lionelhutz

Looks good. The PCIe x16 might work for the card and they don't know but it'd be a risk you have to take. Try one of the x1 cards you are buying and see if it works. If it works then likely a x4 would work. I use this flash. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208060 Any cheap reconized name flash such as Transcend, Crucial, HP, OCZ will have a GUID and will work and anything much over 2gig will likely never be used even if unRAID changes radically in the future. Peter

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124017 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132003

For playing HD media, all the newer drives are fast enough. You need about 40Mbps. Just pick whatever drive is the cheapest. Buying 3 drives at $20 savings each will pay for a motherboard or a SATA controller card or some other such part. It used to be Seagate had an advantage with their 5 year warranty. Now that they are 3 years just like everyone else that advantage is lost. I could see a faster parity drive help if you will write to multiple data drives at once. Writing to a single data drive would limit you to that drive speed. If you regularily write large amounts of data to the server then make use of a cache drive and gigabit networking. Let the server write to the protected array at whatever speed it can while you are sleeping or at work. FYI, I have a single normal WD 500gig SATA drive in my HTPC, not a green bought about 1.5 years ago. I notice I can't even saturate 100Mbps network if accessing that drive for much else such as torrenting or even just watching some media off it. Peter

No, no misdirection at all. Tom didn't post 4 or 5 pages of posts that didn't belong here. I'm not angry, I just find what has been going on VERY rude towards Tom. Peter

How about this one - 3 speeds built in. http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=10370AC8791&vpn=TRICOOL 120MM DBB&manufacture=ANTEC or one like this where you can run 2 case fans and the CPU fan off of the CPU fan header and basically use the BIOS to adjust the speed. There is always some adjustments like the temp and minimum speed settings that you can adjust for the CPU fan speed. http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=10450AC1821&vpn=ACF12PWM&manufacture=ARCTIC COOLING Peter

You temp question - the stock unRAID interface will tell you the drive temps if they are spinning which is OK because they will stay cool even without airflow if they are spun-down. Peter

I'm quite certain it's a first time one time boot thing. Peter

I wouldn't put fans on the removable side cover. Just makes it a pain to open the server. 3 fans would be more than enough. The LED's can not be turned off. Just buy fans that don't have them. Something like this could be used to adust the speed. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811998129&cm_re=pci_fan_controller-_-11-998-129-_-Product Then use the molex to small fan plug adapters that come with the fans. Or get the Sunbeam version of that controller and splice or solder more fan plugs onto it, which is what I did on my HTPC. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811992003&cm_re=pci_fan_controller-_-11-992-003-_-Product Peter

Both the 740g and 785g have built in video. It's easy to tell if there is a HPA when you have multiple drives of the same size. The interface gives the drive sizes and one will be a little smaller. Peter

Oh, you could have just taken the plastic parts off the front of the others and they would all hide behind the front of the case. The case has performated metal 5.25" drive slot fillers with filters on them. I just realized I hadin't commented on that yet... A single core is lots of CPU power for an unRAID server. Joe - I don't think every Gigabyte board will force a HPA on one of the drives but some will. Peter

Oh yeah, the 590 case comes with a 4 into 3 adapter already so you only need 2 more to fill the case. Peter

The x16 or x4 or x1 is the number of PCIe lanes in the connector. It has nothing directly to do with the number of SATA ports. However, it seems that 2-sata port cards are built for a x1 slot and 4 or 8 sata ports cards are built to fit a x4 slot. Any smaller number will fit in a larger slot, for example a x1 will plug into a x4 or x16 slot. So, lets look at that new motherboard. PCIe x16 - you could put that 4-sata port card in there. PCIe x4 - you could put a 4 SATA port card in there. PCIe x1 #1 - you could put a 2 SATA port card in there. PCIe x1 #2 - leave empty PCIe x1 #3 - leave empty or PCIe x16 - you could put that 4-sata port card in there. PCIe x4 - leave empty PCIe x1 #1 - you could put a 2 SATA port card in there. PCIe x1 #2 - you could put a 2 SATA port card in there. PCIe x1 #3 - you could put a 2 SATA port card in there. The notes say the 2nd and 3rd PCIe x1 slots are shared with the PCIe x4 slot so you can not use them both at the same time. This gives you a total of 10 more drives up the ability to add 4 more drives later.... I would check with Gigabyte to ensure that you can use a SATA card in the x16 slot. Some motherboards use that slot for graphics only. The 740g is good. I don't even know if the 785g will run unRAID let alone the PCIe x16 slot capability. Consider this. If 12 drives is enough: 740G + 1 2-port SATA + 1 4-port SATA = $125 785G + 3 2-port SATA = $150 plus room to add 4 more ports. So save $25 but possibly limit yourseif in the future. Or, just plan on upgrading to bigger drives instead of adding more drives. The case is limited to 12 with the 4 into 3 adapters so the 740g solutions seems the best match to your case selection. Peter

I'd wonder if all of those 12V rails are even connected to the SATA/Molex conectors. I would not be surprized if the PCIe and 12V motherboard plugs get 2 of the rails and the third one is used for the SATA/Molex wiring. After all, I'm sure Corsair expects most people to use power hungry processors and video cards and also expects most people won't put in enough drives to overload a single 12V rail at 18A. FYI, the Seagate 1.5T 7200.11 drives will pull max 2.8A at start-up. The Seagate LP drives are 2A. WD does not publish a start-up number for the Green drives that I could find. Still, I would check and re-check and replace the SATA cables and also go over the power connections especially any power splitters you may have used. Peter

Yes, enough is enough! Do you guys not realize that when there are pages and pages of complaining mixed in with a few reports of problems that it's unlikely Tom will spend the time to go through the pages of off topic posts that have been generated to find the legitate problems? Going on and on for days and weeks when the person at the heart of the discussion is not listening is a waste of everyone's time and clutters this thread with useless garbage. Honestly, we're lucky Tom has even allowed responses to be post responses here because this section could be used to only post the announcement and then the lock the thread. So, show him some respect and discuss issues with the beta here so he has some useful info about this release to use at a later time if he does future development. Use the Forum Feedback or Lounge sections if you must complain in public. Peter

That motherboard has 1 PCIe x16 and one PCIex1. The SATA cards in your parts list are PCIe x4 which require a x4 x8 or x16 slot. Since the motherboard only has 1 PCIe x16 slot then you can only fit one of those cards. I have read about someone modifying the PCIe x1 connector so that a PCIe x4 card would fit. It required cutting some of the plastic of the connector so the card would drop into place. There are motherboards with more PCIe x4 slots so you could do what you are trying. Try looking through the Motherboard section for ideas. The first question we should have asked - How many SATA ports (and therefore hard drives) do you eventually want the server to have? The 740g boards are good for about 12 hard drives on the PCIe busses otherwise you have to accept the slower speed and put some drives on the PCI buss. Peter

The Seagate 7200.11 1.5T drives are rated maximum 2.8A at start-up. The 550W Corsair could in theory handle 13 to 14 of these drives, assuming all start at the same time which would only occur on power-up if even then. Peter

Come on guys, is the beta release thread the best place to post and post and post about Tom not having a presence on the forums? This wasn't even called a support thread for the release, just an announcement or release thread. There wasn't anything put in the initial about posting your issues so that Tom would get them addressed. Try not to go on for pages commenting about this either... Peter

It comes with a single 120mm fan in the back. I would purchase 2 higher airflow 120mm or 140mm fans if you can find them. I actually set my 590 case up with filters on the fans on top with them blowing in. I blocked off all the vents so the air has to go out the front through my drive cages where I reversed the fans on them. I put the power supply in upside down so it's not sucking from the floor. The fans move enough air into the case that the power supply and the drive cages are not starved for air. Peter

One other thing - I believe the Corsair 450W and 550W would both easily power 12 drives. I bought the Corsair 400W power supply and will power at least 8 drives from it if it becomes necessary (I'm expanding as I need to). The Seagate 1.5T LP drives are rated to draw 2A at startup maximum. The 400W Corsair power supply is rated 30A on the 12V. The 740g chipset boards run at about 45W into the power supply with the drives spun down, which is just less than 4A on the 12V worst case - more than likely it's about 1A to 2A on the 12V rail. A lot of thfe input power will be going to the 3.3V and 5V rail to power the motherboard. So, the power supply has at least 26A available on the 12V rail for the hard drives which is enough for 13 hard drives. So, that measely 400W Corsair could power 13 Seagate LP drives if the rest of the hardware is not a power pig. As for operating power, all the new drives are below 10W in any mode so that's less than 1A operating. More likely about 0.5A in most cases. Peter

Look at a 740g chipset motherboard and a Sempron processor or the Athlon II 240 processor? The 740g will give you 6 onboard SATA for about the same cost. I don't know of a smaller case but just seach newegg and see what you find. I would think 550W would be enough for 12 drives. There are some good deals on 650W Corsair power supplies right now and that would be good too. Single rail means only one 12V power source. Look for a power supply with a single amperage listed for the 12V. If you see 12V1 and 12V2 then that is a dual rail. The 1.5T parity will be completely used to provide parity protection for the 1.5T data drives. There will be no space that is not used. There is a cheap 8-port SATA PCI express controller that is not supported right now but hopefully will be in the future. If you don't need the drives right now then start with the 6 onboard and wait until later for the expansion controller. If it does not happen, you can put a 4-port SATA controller in the PCIe x16 slot and a 2-port SATA controller in the PCIe x1 slot getting a total of 12 SATA ports. Look at the unRAID official server because the cards are listed there. It'd cost about $120 to get the 6 ports but the drives will be much faster on the PCI express buss. Peter

The parts look good. The only comment is that board is limited to PCIe slots which limits which cards you can use to expand. A board with say 3 or 4 PCIe slots could use a bunch of cheap 2 SATA port cards (~$25) each to expand 6 or 8 drives. As for the hardware, check out NCIX as well. Also saves the 8% Ontario sales tax (money grab lol). Peter

Not sure how you'd determine that. The GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 is probably the best bargan board for a smaller scale server. It could work up to 16 drives if you're ok with the slower speed of the PCI buss. If (when) a 8 drive PCIe card becomes available it'll really look good but there will likely be a better cheaper motherboard out by then . Peter

Glad to hear it's working. You are using a Gigibyte 740g motherboard, correct? That board does work (lots of people use it) so you must have received some bad hardware. Peter

I would call them a drive cage or drive adapter. You need an adapter to put a 3.5" drive into a 5.25" slot. FYI, the case comes with one of those 4 into 3 drive cages installed in it. It's not quite the same, but it does the same thing and has a 120mm fan and will work just as well. So, you only need 2 more to fit 12 drives in the case. Also, you can remove the plastic piece off the front of those cages and they will fit behind the front cover of the case. The front cover of the case has perforated metal 5.25" drive bay covers with filters behind them so fitting everything behind the front cover works well. If the power supply has long cables I'm sure you could populate the cage, connect all the plugs and then slide it into the front of the case. Peter

Did you switch to 4.3 before it began to work or after? The onboard should work without any issues. That is a popular board and lots of people are using it. So, if it's not a cable issue then it's likely a board issue. Peter