses? My system is pretty old; only PCI cards. I tried moving the new drive from a PCI-bus SATA interface onto a motherboard SATA but that didn't change anything. I've attached a system log in case that's helpful. 2011-07-23-2325_syslog.txt

heh... got ya beat! Way back (1989?) I was building a killer system. I thought I might get into Unix work at the time, so I wanted a *big* disk. Systems then typically had 10MB (notice - mega; not giga...) drives; a big system had 20MB. A 40MB drive was Damn Big. I got a drive so big I'd probably never have to buy another. 330 megabytes... for $2200 ! Naturally, I didn't use more than 30MB for several years - and by that time 1GB drives were around. I remember when Microcenter opened up in Cambridge MA - one of their opening specials was 1GB drives for $300. I bought 3 of 'em.

Thanks! I just bought two of 'em. - Al -

Are the 2TB Seagates reliable? Am I remembering correctly that the 1TB and 2TB are ok, but the 1.5TB drives have a high failure rate? - Al -

I'm using the Plus version. I haven't tested it extensively, but yes, that is correct. I have user names and passwords for each person in my family, along with a few generic names ("family" "mediacenter" etc). Each family member has their own share; read-write to them (and me) but no access to other users. Additional shares for media, photos, etc. I've tested with media center (read-only access to 'media' share) and my own user account; just briefly with other user accounts. Seems to be working correctly - enough to say "go ahead" with your setup. Each share can allow access to specific users or allow all users access. Share can be read-only, read-write, and visible or hidden. Additional users can have the opposite access - e.g., my family has read-only access to 'media' but I have read-write access. I think it would be unwieldy with many users and shares (perhaps 25-30 or more) - in that case you'd probably want the Pro version which supports Active Directory. Btw, I suggest spending the extra $30 for a second key - I didn't and now wish I had. - Al Weiner -

Thanks for replying! I've emailed Rajahal about the Promise card. It's funny though - the second link is to a 4-port card at Monoprice; it appears to be the same card as in my first link to a MASSCOOL card at Newegg. The parts layout is identical, and the silkscreening almost the same. Even more ironic - I ordered SATA cables yesterday from Monoprice. - Al -

My first unRAID box is on some older hardware I've got around. It supports 2 SATA drives, but I'd like more. It only has PCI slots. (Intel D865PERL motherboard) Can anyone suggest a good (preferably cheap!) card? I found these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815280003 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815287006 (I like the second one; the VANTEC better - only 5 reviews, but all positive) Both are based on the Sil 3114; I couldn't find anything in the forums saying that's supported. Any advice? Thanks! - Al Weiner -