swells

Hello again. I just wanted to update this by first thanking everyone who contributes to this forum and the wiki. I ended up ordering everything i needed on Monday and it all arrived yesterday. Everything is up and running with three 2TB WDEARS drives running preclear as we speak. I wanted to make sure I got the system up and configured properly before going too far into the build since this was my first time using unRAID. I ordered only one of the Norco SS-500 5in3 cages but will order a second along with the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 sometime next week. I also grabbed a cheap PCI video card for ~$15 which worked great. Only other difference in above parts is the case. The Antec 300 would only support one 5in3 cage so i swapped that for a 900 (kind of an antec fanboy when it comes to cases). Only issue i had during the setup was i started with the 5.0 beta and had some issues installing screen and others using unmenu. I switched to 4.7 and got everything going without any issues. The config tutorial posted in the wiki is amazing and I would like to thank everyone who may have contributed to it, i followed it step by step up to where I am now. Again, thanks to all the members of these forums and everyone who contributes that made this as smooth as it could possibly be. Now I just can't wait for these preclears to be done so I can keep going. Thanks guys! Edit: Forgot something. When i checked the preclear this morning (roughly 11 hours into it), 2 of the 3 EARS drives were about 10% further than the last. Is that an issue? I started all 3 within 30 sec of each other, so i just want to be sure. Also, the drive temps were all around 35C, with one being at 36C. Highest I saw was when i first started the preclear yesterday and it was still pretty warm outside, one got up to 39C. From what i have read on these forums, those temps are well under where i should get concerned, correct?

I wonder how accurate the real-time bitrate display is on the ps3... I pulled up The Dark Knight last night and some of the action scenes had bursts above 80mbps. I also looked to verify and found that according to spec, max bitrate on blu-ray should be 40mbps. ps3 must be off, i just always assumed that network speed was my bottleneck for streaming blu-rays since dvd quality up to 720p works fine. Its once i hit the 1080p barrier that causes problems in every scenario i have tried. Only way so far for me to play them is through a USB portable plugged into my tv. Its just a pain to have to copy movies to a portable to watch. I really just want to be able to sit down on my couch with a remote, browse my library, and play anything and everything without any issues. I don't care so much about interface or flashy UI's as long as the stuff plays and i dont have to fiddle with settings every time i want to watch a movie.

So for those of you with WD TV. How does it handle 720p or 1080p content over the network from the unRAID server? I have some uncompressed blu-rays that I have never been able to stream through any means because of the bitrate being higher than my network could handle. I noticed that the WD TV is only 10/100 and maybe a little worried about that. Does anyone have/used this? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815293012

Alright, so i'm going to build my first unRAID server sometime in the next week or so whenever I am done with my back and forths about parts. I have spent the past week or so reading everything i could on these amazing forums. Now I am looking at what options i will have for media streaming and figured this was the best place to ask some questions. Let me tell you a bit about what i have available and then if you guys would be so kind to give me your recommendations, that would be awesome. I have a 40" Samsung LCD which supports DLNA. Xbox 360 and PS3. I originally used the Xbox and PS3 to stream to which worked great until i started on 720p and 1080p content. This caused problems with bitrates being higher than my network could stream and others. Once i got the new TV (LN40C630), it had the ability to play natively from a USB drive. So i started putting content onto a portable drive and watching wih it directly attached to USB on the TV. The built in media player does an excellent job of playing almost anything i throw at it. Only issues i have found are .mkv files encoded with [email protected]. Anything below that works great. My question to you guys is. I would like to be able to stream all of my content to the TV, hopefully without going through the PS3 or Xbox, and maintaining the ability to play .mkv format in 720p and 1080p. I have not tried streaming from my Windows 7 machine directly to the TV. If that would work, than is the easiest solution to just stream through my desktop to the TV from the shared network drive on the unRAID server? Thanks for any input you guys can provide, these boards have been great to read and get ideas so far.

Thanks for the replys guys. Im really looking forward to this. Will probobly order what i need on Monday. I actually remembered that I have another AM2 motherboard laying around that I can use which i know is in good working condition. Only has 4x SATA ports though. So im not sure I have any PCI video cards laying around, but i know for sure i have a PCIe card. Once i get it up and running with the Supermicro card in the second slot, can I disable all boot alarms and pull the PCIe video card? I realize that once i add a second SATA controller to that slot i will be without means for video unless i find a PCI video card, but i would really like to not have a GPU in there if i can avoid it.

Hello everyone! So I have been flirting with building a file server for quite some time. I was going to go the traditional route of raid5 or similar until I stumbled upon unRAID during my research. Im really excited about being able to use parts i already have rather than building from new, since I have tons of old parts sitting in my basement waiting for resurection. I spent all day yesterday looking through the forums and the wiki and am really impressed by what I have seen. I was hoping that i could list some of what i plan to use and see if anyone has any pointers or has had any issues with anything i plan to use. Since this will be my first build, I would like it to go as smooth as possible. I'm planning on using my newest set of old parts but have several other cpu/mobo/ram setups i could use if needed. Mobo: ASUS M2N-SLI CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz Ram: OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) HDD: 3x Seagate 1.5TB (yes, the ones everyone fears) Hitachi 750GB (cache drive?) Stuff i will order Case: Antec 300 (love these cases, already have 2) PSU: Not sure yet on this, may have a usable 600W in pile of parts HDD: 2x WD 2TB EARS SATA Controller: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (read good things about this here) Now for some questions. This motherboard/cpu/ram setup was from my 3 generations ago desktop, and if i remember correctly, 2 of the 4 SATA ports on motherboard had gone bad. Should I use this motherboard and use only the Supermicro card with the ability to add another once i expand past 8 drives? Or should I find a different motherboard to use? This motherboard does not have on board video, which is another possible reason i may scrap it for another. Since the AMD sockets are backwards compatible, finding one for this AM2 CPU shouldn't be a problem. When I do the initial install, does there need to be a monitor on this machine? Or should I be able to connect to it right away? The 3 Seagate drives are full of data and currently are in my desktop as my storage drives. My thinking is that i can first build with the two 2TB drives and then copy one 1.5TB drive at a time and then add that drive and move to the next. Will this be the easiest way? Or can i add the 1.5TB drives right away and just leave the current data on the drives. I would kind of like to run the preclear on them since they are all atleast 2 years old and I have no idea what condition the drives are in as far as coruption, etc. I probobly posted this all in the wrong place, but I didnt see a newcomers forum or similar. I apologize if this is the case. Look forward to any help you guys can provide. Thanks!