NodNarb012

Depends on your criteria and budget. They both have similar power specs on the +12v rail (52 for the Corsair, 54 for the SS), so unRAID wise I think they would perform similarly. The SS is modular while the Corsair is not. The SS is 80-plus Gold certified while the Corsair is just "regular" 80-plus certified so the SS is slightly more power efficient. So if easier cable management and the power efficiency gains are worth the ~$30 price difference to you, then go with the SS. I was leaning towards the SS because I like the idea of the modular design, so I'm going to order one. Thanks for the information.

I was getting ready to order a Corsair CMPSU-650TX that is referenced in the 20-drive beast prototype, then I saw this and I'm second guessing myself. Would you recommend the SeaSonic over the Corsair? I'm gathering components for my first build. I'm starting off with 4 drives, but I'm also making sure I have the option to expand to 20 drives in the future.

Thanks for the tip. I just picked one up from my local Micro Center today. Can't wait to start tinkering with it.

Thanks for the info BRiT. I'll just stick with the WD20EARS drives for the foreseeable future. That's going to save me some money; those WD 2TB Black drives are expensive.

I apologize if this has been asked/answered before, I'm new to the forums and still trying to sift through all of the information on here. I'm about to build my first unRAID production server using 4.7 final and three WD20EARS drives that I've already pre-cleared, aligned to sector 64 without jumpers. I'm wondering if it would be beneficial for me to pickup a WD 2TB Black drive to use for parity to get better performance. This server will be use for hosting my Blu-ray rips in MKV format that I stream to either a PopcornHour C-200 or WDTV Live Plus (one or the other, not both at the same time). Each file is typically 20-35GB in size. I'm using a MB & CPU from an old HP dc7600, it's got a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 with 1GB of PC5300 RAM, four onboard SATA ports, Gigabit Ethernet, one PCIe x16 slot, and one PCIe x1 slot. PSU is some 400W unit that came in my Antec Nine Hundred case. I plan to upgrade these components soon, especially the no-name PSU. So, back to my main question, should I go with a WD 2TB Green EARS drive or a WD 2TB Black drive for my parity drive? I appreciate any input on this. Thanks!

Thanks for that link to the Configuration Tutorial. I had some questions about the preclear process and was able to find the answers I was looking for.