Raj's Prototype Designs [Discussion Thread]

[JackBauer]

Unfortunately, all my favorites aren't easily available at the moment. So you'll either have to go for a trayed option, or wait 

 

The iStarUSA BPN-350SAS is available in the US, just not widely.  (And not at NewEgg)

 

Unless you're talking about a different model...

[JackBauer]

 

The iStarUSA BPN-350SAS is available in the US, just not widely.  (And not at NewEgg)

 

Unless you're talking about a different model...

 

Actually I just read about some heat issues on that one...  So maybe I need to stick with icy dock's or supermicro's.

 

This is the last part of my build I need to figure out, and it isn't easy.

[LimeFalcon]

20 Drive Beast (pics using custom fanplate and a different motherboard)

Mobo: SUPERMICRO MBD-C2SEE-O

CPU: Intel Celeron 430

RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR3 1066

PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W

Case: Norco 4220

SATA Expansion Cards: SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS SAS RAID Controller x 2

Cables:

   NORCO C-SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable x 1

   NORCO C-SFF8087-D SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 Internal Multilane SAS Cable x 4

Fanplate: Norco 120mm fanplate

Fans: COOLER MASTER R4-S2S-124K-GP 120mm Case Fan (4 pack) (these may not be powerful enough for 20 drives, currently untested)

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP

Cost: $900 + shipping + cost of hard drives

Capacity: 38 TB

Expandability: None.

First thank you for all the great work, but I do have one question:

You state you only need 1 "NORCO C-SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable" I thought you would need 4 since you have 2 "SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS SAS RAID Controller" am I missing something?

 

*Update

just read this in the Norco 4220 details

"Five internal SFF-8087 Mini SAS connectors support up to twenty 3.5" SATA (I or II) or SAS hard drives"

but if this is true then why do you need any

"NORCO C-SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable"?

 

**update 2

this goes the other direction dosent it, it is to allow you to plug the sata cables from the mobo into the case.

[Rajahal]

Correct, the reverse breakout cable lets you plug the SAS backplane into the motherboard's SATA ports.  Therefore you only need one of them.  The SAS-SAS cable is what you will use to hook up the SAS backplanes to the Supermicro cards.  You will need four of these cables.

 

I agree that the iStarUSA model listed above should be avoided for potential heat issues.  While they do look snazzy, they run a bit hot and loud.

[JackBauer]

I agree that the iStarUSA model listed above should be avoided for potential heat issues.  While they do look snazzy, they run a bit hot and loud.

 

So if you had to buy "today" - which 5in3 would you use?  The ones in your prototype design list?

 

(Separately - what are the ones you spoke about that are "not currently available"...  In case I hold off on that part of my build)

 

TY

[Rajahal]

If I had to buy today, I would go with the Icy Dock MB455SPF-B (note that these units are NOT trayless, they use trays).

 

The trayless units that might be worth waiting for are these: SNT SNT-SAC3051TL.  Emphasis on might, as I've never personally used these units so I don't really know how good or bad they are.  Judging from the pictures, they seem to be well designed (fans are removable, etc), and they are significantly cheaper than the other options out there.  I am slightly concerned that the air vents in the front may be too small to allow proper ventilation over the drives.  I can also pretty much guarantee that the stock fans will be louder than the Icy Dock model above (a single large fan is always better than two small ones).

[mrlittlejeans]

I'm thinking about building the beast but newegg seems to be out of the Supermicro MBD-C2SEE-0.  There is a seller on Amazon selling them for $62.95 or I can get a Supermicro MBD-C2SEA-0.  Is there a benefit to the C2SEA or should I just get the C2SEE?

 

Thanks,

Noah

[Rajahal]

I see nothing in the C2SEA that is really going to benefit you in the unRAID world.  I would go for the cheaper C2SEE.  $62.95 is a fair price for it, though if you can wait for Newegg to stock them again you might find them for closer to $50.

[mrlittlejeans]

Thanks Raj.  I've ordered all the parts from your budget 20 drive beast and hopefully will get them all early next week when my wife gets back from Connecticut.  I also ordered four Samsung F3 2TB drives and that, combined wth the 1TB Seagate drive newegg included with my norco case, will give me 7TB of storage to start with.  The only thing that isn't coming in yet will be the 120mm fan plate but I think I can get away with just the internal fans until it comes in, given I'll probably only start with 3 drives.  Does that sound alright?

 

BTW - Big thanks for posting those builds.  This will be my first time building anything and I'm pretty excited about the process.

 

Cheers,

Noah

[Rajahal]

Correction: You'll have 5 TB of space, as one of the 2 TB drives will be dedicated to parity.

 

You can definitely get away with the included fans short term.  However, as soon as you power them on you'll know why we all like to replace them ASAP.  Most people don't like the sound of a jet engine in their house...

 

With so few drives you shouldn't have any cooling issues short-term, so you could even replace the fans with other cheapo 80mm fans if you have any laying around.  You could probably also disable one or two of them to cut down on the noise a bit (just unplug them from the circuit board that powers them).

 

Also, keep in mind that all of my builds are designed with green drives in mind.  7200 rpm drives like the ones you are using use up more power and produce more heat.  While you should be fine with having the couple that you already do, I recommend that you start buying green drives once you fill up that 5 TB.  The PSU and fans recommended in my 20 drive builds may not keep up with a server full of 7200 rpm drives.  Once you have more drives, you may also want to spread out your 7200 rpm drives a bit so that you don't have one part of the server that is much hotter than the rest.  Short term, none of this should matter much.

 

Finally, remember to close off the vents of any unused and empty bays in the Norco 4220.  There are small metal slides on the inside of each bay that let you do this.  If you left them all open, your drives wouldn't be cooled as effectively as the air would flow through the empty bays instead of past your drives.

[mrlittlejeans]

Thanks Raj.  I bought four of these: Samsung HD203WI EcoGreen F3 Hard Drive - 2TB, 5400RPM, 32MB, SATA-3G.  The Seagate 1TB drive newegg threw in with the case is the only 7200rpm drive.  Will I be alright with the fans from the build if I continue to add only the same Samsung drives above and some of the WD 2TB green drives?  I'm new to this so thanks for answering what are probably basic questions.

 

I'm thinking I'll start with two of the 2TB drives and the 1TB drive which should give me 3TB and I'll still have two 2TB drives in reserve so I'll have a total capacity of 7TB if I've done the math right.  4X2TB + 1TB = 9TB less parity 2TB = 7TB?  I'll always keep at least one drive in a drawer to guard against drive failure though so I won't go above 5TB of usage until I buy extra.

 

Thanks,

Noah

[Rajahal]

My bad, I thought all Samsung F3s were 7200 rpm drives.  I guess only the older/smaller ones are.  You won't have any problems if you continue to use green drives (Samsung EcoGreen, WD Green, etc).  Having a single 7200 rpm drive won't hurt anything.  In fact, it may be a nice thing as you could use it to store all your small files (documents, pictures, etc.) and get slightly faster read speeds from it.  Your write times won't be any faster since your parity drive will still be 5400 rpm.  On the other hand, you may want to use it for archives and rarely-read data so that it stays spun down most of the time and saves power.

 

Your math as you wrote it out is correct, again I screwed up.  I thought you ordered three 2 TB drives, not four.  Sounds like you'll be adopting the 'cold spare' approach, good choice.  I've often thought about doing the same, but I can't bring myself to have a drive just sitting there unused!  I instead tend to take the warm/tepid spare approach as I like to use a cache drive in my server.  It is a trade off - I get to feel like I'm using the drive (and speed up writes to my server), but I'm spending money on extra power usage and increasing the wear and tear on what is supposed to be my spare drive.

 

Also, in case you aren't already aware, you should preclear all new drives before use with unRAID, even spares.  Until a drive passes preclear, I don't trust it with any data.  And until a spare passes preclear, you can't really call it a spare (since you don't know if it is reliable).  I even preclear my drives for other non-unRAID systems now.

[JackBauer]

If I had to buy today, I would go with the Icy Dock MB455SPF-B (note that these units are NOT trayless, they use trays).

 

Powered mine on today - and the fan in the icy dock is pretty damn loud.

 

(Now I did have both sides of my 1200, and the other 9 drive slots completely open...)

 

Any fan noise mitigation techniques with the icy dock?

[Bags]

I just wanted to say thanks to Raj for putting together these builds. I am brand spanking new to Unraid but it appears this is just what the Doctor ordered. I have no background in computers. I have never even looked at a Linux screen. I built my rig based off raj's 5 drive budget box. I only had a few stumbling blocks but not based on his hardware advice. The Biostar mobo was DOA and would not pass POST. My IT guy suggested the Asus board (M4A78LT-M LE) but he is not wise in the ways of Unraid. I read about the onboard NIC issue and found an AIRlink NIC based on the realtek chipset for about 15 bucks. I am up and running so to speak I am bout to start the pre clear scripts and hope to moving files this weekend.

[Rajahal]

JackBauer: I recently built a 15 drive budget box with three of the 5-in-3 IcyDock cages.  They are by far the quietest units I've used.  Still not silent, of course, but quite quiet.  Any small amount of music would drown them out.  So I'm surprised to hear that you consider them to be loud.  Certainly the large hole in the front of your case will contribute to that, but even still I'm a bit surprised.

 

Some things you can try: set all the case fans on the lowest setting.  Perhaps you are hearing some noise from those fans as well.  Also, the IcyDock fans are removable.  If your case fans are good enough, you may be able to get by without using the IcyDock fans at all.  Definitely run some heat tests and keep a close eye on your drive temps if you attempt this.  Finally, it is probably possible to replace the IcyDock fans with better units, but I haven't looked into because I haven't seen a need for it.

 

Perhaps you have a defective unit with a louder-than-normal fan?

 

Bags: I'm very glad to hear my guides have helped you.  Please post pics in this thread or in the Pimp My Rig thread when you have a chance!

[JackBauer]

JackBauer: I recently built a 15 drive budget box with three of the 5-in-3 IcyDock cages.  They are by far the quietest units I've used.  Still not silent, of course, but quite quiet.  Any small amount of music would drown them out.  So I'm surprised to hear that you consider them to be loud.  Certainly the large hole in the front of your case will contribute to that, but even still I'm a bit surprised.

 

 

The fan is so loud...  it's ridiculous to me.

 

My i3 fan is so whisper quite even with my case open...  This fan is - well - not like a norco probably, but damn close.

 

I'm not pleased at all with Icy Dock because of this.  Not blaming you of course for your advice

 

But really not a quality fan in my opinion.

 

I have it in another room, with the door closed...  And with the door closed it isn't loud, but I can definitely hear it.  And every other aspect of my case is quiet...  I have just really the CPU fan, and the massive fan at the top of my 1200 case, which I could probably turn off.  The Icy Dock fan, literally is probably 20x louder than my cpu fan.  And it "whirls" at times.

 

I may remove it and turn on other case fans.

 

I'd rather not ship it back assuming it's a defective one - because that's a PIMA to do if in the end those fans are just loud and I'm sensitive to it.

 

To be fair - it has to move substantial air through a small area, plus has airflow obstructions.  So maybe it can't be helped.  So maybe I'm just over-reacting here.  But I could never run this thing in my bedroom.  That fan alone is 8-10x louder than my entire core i7 powerful desktop.  (Which is really pretty quiet because I have a silent power supply, high end cooler, and under-clock it with Asus's tools.  So my main pc, while not silent at 2 meters, is not at all distracting.

 

Thanks again though for everything.

 

I do love the IPMI of my Supermicro. 

[Rajahal]

My guess is that you have a defective fan.  Or possibly you have enough cables and such blocking airflow that the fan is louder than it needs to be.  The fans on the Icy Dock units sitting about a foot from me right now are only barely audible over the sound of my house's heater running, and remember I've got three of them running.  Each one is probably 2-3x louder than the CPU and case fans.  You may want to contact Icy Dock just to see what they say - you may be able to send back just the fan (since it is removable) and not the entire unit.  If you whine enough, they may even cross-ship you a new one.

[JackBauer]

I think I will try removing the fan and turning on the 3 case fans, plugging all other holes other than the icy dock...  Especially since they are green drives.  The only real concern will be parity checks.

 

My other fans should be nearly silent from a few meters.

 

I will say this though - it keeps the 2 hd's (in slots 1 & 2) nice and cool during a pre-clear.  23 hours in and I'm at 35C and 34C.  The ambient is probably around 60F / 16C in that room.

[sohlican]

Hi Raj, I am pretty new to this unRaid thinggie and I would like to know how the 3ware CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M connects from the HDD cage to the mainboard/Sata Card.

 

Is there a picture I can look at?

 

I found out about my question already. 

[JackBauer]

My guess is that you have a defective fan.  Or possibly you have enough cables and such blocking airflow that

 

I removed the fan - and enabled my 3 case fans (Antec 1200)

 

In a one hour copy session yesterday with both drives going, it got to about 31C.  Now I realize that is nothing like a preclear, but the temps seem fine for most reasonable loads.

 

Only 2 hd's in there now.  I'll add a 3 and generate a parity, and we'll see what my temps go to.

 

So much better now though - those fans are not uber quiet, but the noise they produce is much lower in frequency and therefore a lot less annoying....  And the sound is barely noticeable outside of the closed room - and again, what sounds is produced, is not a horrible pitch.

 

I also could close up more air entry points to force more flow through the 5in3 if needed.  (I blocked the whole front....  Air is just coming in through the PCI slots right now - that seems to be more than fine to keep the system cool.  (system temp is 26C right now in a 16C ambient)

[prostuff1]

My guess is that you have a defective fan.  Or possibly you have enough cables and such blocking airflow that

 

I removed the fan - and enabled my 3 case fans (Antec 1200)

 

In a one hour copy session yesterday with both drives going, it got to about 31C.  Now I realize that is nothing like a preclear, but the temps seem fine for most reasonable loads.

 

Only 2 hd's in there now.  I'll add a 3 and generate a parity, and we'll see what my temps go to.

 

So much better now though - those fans are not uber quiet, but the noise they produce is much lower in frequency and therefore a lot less annoying....  And the sound is barely noticeable outside of the closed room - and again, what sounds is produced, is not a horrible pitch.

 

I also could close up more air entry points to force more flow through the 5in3 if needed.  (I blocked the whole front....  Air is just coming in through the PCI slots right now - that seems to be more than fine to keep the system cool.   (system temp is 26C right now in a 16C ambient)

 

When you start the parity check I have a feeling your drive temps are going to go up.  You need to be pulling air in through the front of your case and pushing it out the back.  Get as much air flowing over the HDD area as possible.

[randywhe]

Raj, thank you so much for this guide! it was exactly what i was looking for!!!

I am a newbie to unraid & am ready to make my 1st build.

 

I am going to use my antec 900 case that currently holds my home office pc with a cheap micro atx as rock mobo etc. i am going to buy the cheap rosewill case and put that as rock mobo & components in it to use as my pc. I will use the antec 900 for unraid. Is that a good case for unraid? it is a beast with tons of fans. I will not use hot swap bays for now as i cannot justify the cost & i can easily open up the case

 

I am eager to build this as i have been looking into it for quite some time. i just bought 3 2tb green seagate hdd's for $69 ea on black friday. i have 1 other 2tb & 2 other 1.5tb hdd's that i will eventually plug in once i get all the data off them (i currently have almost 5tb of movies/tv shows on those drives in my homemade htpc in the living room that is on the same network as my office pc & soon my unraid box)

 

I would like to be expandable to at least 12 drives in the future as the 900 will hold that many drives

 

My main question is since the biostar is currently unavailable from newegg, is there another similar budget mobo that you would suggest if i was not willing to wait?

i will basically mirror all your other parts like memory, cpu, power, cards, etc.

any other input you have would be greatly appreciated

Thanks- Randy

[Rajahal]

The Antec 900 is a great case.  I haven't used the original version of it, but the 900-2 is my new favorite case to work with - well designed, and it looks great.  I'm sure the Antec 900 will serve you just fine.  By the way, I've got a surplus of the 3-in-3 drive cages (not hot swap) that come with the 900-2, in case you need one to round out your build with one more cage.  You can also buy them directly from Antec for about $30 each.  Or maybe you are looking at the Cooler Master 4-in-3s to get up to 12 drives?

 

The Antec 900/900-2 will actually hold up to 15 drives with the right drive cages.  See here for an example.

 

The ASUS M4A785-M is a great alternative to the Biostar board.  The only difference is that you'll need to use DDR2 RAM instead of DDR3.  Everything else will work.

[randywhe]

thanks. sorry for late response. i actually found the biostar board on amazon & i went ahead and splurged & got the icy dock 5 in 3 cage. ordered all other parts from amazon & newegg. i get taxed by newegg as i'm in california. thanks for all your advice through these posts...

[Plugged Up]

Raj,

 

New to the forum as I have just decided to build an unraid server.  I have been doing a lot of reading here and it seems the BIOSTAR TA785G3HD MOBO is the board of choice in the forums and Wiki.  Unfortunately I am late to this site and the BIOSTAR boards are out of stock everywhere I look.  Your mention of the ASUS M4A785-M board caught my eye because it is actually in stock.  My question is, will it work with the 5 Drive Budget Box with DDR2 RAM?

 

Here is what I am thinking:

 

5 Drive Budget Box

 

Mobo: ASUS M4A785-M      $74.99

CPU: AMD Sempron 140      $36.00

RAM: Kingston 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)  $45.00

PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 CMPSU-430CX 430W            $23.99

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 590 RC-590-KKN1-GP Black SECC / ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case  $69.99

Hot Swap Drive Bays: SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B Black 5 Bay Hot-Swapable SATA HDD Enclosure x 1    $99/99

Hard Drives: Various 2 TB Green drives

 

Cost: ~$350 + shipping + cost of hard drives

 

Would this build work with this motherboard and RAM?  The first Kingston 2GB DDR2 800 ram that comes up at Newegg is 200 pin for a mac.  I am pretty sure that is not what I need and selected the 240 pin RAM instead.  I have everything in my shopping cart and will order if it looks like this set up will work.  BTW: It looks like the Cool Master Case is in short supply. At Amazon they had one for $635.00, luckily, newegg still has them in stock...

 

 

 

 

The ASUS M4A785-M is a great alternative to the Biostar board.  The only difference is that you'll need to use DDR2 RAM instead of DDR3.  Everything else will work.