kcl

I don’t and that’s the problem. I’ll contact Limetech. Fortunately, I still have the ‘Welcome’ email from the 2014 purchase of unRAID Pro.

I built and purchased unRAID Pro system back in 2014, but that system was decommissioned a couple of years ago and no longer exists. I have need again for unRAID so I've built a new system, but I couldn't find the registered boot USB stick and installed a trial system. My problem is trying to figure out how to get a new registration key for this system. Unless I'm misreading it, the unRAID wiki instructions for a new key seem to require either a running registered system or USB boot stick, neither which I have available. Am I missing something in the wiki? How do I do this? Thanks in advance

Yeah, I actually thought about that. I probably paid twice what I needed to for a motherboard so I could replace the CPU if I had to, plus I really wanted the IPMI support. I'm also pretty hopeful that the memory I picked up will work, as I was careful to make sure the specs were the same as the 'tested' memory on the SuperMicro website. Won't know until I put it together, of course. Thanks for the comments!

I've decided to replace my current NAS with an unRAID system. I've spent the last few weeks in research, and I'd like to list what I've come up and see if anyone has any comments. First, some background. I've been using ReadyNAS servers for the last 5-6 years, with my current system a Pro Business unit with 6 WD Red 3TB drives in a RAID 6 (dual redundancy) with 10 TB available. However, with 1300+ DVD and 250+ BluRay rips I was running out of space, and the only expansion option was to replace all 6 3TB drives with WD Red 4TB units. As this was going to run me abount $1000, a friend convinced me that building an unRAID server made more sense. The more I looked into it, the more I agreed with him. I particularly like having disparate sized drives, files wholly contained on single drives, and only needing the drive with the movie being watched having to be spun up. So, on to the system. First, I really don't need more than a simple file server. Probably 98% of the usage will be watching a movie via a Dune HD box, and that probably only a couple of times a day. The rest of the time the system will be basically idle. Second, I've got maybe 25+ TB of drives I can use in this, with most of them WD Red 2TB and 3TB drives, so I'm not including them within this list. With that said, this is what I came up with: Case: Norco 4224 PSU: SeaSonic M12II 750 SS-750AM2 750W Motherboard: SuperMicro MBD-X10SLL-F-O CPU: Intel Celeron G1850 Memory: Kingston 2x4GB 240-Pin DDR3 ECC Unbuffered SAS Controller: IBM ServeRAID M1015 SAS Expander: Intel SAS 24-port Expander RES2SV240 Note that all of the links above are to Newegg.com pages, but I actually got most of the items off of eBay. I also didn't list any of the cables I'll be needing, nor did I detail the quiet case fans and bracket I picked up. I should mention that I decided to go with the M1015 SAS controller and the 24-port expander, rather than three M1015 controllers. I did that because that means that I can get to 24 drives using only one PCIe slot for the M1015, as the expander can be separately powered without the need for an additional slot. (One of the 2 SAS connections to one of the 4-SATA backplanes, the other connection to one of the 6 SAS connectors on the expander, and the other 5 expander connections to the rest of the backplanes.) Anyway, that's what I've got planned. Any comments would be appreciated.

That kind of loss wouldn't bother me in this situation, either, as all of the drives will be WD Red or 5400 rpm and shouldn't push any limits. I'm still curious, though, if I can collapse 4 SATA outputs from the motherboard into a single SAS via a reverse splitter, and feed that into the expander. I'll keep looking.

Ford Perfect: - Touche on the S3/Suspend/WOL power minimization. - I like the idea of using an expander with a single M1015 card driven by an inexpensive MB/CPU combo board. I wasn't even aware something like that could be done. I'll look into it. - Hmm. In lieu of an SAS connection to the expander, I wonder if you could use a 4 SATA to 1 SAS reverse splitter off of a MB (assuming they're available) to feed the expander. That would even eliminate the need for the single M1015.

Ok, a little more detail: The primary purpose of this system will be the storage and playback of DVD and BluRay disks over Cat-5e cable to some Dune boxes. There's really nothing else heavy-duty that will be going on, as there's 2 other PCs, 3-4 Android tablets (Nooks, Kendels, and a Dell), and 2 iPads in the house for the 'other stuff'. I'll mention that I've had ReadyNAS servers for 5+ years, and I've currently got a couple populated with 10 3TB WD Red drives (6 & 4). With 1100+ DVD and 300+ BluRay rips I'm running out of space and it's going to cost me at least $1k to move one or both systems to 4TB drives. So for that kind of money on the line I decided to look around for alternatives, and came to the conclusion that an unRAID system with 15+ drives would best suit my needs. So after quite a bit of reasearch I picked up off of eBay a Norco 4224 case and a couple of IBM M1015 PCIe cards (I may get one more later). I now need to populate the case with fans, motherboard, CPU, and PSU. I'd also like to keep the power consumption low as the unit will generally be accessed only a few times a day. I understand that only the drives being accessed need to be spun up, and I'd like to be able to get a board capable of Wake-on-Lan (the Dunes support this). Hopefully, this is the sort of info you were looking for.

I'm down to choosing the CPU and Motherboard for my 16-20 drive unRAID system, but I'm weak in this area. I was able to pick up a couple of M1015 LSI controllers that I'll flash to IT mode. So, and this may be a silly question, but aside from the necessary PCIe slots do I need anything special on the Motherboard to support the boards? Also, as I'm trying not to use too much power, what CPU and Motherboard combination would you recommend? (Oh, the use for this system will almost exclusively be as a movie/audio server.)