Hi all,

 

I'm looking at building a rig and have read the forums and the articles about compatibility. If someone can have a look over the parts I'm planning on using and me know if there is anything I should change before I go and buy the parts or anything I need to know with the parts I have chosen, I would really appreciate it.

 

I'm don't really want to spend too much on the rig around $600AUD is my target.

 

I am planning on having 6 x 2TB drives in the configuration and a smaller cache drive. Initially I will start out with 2 x 2TB drives and the cache drive.

 

There are a few addons that I want to run, AirVideo, iStat, there were a couple more but I forget the names :\

 

Parts are as follows.

 

Intel i3 540 socket 1155 Pin

Gigabyte GA-H67MA-D2HB3 - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3770#sp

Corsair 4GB 1333

2 x Seagate 2TB SATA3 5900RPM

Antec EarthWatts 500W - http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NjU=

Netgear GA311

 

I'll be using my old Thermaltake Xaser III case for the build.

 

Again any help you guys can provide would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom.

A couple of comments:

The motherboard is Socket 1155, the i3-540 is socket 1156 - they won't work together.  If you want to stick with that motherboard, you'll need an i3-21xx cpu.

 

That psu has two 12V rails - not ideal for unRAID, but probably okay if you limit yourself to six green drives.  Much better, if you can, to select a psu with single 12V rail.  There are plenty of recommendations on this forum - mainly for Corsair products.

 

I'm pleased to see that you've selected a Netgear GA311, rather than use the on-board Realtek.  However, that card is a legacy PCI card it won't fit in the PCI-e slots on that motherboard.

 

Finally, I would urge caution.  I'm not sure how many people have managed to get unRAID running on a socket 1155 system.  I think that I've read of more than one person having problems.

 

I think that you need to do a lot more research before you settle on your configuration.

As Peter mentioned - there are problems with unRaid recognizing the controllers for the onboard SATA ports on some 1155 boards.

Lot more research needed on these. I would stick with a safer 1156 based board.

 

Shawn

 

Interesting board.

 

I was looking for a cheap 1155 microATX/mITX  with built in video, Sata 6G, 16-32 gigs of ram, and an intel NIC for a proprietary app.

that board meets most of the criteria. I see it is an Australia only board. Now i need to find the US version.

 

So far i have only found a $300 supermicro board, I'm trying to keep this build under $400 not counting chassis/PS.

 

 

Take a look at Raj's recommended builds. see what he has listed and work from there. Also take a look in the motherboards section to see what other people are using or know dont work.

Thanks guys for your comments, I will have to go back over the parts and post a different configuration. I want to get this right the first time

 

Tom.

Ok so I went away and had a think about the feedback (thank you) and a look around the forums and have put together a configuration I think will work. Again I'm going to be using this for media storage, to stream to various devices, AirVideo, Sickbeard and the like.

 

The only part I have not decided on is the RAM, if someone can suggest a type that would be most beneficial for my build that would be great as well.

 

AMD Phenom II X2 555 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846&cm_re=phenom_ii_x2_555-_-19-103-846-_-Product

ASUS M4A87TD-USB3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131651&Tpk=ASUS%20M4A87TD-USB3

4GB RAM

3 x Seagate 2TB SATA3 5900RPM

Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030

Netgear GA311

 

Hopefully this configuration is an improvement on my previous one

 

Thanks again.

 

Tom.

That seems a bit overpowered for unRAID, especially just 7 drives.  If you were going for a 20 drive build it would make more sense.  Still, it should all work.

 

You could use a dual core Athlon CPU instead of a Phenom and save some money and power usage...

 

I also doubt you'll need the Netgear PCI NIC, the onboard NIC on the Asus board should work fine.

 

For RAM, this should work (I have a bit of brand loyalty with Kingston, I really like their budget RAM).

None of this stuff is particularly RAM intensive. You could get a couple of 2x2GB Kingston sticks and that be fine. I wouldn't spend money on anything fancy. You can go to the Asus site and see what memory is certified/tested for that mobo if you want as well.

 

I checked on the asus site - that onboard NIC uses the Realtek 8111E chipset, a bunch of us have been been having problems with the 8111c/d/e, so the extra NIC is a good idea. Just remember to disable the onboard one so unRaid doesn't use it first.

 

Otherwise, build looks good.

 

Shawn

Well it looks like I'm going to go ahead with the second configuration + some Kingston ram. I wont leave it with 7 drives eventually I will need to expand so I should have the power to do that in the future.

 

Thanks so much for your help guys.

 

Tom.