What do you guys think about this setup?

[McFly]

OK, so I will sadly drop the idea about getting a Gigabyte motherboard. They are not tested or not fully compatible yet, and I cannot wait any longer. I put together a bunch of hardware, I just thought I would throw the setup at you guys before ordering the stuff (I have never put together a computer myself before).

 

Motherboard:    Asus - P5B-VM/DO, Intel Q965 / vPro, GLAN,   

CPU:                Intel Celeron D 335J 2.8GHz 533MHz/256KB s775

Memory:          HyperX - 2x512 MB DDR2, PC4200 DDR2-533, CAS 3-3-3-10 - KHX4300D2K2/1G

Drives:              Samsung 500GB, 7200rpm S-ATA II    , 4 drives to begin with.

Raid system:      Unraid Pro

Case:                CoolerMaster - CM Stacker 830 evolution 

Drive modules:  Coolermaster 4-in-3  , 2 sets (one comes with the case)

PSU:                Chill-Innovation CP-450A4, ATX 2.2    , this will only be used with the system and 4 drives, when I add more drives I will add a second PSU.

 

When I need more drives than the Asus can handle I will get some Promise SATA 300 TX4 Serial ATA 3Gb/s PCI Controller For 4 Serial ATA/300 HDD

 

I don´t want hot swappable disk modules, I had 3 sets with hotswap disks in different computers in the past, 2 of them failed and screwed the computers (they still worked with the drives attached to the motherboards directly, but if I used the hotswap bays the whole computer went sllllooooowwwww!).

 

Anyone see any problems with the hardware, Unraid related or some other hardware related stuff?

Will the memories I specified work with the motherboard? I know that memories have different compabilities sometimes, but I don´t know why...

[hotdog453]

Mobo is the same one I use, works quite well, no issues.

 

CPU wise, if you're BUYING a new CPU, and not re-using an old one, I'd suggest looking at the new, Core-based Celerons; going to use less power than the horrid Netburst-based Celeron Ds, and be quicker too, most likely. I'm using a Celeron 420-L in my rig, and have no issues: Just make sure to update the BIOS, or it won't recognize it correctly.

 

Memory wise, if HyperX is still the "high end" from Kingston, just don't go paying too much... DDR2 prices are all over the board, so I doubt you're paying too much, but don't spend more than needed.

[McFly]

OK, thanks. I will try to hunt down some Celeron 420-L then. I hate to fiddle with BIOS stuff though... I think I will have to use a friend of mine to do that.

 

Not sure if HyperX is high end or not... they cost 639:- SEK (about 65 Euro I think). It was just something I found that seemed to fit...

[hotdog453]

65 dollars/euros seems expensive for 1GB of DDR2, but I have 0 idea how prices are in anywhere but the US, heh. In the US, we can get 2GB for about 65 dollars, so it may be expensive. The timings on it are awfully agressive for lower end memory, for sure.

 

The BIOS is stupidly easy on that board: Just download the BIOS from Asus, put it on a flash drive, go into the BIOS, go to "Tools", and select the EZ-Bios. It boots into the tool, looks at the USB drive, and voila, good to go.

 

 

[McFly]

Hmmm, now I checked the Celeron Conroe-L Model 420 (1.6GHz). Isn´t that a bit slow?

 

Wouldn´t it be better to use a Celeron Conroe-L Model 430 (1.8GHz) or a Celeron Conroe-L Model 440 (2.0GHz) instead? The price difference is very small, but if the slowest of them is more than enough I guess it is totally unnecessary.

 

Regarding the memory, there are three different sets with 2x512MB in the webshop I plan to buy most of the stuff from, I chose the medium priced set. They have one set that is a bit more expensive and one set that costs about 50% of my HyperX set. But I though that going with the cheapest possible set would be a bad idea (I prefer to use a bit overkill rather than to go el-cheapo and suffer the consequenses).

 

The cheapest set is: Kingston 2x512 MB DDR2, PC4200 DDR2-533 - KVR533D2N4K2/1G  (half the price compared to the HyperX set).

Is the cheapest set still good enough, or preferrably a bit more than enough? I prefer a bit overkill, but total overkill is just wasting money. I ain´t rich.

 

Thanks on the Bios tip, sound easy enough! Good that floppy-flippin´ isn´t needed anymore.

[hotdog453]

If the price difference is negligible enough, go for the larger one; no harm, no foul. The max spike of CPU usage I've seen on mine so far has been 25%... so I wasn't too worried *shrug*. The 1.8 or 2.0ghz model would work fine, though: Just use slightly more power.

 

Memory wise, in a build like this, I see no reason to go with more expensive memory, assuming you're not going with a cheaper, off brand to save money. And since both sets seem to be Kingston, I'd go with the lower priced Kingston: The added bandwidth of the 667/800, I doubt, will make much difference.

[McFly]

OK, cool, thanks.

I thought I would have whole next week "wife-and-kids-free" so I could play with and setup my server... Now it seems that I will be joining them on a holiday to Norway. Bye bye computertweakingtime...

 

And also I found a rather big bill that I thought that I already had paid (that´s what you get for configuring a HTPC several nights in a row, LOL). So I will have to push my serverbuilding for the future, if it is for a few weeks or for a month or two I don´t know. Only time will tell.

 

Thanks for your help though. Now I know more about what hardware I will use. I will definetly go with a Conroe-L CPU.

[hotdog453]

In a few months or so, everything might change

 

Just the one thing I noticed, no one seemed to really be advocating a high powered CPU for unRAID, so I just choose a low power Celeron, hehe.