Raj's Prototype Designs [Discussion Thread]

[grandprix]

Jetway dropped $10 in a month (or at least it is $10 cheaper now than when I bought it when it first was available at Newegg a little over a month ago), maybe it'll drop a wee bit more.  $69.95 currently.

 

Though cheaper yet would be nice as well.  Moving out of state Raj?  Planned?  Any closer to VA by chance?

 

[SCSI]

Currently using a BIOSTAR A760G M2 with a Sempron 140. Planning to upgrade CPU to a quad core with 65w or 45w CPU. Any recommendations?

[Rajahal]

Moving out of state Raj?  Planned?  Any closer to VA by chance?

 

A bit further away, actually.  I moved to Oakland, CA.  Still getting settled, but I should be back up and running in a few days.  I tried to build some bookshelves today - let's just say they are in beta (i.e. not stable), and I think I should stick to building servers

[Idleness]

Jetway dropped $10 in a month (or at least it is $10 cheaper now than when I bought it when it first was available at Newegg a little over a month ago), maybe it'll drop a wee bit more.  $69.95 currently.

 

Though cheaper yet would be nice as well.  Moving out of state Raj?  Planned?  Any closer to VA by chance?

 

The JetWay is already showing as discontinued @ Newegg and I'm unable to find it carried with any of my regular vendors.  Grrr.... 

[bigsing]

The JetWay is already showing as discontinued @ Newegg and I'm unable to find it carried with any of my regular vendors.  Grrr....  

 

I share your frustrations.  I'm having a heck of a time finding a mobo for my 15 drive budget build.

[maven]

Hello. I'm a complete noob when it comes to this raid business. I have 4 HTPC's in the house and the main one is out of room as far as SATA ports so I was looking into adding a server and unRaid seems the way for me to go. So I intend to add at least 1 maybe 2 more HTPC's to the network so I want a server able to serve my Blu-Ray streams to my HTPC's. I was wondering if Streaming to 5-6 HTPC's at the same time would be a issue and would I need to look at a Beast build or would a Budget Build do the job? And if I build a 20 Drive server could I add another 20 drive server later? Thanks for any help.

[prostuff1]

was wondering if Streaming to 5-6 HTPC's at the same time would be a issue and would I need to look at a Beast build or would a Budget Build do the job?

A decent budget build would probably suit your needs.  Now, I will say that if all the movies you are trying to play (6 different movies to 6 different devices) are on the same disk then you might run into problems.  I don't have any hard numbers but I think I remember a post a while back about someone being able to play 4 full BluRay rips without issue but the 5th started to cause some stuttering.

 

And if I build a 20 Drive server could I add another 20 drive server later? Thanks for any help.

You could, though there is no way to "combine" them into one massive share on the network.  You would end up with \\tower\Movies\  and \\tower2\Movies. Some software media players (XBMC) can aggregate multiple sources into one, so that would address the "combining" issue.

[dgaschk]

Would a Sempron 130 work for a budget build? Has anyone tried this?

[prostuff1]

Would a Sempron 130 work for a budget build? Has anyone tried this?

It should work just fine.  unRAID is not very CPU intensive most of the time.  It is addon's that require the CPU power, especially anything that does video conversion.

[Rajahal]

Bump!  I updated the Prototype Builds thread with prices and some new hardware.  I would like to update the wiki as well, but for some reason I'm unable to log in at the moment.  Here's the most important updates:

 

New 15 Drive or smaller Budget Board: JetWay JMA3-880GTV2-LF

 

Ran it through my suite of tests and it is fully compatible with unRAID.  Level 1 tested, though I haven't posted my results yet.  My only complaint about the board is that it doesn't have a PCIe x1 slot, so for that 15th drive you have to use a PCI SATA expansion card.  Ultimately it doesn't matter - the performance of a single drive on the PCI bus will be identical to the performance of a single drive on the PCIe x1 bus.  Plus the PCI SATA expansion cards are generally a few bucks cheaper.  The other issue is that this board isn't quite as cheap as it was when I first purchased it as a budget board candidate.  I purchased the board for $60 + free shipping.  It is currently selling for $77 shipped....hopefully it will come back down or go on sale often.

 

New 20 Drive or larger Budget Board: Supermicro C2SEA

 

OK, less of a new board and more of an old friend.  With the rapid EOLing of the JetWay JHZ03-GT-LF, I had to find a quick replacement.  The C2SEA has been Level 3 tested by LimeTech himself, so it is about as reliable as they come.  Definitely not as budget-friendly as I would like, but not overly expensive either.  I will work on finding a cheaper replacement for this board soon.

 

Due to price fluctuation on the various components, the smaller builds have become a bit cheaper and some of the larger builds have become a bit more expensive.  The most notable price fluctuation is the 12 Drive Budget Box (alternate) which is over $100 cheaper than it was just a few months ago.  Monoprice.com also recently started selling Forward and 8087-8087 miniSAS cables for reasonable prices, so that has helped prices a bit.  Monoprice does not carry Reverse breakout cables at this time, so I'm sticking with the uber-long generic ones.

[johnp12]

Hello,

 

 

All thr prototypes mention green drives (5900rpms). I am looking for faster drives such as

WD Caviar B lack 7200

Seagate Baruccuda xt 7200

 

Will these not work in the prototypes?

 

thanks

[johnp12]

Also, does any of these motherboard have usb 3.0? we transfer alot of data weekly and the additional speed would be very helpful

 

thank you

[Rajahal]

As you said, all of my designs are intended to run green drives.  If you wish to run 7200 rpm drives, then you'll have to upgrade the PSU.  Let me know specifically which design you are considering, and I can recommend an upgraded PSU.  You can also consult the Power Supply thread for advice.

 

None of the motherboards currently in use support USB 3.0.  External USB devices cannot be part of the unRAID array, but they can be mounted outside the array (sort of like a second cache drive).  You wish to transfer data from an external hard drive to the unRAID array?

[johnp12]

Thanks for your response. The  3.0 would be nice but not neccessary, we often copy files froman external hard drive and now that their are usb 3.0 external hard drives I was just curious.

 

As far as the 7200 rpm drives, I am looking at possibly the 20 or 22 drive beast, or maybe the 15 drive budget box. what upgrade would I need?

 

also the specs do not mention ethernet, would they include a gigabit ethernet?

 

if I wanted a second backup ethernet would I just by an additional to plug into an open slot?

 

thanks again. I am totally new to this but very excited to get going.

[prostuff1]

As far as the 7200 rpm drives, I am looking at possibly the 20 or 22 drive beast, or maybe the 15 drive budget box. what upgrade would I need?

The Power Supply would need to be upgraded if you plan to run all 7200RPM drives. For our builds (GreenLeaf Technologies, see signature) we typically go with the Corsair 850TX v2 for the 20 and 22 drive builds.  For a 15 drive build a power supply like the Corsair 650TX v2 should do the job.

 

The main thing to look for is a single +12V rail.  If you are using 7200RPM drives figure on each drive using 3amps

 

also the specs do not mention ethernet, would they include a gigabit ethernet?

All boards are gigabit Ethernet

 

if I wanted a second backup ethernet would I just by an additional to plug into an open slot?

unRAID will only use one Ethernet card and will not "switch" automagically if the first one stops working.  A PCI NIC card can be added should the onboard NIC not work for some reason.

 

[canachi]

Thanks Raj for the board update!

I think you forgot to update the memory recommendation in the Prototype Builds thread (from DDR2 to DDR3).

 

Edit: does this board uses the infamous Realtek 8111E LAN chip?

 

Regards,

Juan

[Rajahal]

I think you forgot to update the memory recommendation in the Prototype Builds thread (from DDR2 to DDR3).

 

Good catch!  I'll update the RAM ASAP.

 

Edit: does this board uses the infamous Realtek 8111E LAN chip?

 

I actually don't know what NIC the board uses, since Jetway is decidedly vague on that point, even on their website and in the motherboard manual.  I assume it is a Realtek NIC based on the audio and other chipsets, but I'm not sure which one exactly.  In any regard, it is not one of the problematic ones as my tests should have identified any NIC incompatibility or other issues.

 

By the way, I documented my work with the Jetway board on the GreenLeaf website.

[vexhold]

I actually don't know what NIC the board uses, since Jetway is decidedly vague on that point, even on their website and in the motherboard manual.  I assume it is a Realtek NIC based on the audio and other chipsets, but I'm not sure which one exactly.  In any regard, it is not one of the problematic ones as my tests should have identified any NIC incompatibility or other issues.

 

My contact at JetWay informs me that this board does indeed use the RTK8111E

 

Also Stephen, if you want I can shoot you over the spec sheet for all of JetWay's boards. I recieved an updated one yesterday.

 

I also just noticed that the JHZ03-GT-V2-LF is still on this list. Not sure why everyone has it as discontinued. Maybe they forgot to take it off this list.

 

-Vex

[johnp12]

looking at these designs, I see most CPU's are single core. I am curious, does the CPU make much difference in a storage device like this where no other software will really be running? I can see faster drives being helpful but how important is upgrading a cpu? I have a photo website where customers can view and buy photos online. so each week we copy new photos taken to storage device and let users browse them. So this device is really just a large storage device and aside from fast access to the photos, I am not sure if there is a benefit to upgrading cpu?

 

thanks

[johnp12]

one other question, if I were to build 2 machines, one primary and one holding  a duplicate backup of each drive (ie. drive 1 backed up to drive 1 on backup box, drive 2 backed up to drive 2 on backup box), if drive 2 failed on the primary, can I just pull out the drive 2 from the backup box and plug it i and have it just run again as it is a duplicate drive?

 

thanks again

[vexhold]

one other question, if I were to build 2 machines, one primary and one holding  a duplicate backup of each drive (ie. drive 1 backed up to drive 1 on backup box, drive 2 backed up to drive 2 on backup box), if drive 2 failed on the primary, can I just pull out the drive 2 from the backup box and plug it i and have it just run again as it is a duplicate drive?

 

You wouldnt need to do all that. If a single drive fails in an unRAID server, you just put in a blank hard drive in its place and it will automagically rebuild the data that was in that slot.

[Rajahal]

I actually don't know what NIC the board uses, since Jetway is decidedly vague on that point, even on their website and in the motherboard manual.  I assume it is a Realtek NIC based on the audio and other chipsets, but I'm not sure which one exactly.  In any regard, it is not one of the problematic ones as my tests should have identified any NIC incompatibility or other issues.

 

My contact at JetWay informs me that this board does indeed use the RTK8111E

 

Also Stephen, if you want I can shoot you over the spec sheet for all of JetWay's boards. I recieved an updated one yesterday.

 

I also just noticed that the JHZ03-GT-V2-LF is still on this list. Not sure why everyone has it as discontinued. Maybe they forgot to take it off this list.

 

-Vex

 

Thanks Casey!  I would love the spec sheet, thank you kindly.

 

johnp12: The speed and number of cores of the CPU doesn't matter at all as far as unRAID is concerned.  Certain add-ons benefit from or require a faster CPU, but for a stock unRAID box it won't make one iota of difference.

 

No, you cannot take a drive from a second server and plug it into your first server and achieve a quick recovery.  unRAID identifies drives by their serial number, so no two drives are identical from unRAID's perspective.  If you did as you proposed, unRAID would recognize your healthy drive as a replacement for the failed drive and offer to rebuild the contents of the failed drive onto the healthy drive.  It wouldn't matter what data is already on the healthy drive, everything would be overwritten.

 

That said, you can manually mount a properly formatted data drive outside the array and access the data on it, but I don't think that is the solution you are looking for.  In our previous email correspondence, I proposed that you implement a fast unRAID server locally and a slower one as a remote, off-site backup.  If a drive on your local server failed, unRAID would automatically emulate that drive's contents using the parity and other data drives (so all drives would need to be spinning any time data on the failed drive was read).  In this state, your data is susceptible to a second drive failure.  However, all your data would also be backed up off-site on the second server, so your data wouldn't really be at any risk.  Eventually there would be a few minutes of downtime necessary on your local server as you stopped the array, powered down the server, replaced the failed drive, and booted back up.  Upon boot the server would recognize a new drive and assume that you want to use it to rebuild your failed drive.  Once you manually start the array, unRAID will reconstruct the data from the failed drive onto the new drive.  All of the server's data would still be accessible during this rebuild process; once you start the array there is no more required downtime and your local server could continue to serve data to your website during the rebuild process.  This is one of the many advantages of unRAID over other traditional RAID systems - no downtime during a data rebuild.  Your remote server would be unaffected by all of this, and would continue working as normal.

[johnp12]

Thanks! very helpful.... I just looked at the addons and there are some interesting ones. I think I would like to be prepared in case I do want to use some of these addons. For the 15 drive budget box, what upgraded cpu/motherboard would you recommend and which would fit the box (and handle the mentioned expansion cards)?

 

It also makes sense now that as long as I have the data backed up I have 2 options to get the data back. 1. if 1 drive fails I can replace it and rebuild it. in worst case if > 1 drives fail and can replace them and re copy the data back from the backup box.

 

I already built a simple small Unraid box with just 3 old drives I had laying around and it went smooth. I am looking now to jump in !

 

thanks for all your help

 

 

[Rajahal]

Specifically which add-ons do you have in mind?  Most of the utility-style add-ons will run on a single core CPU just fine, it is only the CPU-intensive add-ons such as video encoding (Handbrake) and video transcoding (air video, PS3MS) that would require a beefier processor.  Given your application as a storage repository for your website's photos, I can't think of any CPU-intensive add-ons that would be of any use to you.

[johnp12]

from what I read I was thinking of

unmenu

femur possibly

simple features

definately email notification

preclear disk

maybe Mover

 

 

thanks