Rustbucket

I had some issues getting my drives to preclear successfully - you can see the gory details in this thread (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12747.0), but the long and short of it is that I had a defective stick of memory, which is currently on its way back to Newegg for replacement. Now that I finally got that worked out, the parts have been installed in the case. I built the array with two precleared drives and no parity to start, using the future parity drive as a transport to bring all my data into the machine. The initial copy is complete and I'm preclearing the 3rd disk now. Preclears with the disks sitting on the desk ran in the mid 30's C, while the current one is running 22C I'll be running the box as a dedicated unRAID system for a few weeks to work out the kinks, then moving to ESXi. The biggest variable that I need to work out is whether my motherboard supports IOMMU so I can pass PCI devices to ESXi. I haven't found any tests for my chipset (AMD 880), so I'll just have to find out myself. If I'd done more research ahead of time I think I would have gone with an inexpensive Xeon board with official VT-d support. I'd lose a fair amount of efficiency but gain certainty and a supported solution. Hindsight is 20-20 I guess... I'll snap a couple of pics tonight, but it looks pretty much like any other Helios case, with worse cable organization.

Preclearing/memtesting/cpuburning time in my very sophisticated technology lab. A couple of thoughts: * The Seasonic PSU is nice. Heck, the velvet bag it comes in and the nylon bag for the cables almost seems worth the price of entry. Running a preclear, the fan on it hasn't turned on yet (it stays off below 20% load) - too cool! * Obviously, the case fans aren't running yet (case? what case?), but the CPU cooler is nice and quiet as well. * Speeds for preclearing the drives are running about 120 Mb/second. * I couldn't find a jumper, so I had to short the power switch pins on the motherboard with my pocketknife. Do not try this at home! You can, and will, fry your computer. I'll check back later this week when I get it all cased up and buttoned down. -Josh

Thanks Rajahal! I've been doing a bit more reading on unRAID and VMware, and am a little concerned about not being able to use the registered version in the future, since the VM I was planning to build won't use an actual flash drive. I see a couple of options that might make it possible. 1.) Run a VMware server install with unRAID as a guest. A full OS install is a bit wasteful of resources, but I'm pretty sure VMware Server supports USB passthrough. I don't know if it support booting off a USB device, though... 2.) Switch to Xen. I haven't used it extensively, but I believe it supports USB passthrough as well. Hopefully USB booting, too. I'll do a bit more reading. I'll probably be assembling the computer this weekend, so I still have a couple of days to poke around and dither.

Thanks for the feedback. = I'm definitely planning to disconnect and possibly remove the 230mm fan. If I'm ever running a ton of drives it may be necessary, but as it it, I don't see the purpose. Does anyone know if the 140's that come with the Helios are the style that have the same screw spacing as 120's? I'll definitely add a UPS to the list. I've pretty much used up my cash for the time being, but I'll at least get a baby one tyo give the machine the few minutes to shut down soon.

I finally started collecting parts for my unRAID server. I've been keeping my media on a single 2tb external drive, and praying it doesn't die for the past year or so. I'm out of space, and tired of worrying. I really like the storage system unRAID uses, but I want the flexibility of a full OS, so I've been knocking around how to proceed for a few weeks. I was initially looking at building a mini ITX based system, but I have no self control and everything spiraled out of control. I still want a relatively low power system, so I tried to select an efficient processor. The power supply, in particular, is way over the top. I'm only running 3 drives, and doubt I'll ever expand past 5 or 6. What can I say, it was on sale. I'm contemplating sending it back and getting a ~300w PSU instead... OS at time of building: Planning to use 4.7 CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 600E 2.2Ghz 45w - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002TPGLVG Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003KPP4JO RAM: CORSAIR XMS 4GB DDR3 (2), to be expanded- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233132 Case: Helios 910 - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RS4HVQ Drive Cage(s): None Power Supply: SeaSonic X650 Gold SS-650KM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088 SATA Expansion Card(s): None Cables: Random Selection Fans: Stock Parity Drive: Samsung F4 2TB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245 Data Drives: Samsung F4 2TB (2) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245 Cache Drive: None Total Drive Capacity: 4TB (for now) Primary Use: I'm planning to install ESXi with an unRAID VM and the drives passed through as block level devices. The server will also have a Ubuntu Server 10.04 guest that will run Crashplan, allowing my unRAID to be a target for backups for my folks. It will also give me an outlet my incessant need to fiddle with my configuration without messing up my media server. I'll be running sabnzbd and sickbeard, but I haven't decided whether to do than in unRAID or Ubuntu. There's a thread floating around indicating this ought to work with a bit of tinkering, and that's the fun part of any project anyway. Likes: Long walks on the beach, and... wait, this isn't that kind of site it is? Dislikes: I'm a bit concerned about noise as the system will be living in my bedroom for the foreseeable future. If the stock fans are too loud I'll have to look other options. The last build I did was before the whole pwm era, so I'll need to do more research. One of the cool things about the PSU is that the fan turns off entirely under ~150w or so, based on a couple of reviews I read. Come to think of it, it may never turn on for me... Add Ons Used: Dunno yet - better make it work first! Future Plans: Drop in a 2tb drive each time I fill up the previous one. Gloat if it works. I'd certainly appreciate any feedback on the build. If I can't get VMware to work with unRAID, I'll probably make it a dedicated system, at which point the spec will be truly ridiculous...