Hello everyone! So I have been flirting with building a file server for quite some time. I was going to go the traditional route of raid5 or similar until I stumbled upon unRAID during my research. Im really excited about being able to use parts i already have rather than building from new, since I have tons of old parts sitting in my basement waiting for resurection. I spent all day yesterday looking through the forums and the wiki and am really impressed by what I have seen. I was hoping that i could list some of what i plan to use and see if anyone has any pointers or has had any issues with anything i plan to use. Since this will be my first build, I would like it to go as smooth as possible. I'm planning on using my newest set of old parts but have several other cpu/mobo/ram setups i could use if needed.

 

Mobo: ASUS M2N-SLI

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz

Ram: OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

HDD: 3x Seagate 1.5TB (yes, the ones everyone fears)

        Hitachi 750GB (cache drive?)

 

Stuff i will order

Case: Antec 300 (love these cases, already have 2)

PSU: Not sure yet on this, may have a usable 600W in pile of parts

HDD: 2x WD 2TB EARS

SATA Controller: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (read good things about this here)

 

Now for some questions.

This motherboard/cpu/ram setup was from my 3 generations ago desktop, and if i remember correctly, 2 of the 4 SATA ports on motherboard had gone bad. Should I use this motherboard and use only the Supermicro card with the ability to add another once i expand past 8 drives? Or should I find a different motherboard to use? This motherboard does not have on board video, which is another possible reason i may scrap it for another. Since the AMD sockets are backwards compatible, finding one for this AM2 CPU shouldn't be a problem. When I do the initial install, does there need to be a monitor on this machine? Or should I be able to connect to it right away? The 3 Seagate drives are full of data and currently are in my desktop as my storage drives. My thinking is that i can first build with the two 2TB drives and then copy one 1.5TB drive at a time and then add that drive and move to the next. Will this be the easiest way? Or can i add the 1.5TB drives right away and just leave the current data on the drives. I would kind of like to run the preclear on them since they are all atleast 2 years old and I have no idea what condition the drives are in as far as coruption, etc.

 

I probobly posted this all in the wrong place, but I didnt see a newcomers forum or similar. I apologize if this is the case. Look forward to any help you guys can provide.

 

Thanks!

Nah your in the right place however I would probably shy away from anything that has a few bad ports simply because it limits your ability to expand and if they went bad whats to think the others don't go bad while in service and cause you headaches later.

Onboard video is a plus. Otherwise, you'll need a cheap PCI video card.

 

You will need a keyboard and monitor to initially configure BIOS. Once its up and running it can be headless.

 

UnRAID will want to clear and format any drives you give it unless they are pre-cleared. The only way to preserve existing data is via copying.

Thanks for the replys guys. Im really looking forward to this. Will probobly order what i need on Monday.

 

I actually remembered that I have another AM2 motherboard laying around that I can use which i know is in good working condition. Only has 4x SATA ports though.

 

So im not sure I have any PCI video cards laying around, but i know for sure i have a PCIe card. Once i get it up and running with the Supermicro card in the second slot, can I disable all boot alarms and pull the PCIe video card? I realize that once i add a second SATA controller to that slot i will be without means for video unless i find a PCI video card, but i would really like to not have a GPU in there if i can avoid it.

 

 

Some motherboards, if not most, will not post without an active video source. You can still run "headless" in that you have nothing plugged into it, but the BIOS still needs to detect a valid GPU output. I would really caution running without a video source, if you do inded get it running. If you ever had an issue where you could not get to the web page or telnet in, you would have no way of trouble shooting via a local session and might not be able to power down cleanly.

 

I would get it up and running if you need to with the PCI-E video and just look around on say Ebay or Newegg for cheap cheap PCI video and swap them when it arrives. You be a lot safer that way I think.

 

Shawn

 

Hello again. I just wanted to update this by first thanking everyone who contributes to this forum and the wiki.

 

I ended up ordering everything i needed on Monday and it all arrived yesterday. Everything is up and running with three 2TB WDEARS drives running preclear as we speak.

 

I wanted to make sure I got the system up and configured properly before going too far into the build since this was my first time using unRAID. I ordered only one of the Norco SS-500 5in3 cages but will order a second along with the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 sometime next week. I also grabbed a cheap PCI video card for ~$15 which worked great. Only other difference in above parts is the case. The Antec 300 would only support one 5in3 cage so i swapped that for a 900 (kind of an antec fanboy when it comes to cases).

 

Only issue i had during the setup was i started with the 5.0 beta and had some issues installing screen and others using unmenu. I switched to 4.7 and got everything going without any issues. The config tutorial posted in the wiki is amazing and I would like to thank everyone who may have contributed to it, i followed it step by step up to where I am now.

 

Again, thanks to all the members of these forums and everyone who contributes that made this as smooth as it could possibly be. Now I just can't wait for these preclears to be done so I can keep going. Thanks guys!

 

Edit: Forgot something. When i checked the preclear this morning (roughly 11 hours into it), 2 of the 3 EARS drives were about 10% further than the last. Is that an issue? I started all 3 within 30 sec of each other, so i just want to be sure. Also, the drive temps were all around 35C, with one being at 36C. Highest I saw was when i first started the preclear yesterday and it was still pretty warm outside, one got up to 39C. From what i have read on these forums, those temps are well under where i should get concerned, correct?

Edit: Forgot something. When i checked the preclear this morning (roughly 11 hours into it), 2 of the 3 EARS drives were about 10% further than the last. Is that an issue? I started all 3 within 30 sec of each other, so i just want to be sure. Also, the drive temps were all around 35C, with one being at 36C. Highest I saw was when i first started the preclear yesterday and it was still pretty warm outside, one got up to 39C. From what i have read on these forums, those temps are well under where i should get concerned, correct?

 

In my experience a drift of 10% or so in progress with preclear is nothing to worry about.  It can be influenced by the drives, the SATA controllers. the CPU, etc.

 

Temperatures are OK.  Preclearing is a sustained workout in that there is a lot of data transfer and intermittent bursts of rapid seeking activity.  You will generally experience lower temperatures in normal use.

Agreed, nothing to worry about.  I even had one really extreme case - one time a preclear on a 2 TB WD EARS drive took about 60 hours whereas all the other identical drives took around 34 hours.  I was ready to RMA the slow drive when I figured it would preclear it again just in case.  I did, and the second pass took the standard 34 hours.  I did some further testing with the drive (transferring files, etc.) and it behaved completely normally.  Nothing odd in SMART either.  I ended up using it and haven't had any troubles with it since.  This type of thing is pretty uncommon, but it does happen.

Thats kind of what i figured, but i thought i'd ask the pro's to be sure.

 

Here's another question: If a drive fails, does it have to be replaced with a drive of matching size? Or can it be big enough to hold the data that existed on the failed drive. Example: If i have a 2TB drive which is using 1TB of its available space, it fails, can i use a 1.5TB drive as a replacement? I ask this because im leaning toward sticking with the 2TB green drives and just preclearing and using the 1.5TB Seagates i already have as spares or in other machines for storage. I like the idea of keeping with the green drives but want to know if i can use one of these in an emergency.

A replacement drive has to be as large or larger than the drive it is replacing.  So to replace a 2 TB drive, you would need another 2 TB drive (or larger, as soon as unRAID can support GPT partitions) no matter how much free space is on the failed drive.  The reason is that the data rebuild operates at the level of 1s and 0s, and it doesn't matter if a drive contains all 1s, all 0s, or a combination thereof...the rebuild works the same way in all cases.

 

Unfortunately your proposal won't work as you've laid it out.  What you could do is assign one of the 1.5 TB drives as a cache drive and then manually copy the data off a failed drive and onto the 1.5 TB drive while you wait for a replacement to arrive in the mail.

Man, look at that response time.

 

I'm fairly indecisive, so i'll prolly go back and forth on this for a few weeks before i make a firm decision anyway.

 

Thanks for the quick reply's!