Rajahal

Perhaps you have some old parts you would like to repurpose into an unRAID server. Perhaps you want a build that deviates from those detailed above. Perhaps you just want a final confirmation before purchasing parts. All of these are good reasons to create a 'new build' thread. Here's a few guidelines to help us help you: What is your budget? Even if you don't have a strict budget set out, at least give us an idea if you are pinching pennies or splurging on your build. How many drives do you want your server to be able to support and how much capacity do you need? Is expandability important to you? If so, what's your long term goal? Are you interested in running additional apps? If so, which ones? Be specific. Do you want to run green/low power drives or faster 7200 rpm drives? If you don't have a specific need for 7200 rpm drives, then choose green drives. What do you plan to run for hard drives? Do you have any spare parts laying around that you would like to apply towards your build? This includes drives. If you already have parts in mind, please oh pretty please post links to them so that we don't have to look them up. Happy building! - The unRAID Moderators

Just noticed that you used the 4-in-3s, not the 3-in-2s. How loud are they? I found the 40mm fans on the 3-in-2s to be a bit too loud, so I replaced them. 19k baht for a 20 bay case is about double what we pay in the US, but I understand that most of the world doesn't these types of things as cheaply as we do. Ironic, since you are probably far closer to the factory than I am.

Those look like the same Kingwin 3-in-2s that I used in my 6 drive miniTower.

Raj- quick question! I couldn't stand seeing an empty slot in my hard drive cage so I just ordered another drive, but also had to order your recommended SATA PCI express card from Monoprice. Will the MB and OS automatically recognize this card or will I have to hook a monitor up and go back into the BIOS to configure it? Thanks, Tom That card has always been plug and play for me (except the one time that I got a defective one). My guess is that you won't need to mess around in BIOS at all. The only thing that might happen is that your motherboard might assign the new drive to the top of the boot priority list. In that case you would need to go into BIOS and reset the USB flash drive to be the first on the boot list.

I would have the fan facing the motherboard. That way it can pull hot air off the cpu and exhaust it out the back of the case. Looks like a really nice, portable build!

roastdawg: very nice cabling, and great shots too! Yes, I do. I believe that it helps the airflow in the case (since the PSU will pull hot air from inside the case and vent it out). The only downside is that it generally doesn't allow you to run the 4/8 pin motherboard power cable behind the motherboard tray, but I think that is a worthwhile sacrifice.

The 500CX has 34A on the +12V rail. This is enough for 15 green drives, but not enough for 15 7200rpm drives or a mixture of green and 7200rpm drives. I've instructed the client that he should always use green drives. If you want a 15 drive server that can support 7200 rpm drives, then I recommend the 550VX instead.

This is the latest server I finished for a client. It is basically a 15 Bay Budget Build with a healthy budget. Hardware: Mobo: Biostar A760G M2+ CPU: Sempron 140 RAM: 2 GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR2 800 PSU: Corsair 500CX SATA Cards: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCIe x1 SIL3132 Cables: SAS-SATA Forward Breakout x 2, generic SATA Power Splitters and adapters: Molex Splitters x 3, SATA to Molex adapters x 3 Drive Bays: Icy Dock MB-455SPF 5-in-3 x 3 Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two Drives: precleared 2 TB WD EARS w/ jumpers x 8 USB Drive: 2 GB Lexar Firefly preconfigured with unRAID Pro license by LimeTech. Running unRAID 4.6-rc5. The new part of this build for me was discovering these SATA to Molex adapters. They are nice and clean, and let you make use of some of those SATA power cables that generally go unused in builds with hot swap cages or backplanes. Staple shots: As I'm also an amateur photograper and I wanted to play around with some new lighting techniques, so I went a bit overboard with this photo shoot. Here are a few of my favorite pics, and the link to the full gallery is below: Artsy shots: By the way, for this last one I used a 30 second exposure, so the blue LEDs appear much brighter than they actually are. Full Gallery (3 pages)

Good idea with the envelope, and you could always just spray paint it black if you cared about aesthetics. Nice, clean-looking build!

Looks great! I love your work with the sheet, too, very classy If the motherboard power cables really bother you, you can buy an extension cable that will let you route it behind the motherboard tray. I wouldn't bother, though, your server already looks plenty clean.

I would love to Joe, but I'm no programmer. I studied a bit of VB.net back in college for a psych class, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. I don't even know what language that is. How about just the first part about adding the headers in between each line, or just immediately before the SMART output? One of my main issues in analyzing SMART outputs is that I forget which number is the threshold, raw value, etc.

Joe: I've been wondering, is it possible to slightly modify the preclear script so that it spits out these SMART before/after comparisons with line headers above each line? For example, I think that this is easier to read: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_ FAILED RAW_VALUE < 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 100 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 --- ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_ FAILED RAW_VALUE > 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 than this: < 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 100 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 --- > 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 Also, perhaps there's a way to color code the important stuff to make it even easier? I expect this would have to be an unMenu-only type of function. For example: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_ FAILED RAW_VALUE < 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 100 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 --- > 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 While you are at it, why not throw in some logic that highlights potential problems: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_ FAILED RAW_VALUE < 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 100 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 62 --- > 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 75 Finally, maybe the output could just get rid of all the stuff that we really don't care about, such as the Flags, normalized values, etc. Possibly some of this is useful to you and other SMART experts, but it seems to me that we could get by with just: ATTRIBUTE_NAME THRESH RAW_VALUE Raw_Read_Error_Rate 051 62 That is of course much easier to read, but maybe it omits some important values, I don't know. Let me know when you've finished all that

Output is: 0+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 1.6837e-05 s, 0.0 kB/s 0000000 No output Outputs: 0 No output Attempting to access or save the syslog seems to be locking up the server now. Edit: I was able to get the syslog off the flash drive (I had entered the command to save it to the flash drive from the system console before it started locking up). The syslog is huge, 384 mb! It is currently stalling notepad as it tries to open it. I'm going to let it go and see what happens. Obviously it will be far to large to post here...

Thanks Joe. I'll try all these when I get home tonight.

Well damn. sda failed preclear again, with the exact same error as pictured above. Time was 10:46 this time. I'll try it in some other drive slots, just to make sure there isn't something wrong with my hardware. Past that, it looks like I'll be RMAing it, unless you have any other things for me to try.

Alright, did all of that. Starting a new preclear now. I'm also preclearing a second identical drive (2 TB WD EARS w/ jumper) in the same machine, side by side. I started both within one minute of each other. After about 4.5 hours, the original troublesome drive (sda) is only 25% complete with the pre-read, whereas the second drive (sdb) is already at 63% in the pre-read. I'm definitely starting to think that sda has some problems. However, I'll let both preclears finish and see what SMART says about them. Maybe it just has some bad sectors that need to be reallocated, and once that is taken care of it will be fine. Edit: Also, sda is running a bit hotter than sdb. sda is at 31C and sdb is at 28C. Both temperatures are perfectly acceptable, of course, but I would expect them to be closer together since they are identical drives in identical drive cages (each with identical dedicated cooling).

Looks great jmos! That's a huge amount of room in the case, can't wait to get mine.

Definitely looks like this one failed. I'm preclearing a brand new 2 TB WD EARS (w/ jumper) for a client. The preclear appeared to have gotten through all 10 steps, but it finished in just 10.5 hours, which I know is far too short. The message reported is 'SORRY: Disk /dev/sda MBR could NOT be precleared'. Screenshot of the output screen: Syslog attached. Bad drive? Or something else? Syslog_10-13-10_failed_preclear_2_TB_WD_EARS_w_jumper.txt

Looks great queeg! What are the dimensions? That is one cramped case, looks like even the Biostar board barely fits!

The 18 inch cables have been long enough for any case I've used.

This looks like your PSU: http://www.corsair.com/products/hx750/default.aspx You have "Single +12V rail design providing up to 62A". That's what is available to power all your Molex plugs. So you need to add up all the amps used by your various HDDs, cages, and fans. If the total is less than 62, then you are fine (and chances are it will be, 62A is huge). As for cable management, I generally don't worry much about that side of the case since it will almost always be hidden and it won't affect airflow much if at all. The open space inside the case is the are you want to keep organized to help airflow.

This disappointing part is that it is so easy to configure that the project will take you 2 hours or less. Anything that takes less than 4 hours leaves me unsatisfied

You can run XBMC from a remote control, you don't even need to configure it, XBMC figures it out for you. I run XBMC Live from a Zbox, and I've used a Revo in the past. Both work great. See here for more info. I use a simple MCE remote similar to this one (though mine is Microsoft brand). Some people have had success with Logitech Harmony remotes also, but I haven't been so lucky.

Very nice, I love Fractal Designs cases. The exterior of this one reminds me of my Antec p180, but the interior design is much different. I think the major benefit of the CM 590 is that it can support three 5-in-3s for an easy 15 bay hot swap server, like this one. If you don't mind internal drives, then side-loaded drives like those in the Fractal case are much better.

Finally finished documenting my latest prototype build, the 6 Drive miniTower More pictures and a detailed review here.