May 25, 20215 yr So I'm building an unRAID box to be my Plex box and torrent seedbox and run a - in addition to a few other containers; and run a Windows 10 VM from time to time when I need to. My current build is listed here https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VVRLTJ I chose this Intel CPU because intel QuickSync to help with transcoding Plex streams and I will add a discrete GPU What I need help narrowing down is: 1. A good PCI-e x16 M2 card with 2+ slots for NVME SSD's I’ve settled in the fractal design Node 304 case. It was crazy hard to find a good, square, white case but I think this one will do. It was one of the only ones I could find anyway. It's been a while since a built a PC (19 years lol) so I'm a bit rusty on looking for parts and I don't know the modern sites to go to for this. Thanks so much!! Edited May 25, 20215 yr by itpromike
May 25, 20215 yr Everything looks fine, I would add you will need a CPU cooler, I don't believe that one comes with one, and if it does it is a crappy cooler. I prefer Noctua but I am currently using a Hyper 212 and it is working fine. It will be the next thing I replace, it is/was cheap and works, but the nondescript fan always worries me. Your board already has M.2 slots, are you looking to add more than the 2 the board already has?
May 25, 20215 yr Author 17 minutes ago, SirReal63 said: Everything looks fine, I would add you will need a CPU cooler, I don't believe that one comes with one, and if it does it is a crappy cooler. I prefer Noctua but I am currently using a Hyper 212 and it is working fine. It will be the next thing I replace, it is/was cheap and works, but the nondescript fan always worries me. Your board already has M.2 slots, are you looking to add more than the 2 the board already has? Good question, I wanted to use 2 M2 drives but I read there were some issues with using both M2 slots on the motherboard… something involving lower PCIe performance or something. I forget where I read it at now though
May 25, 20215 yr The manual for the board should tell what using both M.2's will limit, typically it is Sata that is effected, like 1 or 2 ports may be disabled if using the 2nd M.2 slot. The manual will tell you for certain.
May 25, 20215 yr Author 6 minutes ago, SirReal63 said: The manual for the board should tell what using both M.2's will limit, typically it is Sata that is effected, like 1 or 2 ports may be disabled if using the 2nd M.2 slot. The manual will tell you for certain. Yes that’s what it was… it limited SATA use and I didn’t want that. I was thinking about offloading Sata and M2 to another card, but the case only had 2 pcie slots and I’m going to need one for a GPU eventually
May 25, 20215 yr The M.2 you picked is an SSD, for performance it is not really much different than a 2.5" SSD at around 550 sequential mb/s on read and 520 on write. To me, it is waste to use an M.2 for an SSD when you could plug in a Sata SSD with not much performance loss, if any, and have an extra Sata port to add a spinning drive or regular SSD to. A NVME will be magnitudes faster as I assume you plan to use this for cache. If it were me, I would step up to a 970 EVO or equivalent for the primary cache. If you want secondary cache, a regular SSD will suffice. You only have so many PCIE slots with this board, a NVME as primary cache and 2.5" Sata ssd's or spinning drives to fill out the 6 available sata ports. At least that is what I would do.
May 25, 20215 yr 3 hours ago, itpromike said: My current build is listed here https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VVRLTJ I’ve settled in the fractal design Node 304 case. You've picked a micro-ATX motherboard. It's not compatible with the Fractal Node 304 case. That case been designed for smaller mini-ITX motherboards. There's a bigger cube, Fractal Node 804 case, that can house micro-ATX boards.
May 25, 20215 yr Author 7 hours ago, Lolight said: You've picked a micro-ATX motherboard. It's not compatible with the Fractal Node 304 case. That case been designed for smaller mini-ITX motherboards. There's a bigger cube, Fractal Node 804 case, that can house micro-ATX boards. Bummer. The 804 doesn’t come in white and I had my heart set on a white case. It’s so hard to find a square white case to hold 6x 3.5 drives
May 25, 20215 yr 1 hour ago, itpromike said: Bummer. The 804 doesn’t come in white and I had my heart set on a white case. It’s so hard to find a square white case to hold 6x 3.5 drives Then all you have to do is to find a suitable mini-ITX board, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088ZPXFH2?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1
May 25, 20215 yr 10 hours ago, Lolight said: You've picked a micro-ATX motherboard. It's not compatible with the Fractal Node 304 case. That case been designed for smaller mini-ITX motherboards. There's a bigger cube, Fractal Node 804 case, that can house micro-ATX boards. Good catch, in my haze late last night I read it as an 804.
May 25, 20215 yr 2 hours ago, itpromike said: Bummer. The 804 doesn’t come in white and I had my heart set on a white case. It’s so hard to find a square white case to hold 6x 3.5 drives If my aesthetic requirement called for white, I would get the case I want and paint it. It isn't hard to do, just a color change and the correct prep will make it durable. I would add, having started with mATX and the limitations it presents, an ATX case will fit a mATX but a mATX case will not fit an ATX. You may think you will not want to switch out motherboards, but it may surprise you that you will. It certainly did for me. Give yourself as much flexibility as you can.
May 25, 20215 yr Author 1 hour ago, SirReal63 said: If my aesthetic requirement called for white, I would get the case I want and paint it. It isn't hard to do, just a color change and the correct prep will make it durable. I would add, having started with mATX and the limitations it presents, an ATX case will fit a mATX but a mATX case will not fit an ATX. You may think you will not want to switch out motherboards, but it may surprise you that you will. It certainly did for me. Give yourself as much flexibility as you can. That’s a good thought. Any suggestions? I’d love something like this that had more 3.5 drive options: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16811112594
May 25, 20215 yr I hate recommending cases, but I would say the things that are important to me are thermals for the whole case as well as the drive trays. I do run older 7200 rpm drives that do run hotter so the ability to cool is probably more important to me but it should be the number one aspect of choosing a case. Cases that do not flow well are not really suited to NAS duty, IMO. Gamers Nexus does an incredible job at reviewing cases and their idiosyncrasy's in thermals and design. Case choice is way too individual of a choice for me recommend.
May 26, 20215 yr 8 hours ago, SirReal63 said: I hate recommending cases, but I would say the things that are important to me are thermals for the whole case as well as the drive trays. Second that!!!!
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