ashman70

One of the nice things about unRAID, well a few nice things actually, is the ability to use drives of different sizes and the ability to upgrade to larger drives easily. As Trurl says, just replace each drive one at time with a larger one and let unRAID rebuild your data, easy peasy.

What are you future plans? Do you plan to run any VM's or any more dockers? Why do you think you might need a dual CPU system, what would all the horsepower be for? How many drives do you currently have, do you plan to add more? Are there any motherboard features you want or would like to have?

I really would not recommend using unRAID in a business environment, for your purposes I would recommend VMWare Esxi they have a free version (with some limitations) or a paid version that costs $560 USD you can check it out here http://store.vmware.com/store/vmware/en_US/cat/categoryID.66192900?src=eBIZ_StoreHome_Featured_Essentials_US

Yeah its weird for awhile there, there were a few on eBay now they seem to have all disappeared. I'll keep an eye out too, if I see one I'll let you know.

You may be right, actually now that I think about it in terms of how the add on cards work and where the expansion slots are at the back of the case it is 2U, you are right.

Where the motherboard sits you have 4U of space, its just the front and back that are taken up with the drives. I think there would be enough clearance for those coolers, if you want to give me the height dimensions I can open my case and measure.

I agree with DoeBoye, if a simple NAS is all you are after, then a server class motherboard with a low end CPU is overkill. As well, as mentioned the 8TB RED drives are nice, but there are alternatives out there, the Seagate 8TB archive drives work just fine. You can also add an HBA to support your drives, something like a Dell H310 flashed to IT mode comes to mind. Do you have a backup plan for the data that will be on this NAS?

The 36 bay case is 4U, I have one.

Email them back and tell them it didn't work, you have nothing to lose.

I assume the TDP of the newer processors was lower than the old ones? Weird that the fans ran faster and didn't slow down, definitely a question for support.

Are you on the latest BIOS?

So the passmark for your FX8320 is 8017, the passmark for dual X5650's is 11569 and the passmark for a single X5650 is 7257 so you don't quite double your score adding a second CPU and you'll gain a little over half of your existing CPU again but going with the dual X5650 setup. How many concurrent streams are you trying to support in plex now?

I bought a used chassis on eBay and emailed them because I thought 'what do I have to lose', that was back in January and I am still emailing them with questions, so yes, they don't care what you have or where you got it from, as long as its Supermicro.

I would email supermicro support and see what they say.

There isn't a lot of 4K content yet, some films are being remastered in 4K, but I don't know of a lot of stuff coming out in 4K anytime soon, although I am sure its on the horizon. I use my server for media backups and as a repository for other backups.

Thanks, it was a typo.

So I got my cable today and configured it the second way tech support suggested plugging the two cables from the HBA into the front backplane and then cascading the front to the back with a third cable. When I run: cat /sys/class/sas_host/host1/device/port-1\:0/sas_port/port-1\:0/num_phys I now get an 8 meaning I am running in dual link mode.

If you can see yourself taking advantage of dual sockets and over 64GB of RAM then sure, but if not it would be a waste of money and resources. Remember, nice to have, need to have. I think in your case moving up to 32GB is the right move.

I guess the question is how long do you think 32GB will last until you'll need to go beyond that? If 32GB will suffice for the next year or two, then I'd spend the money and do it. However if you think it might only last you six months to a year, then you may want to consider a new board that can take a lot more RAM.

Let me explain, two post racks are for network gear, punch down panels, switches etc. Servers, because they are bigger and heavier require four post racks, so no, that would not do. You need a cabinet, and unfortunately there aren't any cheap options, mind you I have seen threads where someone built their own out of wood, but you'd have to be pretty handy to do that.

I would look into an Intel socket 2011 board, a six or eight core Xeon and then some SSD's for the VM's and you should be set. How may vm's in total do you see yourself with and how many do you see using at the same time? This will ultimately determine how many cores your CPU should have and how much RAM you should have.

That is a data rack for network switches and routers, not servers. You want something like this, and they are a lot more money then the one you posted, mind you it wasn't for servers. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bonus-Free-22U-39-Deep-19-IT-Free-Standing-Server-Rack-Cabinet-Enclosure-/152484834647?hash=item2380cded57:g:eTEAAOSwIgNXrn02 There are cheaper versions of this rack on eBay, I don't own one or have any experience with one, but it was about all I could find when I was looking for one, but I never ended up getting one as I found a local deal instead.

No worries at all.

Yes you should start a new Supermicro thread lol. I used the server layout plugin, yes.

I have the original fans, in fact I bought spares off eBay.