Minimal system requirements for running 15+ drives and parity

[Fast128]

Hello People!
Long time stalker here, just got registered. I have around 15 2TB drives lying around containing random data from various moments in my life, so I decided to finally clean it up.

I have a question about the specs I should be aiming for an Unraid machine running with 15+ data drives, 2 parity drives and some cache SSDs.

The machine will just be a file server, with possible addition of support for time machine, but no VMs or apps (or at least I think so), I might want to upgrade it with 10GBe in the future, but initially it will be running on 1GBe anyway.

The Unraid minimal specs state:

A 64-bit capable processor, 1.0 GHz or better; At least 2GB of RAM, but some of you have 20+ core beasts with tens of gigs of ram, so I'm a bit confused :)

 

Is there a guideline for core count, speed and ram size for using with Unraid?

I will be looking to buy something used, so if there is a refurb server that you could point me towards as a baseline that would be great.

(I am aware of the fact that I need a motherboard that allows direct access to the drives, without an additional raid controller in the way, and I will double check any particular hardware for compatibility.)


 

[JonathanM]

1 minute ago, Fast128 said:

The Unraid minimal specs state:

A 64-bit capable processor, 1.0 GHz or better; At least 2GB of RAM, but some of you have 20+ core beasts with tens of gigs of ram, so I'm a bit confused

That is sadly out of date, I recommend 4GB bare minimum, 8GB is more comfortable for the future. That assumes no VM's, possibly a container or 2. Add several VM's and you can easily utilize those beasts you see referenced.

 

You will be hard pressed to find a motherboard that natively has as many SATA ports as you are wanting, you will need a HBA to add ports.

 

[Fast128]

I just peeked through allegro (auction service, more popular than eBay in Poland) and found this for exaple:
https://allegro.pl/oferta/hp-dl380p-g8-2x-e5-2630-16gb-p420-16xsff-331flr-10171111148

at around 200EUR it has 2x Intel Xeon E5-2630 so total of 12 cores at 2.3ghz, and 16GB of ram. Performancewise should be ok? (given that all the hardware is compatible, and the sata ports are native sata and not raid?)

 

[JonathanM]

HP servers can have some quirks, I recommend searching this forum for the specific model number you are considering.

[Fast128]

Sure, I just want to establish a performance baseline, and then I will look for a good offer for compatible gear that performs above the line.