Alexander

Gigabyte. That was a nice MATX. For motherboard components and price I like ASRock and Gigabyte. But ASUS and ASRock has better BIOS just be prepared for that so maybe you shood check ASUS again then? Edit: Forget that comment. This is the Gigabyte board to get for a Hackintosh. Cool choice for that. I check reviews on Newegg before I buy a board. Your Gigabyte board on Newegg On your board: Other Thoughts: While navigable, uefi still falls behind AsRock and Asus. (Meaning BIOS is less good in Gigabyte) But since that board only has 4 reviews i suggest you check these 52 reviews on another Gigabyte Z390 board here Gigabyte Z390 AORUS MASTER as the same probably will apply to your board too. Some of the bad ratings might be user error, but to me if the BIOS is easy to use and gets good reviews it is a better board. On several Z390 Gigabyte boards if you check reviews With a cold start, the board sometimes "forgets" the boot drive and requires you to enter and (save) exit the BIOS for the system to pick the drive up again. (If that is true it is painful). Wendell at Level1Tech is an expert on linux motherboards and CPUs. He seems to mostly use/review ASUS and ASRock in his youtube videos and I think they are the best ones too (edit: for linux, Gigabyte often best for Hackintosh). Here is a nice Threadripper (AMD) review. ASUS Prime X399-A I fully understand your MATX size and intel CPU choice of motherboard and case.

I vote for the new icons.☺️

I would buy WD Red NAS drives if you opt for "consumer" drives, cache is only 64 MB but they are good. A consumer (less reliable but mainly cheaper than enterprise) NAS drive is a type of more reliable consumer drive for 24/7 use. I have bad experience from Seagate "consumer" drives. WD Red 3 TB is kind of quietest NAS drive available. 4TB some dB louder, still less loud than all other kind of NAS drives partly because of limited rpm speed. I think that is good for low temperature and possibly marginally for data reliability too. My 3-4 year old seagate (kind of low noise green low power) has bad sectors already. My WD green bought at same time is still 100% OK. Edit: AS of Jan 2020 actually the new HGST drives seems to be the most reliable. They are the loudest too though. Most reliable is probably "Enterprise grade" Seagate 10 TB from EXOS series. The standard model is the ST10000NM0086. But they are noisy (and speedy) as all enterprise ones are, and they are expensive (mostly because they are "big" 10 TB Helium) and of course you pay per TB. Still it seems Seagate has highest reliability and among the best drives in the "enterprise = most reliable and fastest" segment. So for reliability that is kind of the opposite of how it is in the consumer segment. Also they are actually reported as less noisy than others in this segment too. But they are fast spinning and thus still considerably much louder than consumer WD Reds (that is the simplest WD Red series not the PRO or GOLD). Personally I am not a fan of Corsair cases and Corsair watercooling but if you like RGB it is for you. Also I prefer ASRock motherboards over ASUS now, and I choose standard ATX because there is much more choice (compared to Mini ATX). ASRock has fan settings in it's BIOS. That to me is a lot better than buggy windows "add on" software/drivers (ASUS) even if ASUS has a lot of options (too many and buggy as I have heard). Have to admit ASRock BIOS will reset all settings at every BIOS update. That is annoying. Fortunately all million parameters are set to good default states. I only changed Memory OC and fan settings in mine. CPU OC might be interesting too for some. For Z390 you have EDIT: ASRock Taichi Ultimate has 10 Gb + 2 x 1 Gb (and all these work in unraid now, future proofing). Look for Motherboards or controller cards with the AQUANTIA AQC107 chip. Linux has support for it since quite a while back. The intel 10 Gb chip that is available now has dual RJ45 ports and does NOT have linux support (at least not yet) as far as I know. Another difference is that the intel 10 Gb chip do not support standard 2.5 and 5 GHz connections to it, only standard 1 Gb, but the Aquantia AQC107 chip supports 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 Gb and adapts to the different standards. EDIT2: Note that the simple Taichi (not Ultimate) is without 10 Gb. According to wesman reply below the Realtech 2.5 Gb does NOT seem to have Unraid support (probably without Linux kernel support) at least not yet. That is really disappointing if true. But most switches are probably 1 Gb and 10Gb (and 10 Gb is kind of 10 times the price and power if copper LAN cables are used).

Spaceinvader One has a 2 min tip video "One share to rule them all" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM9pPz732Gc This tip makes it faster to copy between unraid shares (= top level) in Windows. I found a solution to make this work on Windows 10 with Unraid 6.6.6 I had to stop the array to make it work and that was not indicated in the video or comments. In Windows 10 (maybe on MAC OS too?) Before you change in Settings/SMB/SMB Extras. STOP THE ARRAY Main/Array Operation <Stop>. Then write (in Settings/SMB/SMB Extras): [rootshare] path = /mnt/user comment = browseable = yes valid users = yourusername <----- See video / insert your newly made users username here write list = yourusername <---- same as above vfs objects = <Apply> <Done> Then START THE ARRAY. In Windows 10, add your network drive. Write: \\Tower (\\Tower is hidden) Then click the <Browse> button and all shares will show up. rootshare is the last share in my list. This works perfectly on my machines. But it does not ask for user/password to mount, so anybody with a windows machine on the local network can probably add this rootshare network drive. Unraid bug or more parameters have to be given in SMB Extras edit? I guess it might be enough to stop all dockers (and not the whole array) and start them again after SMB editing, just guessing SMB service is running alongside dockers in unraid. But I have not tried that. Stopping and starting the array will stop and start all dockers. Changing network settings in Windows 10 doesn't change anything at all for me. So those youtube comments are totally misleading as I see it.

OK my post is not for SFP+. This tip is for copper 10 Gb. I think any card with the Aquantia 10 Gb chip works with linux. I have that chip on my ASRock motherboard and it is recognized as a 10 Gb port by unraid as it is with all linux since a while back. So I guess this card: https://www.anandtech.com/show/11598/asus-launches-xgc100c-10-gbe-adapter-aquantia-aqc107-99 and other ones with that chip will work. These are for "normal" copper ethernet cables. Cat 6 cables OK to 55 m length. Cat 6a and 7 OK to 100m length, witch is the length the twisted copper cable standards are made for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair#Building_infrastructure I do not have anything connected to my "future proof" 10 Gbps port that is > 1 Gbps so I have not tested that it really works but I think it will.

If you have the money I guess the LSI SAS 9305-24i is the one to get. This is a 8x PCI-E 3.0 card. It is in the Hardware Compatibility list: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware_Compatibility#PCI_SATA_Controllers Works out of the box according to the list. Price ~$ 600 All new good running out of the box with unraid controller cards, even for fewer drives are probably about the same price or just a little cheaper.

Update: I got a new WD RED 4TB NAS drive which is one of the quietest affordable NAS drives available now. Unfortunately it is the loudest thing in my computer by far, about the same noise as 700 rpm noctua fans. Now I get slightly disturbed at sleep with this server on at night in my room. Only had older WD green 2 TB and a "greenish" Seagate 2TB before. The Seagate got bad sectors so had to be replaced. They are almost quiet but kind of not recommended for NAS reliability and I guess are old (slower) and not available any more. I hope Unraid will reliably support SDD arrays in the future to get my server silent again. I used Noctua NF-A non PWM. They are OK as long as your motherboard supports DC fan regulation. They are brown, an awful colour but they are probably the quietest efficient fans available (OK static pressure and airflow). https://noctua.at/en/products/fan Use the screws supplied to mount them, not the rubber things. You will not be able to mount the fans with the "rubber screw replacers", they are impossible to fit and you will loose many hours trying. With my ASRock motherboard i can set the fan speed in my BIOS to about 500 rpm (custom setting available on all fan headers). Above about 500 rpm any fan will begin to make more noticeable air noises. Edit: After reading the next post i upped all the fans to 590-610 rpm. Got slightly hearable noise, but now there is at least a little bit of pressure. The top fan can barely lift a paper. I guess this should be a minimum to use. I also moved bottom fan to inside between bottom air hole and hard drives. So get a fan that puts as much air out as possible while not being to noisy. I bought 2x NF-A14 FLX on top and use an old low noise 120 mm fan at back. Today I would suggest a NF-S12A FLX at the back unless you can fit a 140 mm fan there. I have a Noctua PWM fan that came with my Noctua CPU cooler (NH-D15S) https://noctua.at/en/products/cpu-cooler-retail/nh-d15s but it makes ticking noises I dislike. I still use it and it's OK since it is inside the case. I put low noise adapter for lowest possible speed on it so the motherboard PWM circuit can work at higher pulswidth. That lowers the PWM noise from it and I guess the resistor in the low noise adapter will smothen the pulse and hence lower the ticking PWM noise. Obviously max rpm will be reduced to about 800 rpm for it but I do not need more in my setup. Obviously bigger and more fans will throw more air at same speed so bigger and more is better but they must fit your case. The top outward pushing fans are the most disturbing so get low noise ones there and then priority is on the back one(s). Inside and intake (front) fans can be of a cheaper brand (I used the supplied case fractal design fans) and sometimes you can let them run a little faster (than 600 rpm). The noise propagates mostly with the air flow into the case. The case should be made for many and big fans so you get maximum airflow although low fan speeds. In an old article i think it was from SPCR they had found that it is most effective to let air flow with intake at front + bottom and outflow at top+ back with both pulling (outflow) and pushing (intake) fans so I did it like that. An important thing is to buy a PSU unit that is low noise. Today I would recommend Corsair RM850X or 750X both v2 but some others are probably also OK. Update: That PSU is noisless (no spinnig fan) at low load. But now with my WD Red HDD I wouldn't notice probably any quality "low noise" PSU over the hard drive noise.

The Kingston FCR-HS4 USB3.0 memory card reader works perfectly with unraid. See my post here: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/52470-going-to-use-usb-card-reader-any-tips/?do=findComment&comment=701770

I use the FCR-HS4 with unraid. Works perfectly. I have 2 of them and they have different serials and GUIDs. I have registered unraid on one of them and it works perfectly. I really like it. This is not recommended by Limetech anymore. They prefer USB stick now probably because you can use ANY USB stick. With the use of a memory card reader you must get one of the FEW that works (has unique GUID). If you use the Kinsgston FCR-HS4 (USB3.0) memory card reader like I do, you have to install unraid the manual way (old way). How you do that is explained here: https://wiki.unraid.net/Articles/Getting_Started#Manual_Install_Method Old link that is not working any more: https://lime-technology.com/getting-started#usb-prep-sshots Follow a video guide or the "Text-Based Guide". If you can not find your drive (in windows 10) it can be because the memory card is formatted with another file system that windows does not recognize. Then i recommend you use Rufus. It will find the memory card (the disk). Format it as FreeDOS with Rufus. Then windows will find it (the disk). Then in windows format it again as FAT like described in the guides linked above.

OMG what an awesome answer. Extremely interesting. Excellent, and thank you very much pwm.

Yes but the workaround will decrease intel CPU performance. Possibly maybe 10% with UnRaid (speculation says 5-30%). NAS and VMs are in the worser range maybe even 10-50% and if that proves to be true it is really bad for intel. In a video on youtube JaysTwoCents 7:05 there is also speculation that "people" will attack the Meltdown OS fixes. Don't listen to the link (waste of time) it's there for reference. Yes but AMD says that ryzen do not leak this cache data (at least not with the Meltdown scenario). Ryzen MMU (Memory management unit) is better protected against access to cache data of other processes even in complex code scenarios using code prediction and early concurrent decoding). This implies AMD ryzen has a new more complex (cache) memory controller. But maybe you referred to Spectre, then OK. AMD ryzen seems to be more like how security should work (at cost of some speed, but ryzen is impressive), I'm still referring to the Meltdown scenario here. AMD (and ARM) is also affected by Spectre but even that seems to be at a much "lesser" degree of a bug for AMD than intel (according to some sources that I have not verified). A fix for Spectre on AMD ryzen might also be much easier to implement and less performance hitting than intel, and if not fixed ryzen should be harder to attack (again according to some unverified resources). I must admit I haven't looked into ryzen "flaws and linux/UnRaid compatibility problems". I feared it might not look good. Or is there anything else you are thinking of? A short list of incompatibility or flaws would be appreciated (by anyone), but I fully believe you (of course) and really appreciate your advice. I know intel is kind of approved/preferred and tested linux hardware. + OK thank you very much. I will keep my intel CPU and Z370 motherboard then. I really appreciate this advice. Great. OK so hyperthreading is OK now? I don't know how passmark is measured but is there not a risk of it becoming worse after January OS updates? Of course we all hope speed drop will be small. [WARNING] Intel Skylake/Kaby Lake processors: broken hyper-threading again link is only for reference. So I assume this is considered fixed with intel microcode that rolled out during 2017 + latest UnRaid as mentioned last in the thread (at page 3). At least for 8700K CPU as I interpret your answer. Thank you for that clarification too. Awesome. UnRaid v 6.4.0-rc16b has "Early microcode loading support.") according to unRAID OS version 6.4.0-rc16b available. So you don't even have to update your BIOS to get this new microcode loaded or how should I understand this (assuming you run UnRaid6.4.0 rc16b or later and that the CPU has gotten updated microcode from intel)?

Would you try to return an unboxed sealed new boxed i5 8600K and wait for ryzen+? I'm beginning to regret I bought it now with Meltdown and also this Intel ME bug Intel finds critical holes in secret Management Engine hidden in tons of desktop, server chipsets. My intention is to try to build a small UnRaid server for home use with it and try UnRaid. Next priority is backup (that is crucial) and then a UPS after that if I end up liking UnRaid. For sure I would advise new builders to avoid Intel and go AMD from now on for servers. But I'm a complete newbie in this field. Any thoughts on this?