Need approval for my build before I buy

[badabeezy]

Hi all. First post.  Looking to make an Unraid server for my XBMC setup.  My 1.5TB external just isn't going to cut it anymore.

 

I have a maybe 8 year old Cooler Master case that I was going to use for now, I believe it was the precusor to the Centurion, very similar.

 

I am gutting my old college build and going to stick in the following:

 

Antec NEO ECO 400C 400W Continuous Power ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371029

 

ASRock E350M1 AMD Dual-Core Zacate E350 APU Dual-Core AMD A50M Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157228

 

Kingston 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134751

I believe the AMD Hudson chipset does not handle dual channel memory so I am just getting one stick.  If this is incorrect I will get 2x1GB.

 

Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514

I am going to get a couple of these but will probably start with 3 to get the ball rolling and make sure things work correctly.

 

Obviously I am going for a "green" build, also cheap.  I feel like a guinea pig with the Fusion motherboard but whatever, if it works it could be an amazing cheap motherboard for this setup.

 

If I get a couple positives responses I will probably be purchasing later today.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: changed from SO-DIMM to DIMM memory, thought this took laptop memory like Atom, oh well...cheaper

[technojunkie]

Looks like you've got a good start. How large do you plan on letting this server grow? With the pcie slot you can add a supermicro SASLP which has 8 ports giving you a maximum of 12 drives.

 

If you plan to grow to 12 drives the, 400W supply might be a little small. Newegg lists the 12V rail as having 30A of output. 12 green drives will soak up 24 of that. You generally don't want to continually run a supply at max output as that can shorten their life.I would suggest a supply with 40A on the 12V rail if you plan to grow to max capacity.

[ohlwiler]

The power supply looks fine. The peak current is only used when all drives are spun up simultaneously (about 10 seconds). After that the maximum load you would experience with 12 drives is 100-150 watts (eg. during a parity check).

 

How many disks are you intending to use? The motherboard only has 4 SATA slots and then you will need an expansion card, figure ~120 for 8 ports or ~10 for 2 ports. After that you are done. Do you want 12 drive system or a 6 drive system? What I am getting at is that you are limiting yourself with your motherboard choice. More PCIe slots will allow much greater flexibility.

[badabeezy]

I only plan on a few drives for now.  As I stated I am upgrading from a 1.5 TB external which lasted me for a little over a year.  A couple 2TB drives should last me awhile.  I always saw the Supermico SASLP as a future option since the board has a PCI-E 4x slot.  This would allow me to go up to twelve drives which I do not ever forsee going over.  I recognize that the power supply wattage might be a little low if I ultimately max out the drives, but I really don't see this happening for a really long time, if ever.

 

I already purchased this stuff, hoping it arrives before the weekend.  I will make sure to update people if they are interested in the build.

[ohlwiler]

Sounds like it should work out well for you. Let us know how things go.

[Rajahal]

This will be an interesting build.  Thank you for volunteering to be the first to try a Fusion board.  I hope it works out well, as I would really like to use these boards in some of my smaller prototype builds.

 

Please do let us know how it goes.  It would be especially awesome if you could get the board to Level 1 or higher.

[badabeezy]

Rajahal and any interested party.

 

I wanted to let you know that I put my build together and everything works flawlessly.  I am currently busy with work (tax accountant) but will try and get some pics and more detailed information on the site.  I am using 5.0beta4 with 2xWD20EARS (1 parity and 1 data) as well as a 500GB WD Green cache drive.  I was able to do a parity check with no errors. And started to get SABnzbd as well as SickBeard set up this weekend.

 

Let me know if there is anything specific you would like to know.

 

 

 

[jwlb]

Hi there,

 

Any update on how your system has been working out with sabnzbd and sickbeard?

 

Thanks!