Hi,
I’ve decided to give unRAID a go after a Mate put me onto it. Any advice on the parts below would be greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind that I live in Australia and don’t have the luxury or Amazon, Newegg, etc yet.
What is your budget?
Excluding the HDDs, GPU and unRAID license I’m trying to keep it around the $2K (give or take ~$200) AUD.
How many drives?
8 is plenty for now. I currently have 5 Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) HDDs from an old NAS that I plan on using along with 2 Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD that I’ll need to purchase. So with 1 parity drive I should have 12TB of total storage with 500GB of mirrored cache, right?
Is expandability important to you?
No, not really. I plan on getting a pretty future proof Server. The only thing I plan on upgrading is the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 (01G-P3-1370-KR) GPU that I’m moving over from my old PC. I might add an M.2 SSD drive as dedicated storage form my Windows 10 VM and maybe 1 more 3TB drive but that’s it.
Are you interested in running any unRAID Add Ons?
YES! I plan on using unRAID for many different purposes.
- As a NAS: This build will replace my current 15TB LaCie 5big NAS as a backup solution for various machines, stream all my Media files and host content on ownCloud.
- As an Application Server: I plan on using Plex Media Server, SABnzbd, Transmission, Sonarr, CouchPotoato, ownCloud and PS3 Game Server (PS3netsrv).
- As a Virtualization Host: This will be one of its primary roles. I’d like this to replace my old PC and run a Windows 10 VM for my day to day use. Alongside this, I’d like it to setup VMware Server (or ESXi) as a Test Environment that should be able to run several other VMs simultaneously.
Do you want to run green/low power drives or faster 7200 rpm drives?
I would love to but I already have my drivers.
Do you have any spare parts laying around that you would like to apply towards your build?
As previously stated, only the 5 Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDDs and an EVGA GeForce GTX 460 GPU. The rest will be new.
PARTS LIST
I’m trying to build a powerful, quiet, low power server with 'relatively' cheap parts available in Australia.
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1245 v5 ($450.45)
CPU Cooler: Do I need one? Is the stock one quiet and good enough? If so, I’d probably get the Noctua NH-D15 for $129.80.
Motherboard: Supermicro X11SAE ($439.00) [Alt: X11SAE-M for $335.38]
Memory: 2 x Crucial 16GB PC4-17000 ECC Unbuffered 288-pin EUDIMM ($328.02)
HDD: 5 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) (N/A)
SSD: 2 x Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD ($478.96)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 460 (N/A)
Case: Fractal Define R5 ($167.79)
Power Supply: Seasonic SS-400FL2 Platinum 400W Fanless Power Supply ($192.39)
EDIT New Power Supply: Seasonic SSR-650RM G-650 650W Power Supply ($162.84)
USB: SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB ($13.20)
TOTAL: $2,049.26
Will this build work? Is there anything I’ve overlooked or should consider before purchasing this hardware?