hi all im looking for some advice before i purchase my license.

 

im looking at creating a server using unraid that will store all my media and serve it to my HTPCs around the house that run XBMC.

 

I'm looking at choosing Unraid for the fact it supports SMB, its easy to upgrade the array without losing data, and the support.

 

I currently have a main PC that i use for all my data storage and torrenting etc that currently serves the other HTPCS around the house (currently serving 3 HTPCs running XBMC + 3 PS3s thru PS3media server)

 

I am planning on building this server with new hardware and slowly migrate my current HDDS to the unraid server.

 

here is what i have planned for purchase:

 

CPU: AMD SEMPRON 140 2.7Ghz 1meg CACHE AM3 RETAIL BOX $39AU

RAM: KING-MAX TINY BGA 2Gig DDR3-1333Mhz (PC3-10600) $29AU (will 2gb be enough or should i just get 4gb?)

MOBO: ASUS M4A78LT-M-LE AMD 760G Intergrated Video DVI Dual DDR3 1800Mhz (OC) 8Channel HDAudio $55AU

 

so for the price of basically a 2tb HDD i will have my fileserver main hardware apart from case and psu, i plan on building a custom case in my garage with custom HDD racks.

 

Q1: what is needed in terms of power for a server like this? i plan on starting out with 6 2tb drives (maxing out the onboard sata connections)

 

but planning to upgrade to an optimal 20 drives over the coming year or so.

 

will there be any issues with a standard PSU starting up 6 drives at once?

 

Q2: Once i get the server setup with 3 drives to startup can i then transfer data from my current PC to the Unraid server with no problems? do i just transfer it thru windows networking? also once i've transfered the data across can i then power down the unraid server and add the drives that i just transfered the data from? if that makes any sense lol

 

Q3: I plan on keeping my current torrent setup on my main windows PC as is but just direct utorrent to the unraid server as the download directory, will this be an issue?

 

Thats about all i can think of for now, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Edit: thought of another one.

 

in reference to the free version v paid version with users. what does this mean?

 

if i have the free version i can't share any files from the server? i dont quite understand the users section.

hi all im looking for some advice before i purchase my license.

 

here is what i have planned for purchase:

 

CPU: AMD SEMPRON 140 2.7Ghz 1meg CACHE AM3 RETAIL BOX $39AU

RAM: KING-MAX TINY BGA 2Gig DDR3-1333Mhz (PC3-10600) $29AU (will 2gb be enough or should i just get 4gb?)

MOBO: ASUS M4A78LT-M-LE AMD 760G Intergrated Video DVI Dual DDR3 1800Mhz (OC) 8Channel HDAudio $55AU

 

2GB is plenty, but the last time I updated my system I got 4GB because it was about the same price as 2GB...

 

The M4A78LT-M-LE is a potential issue, see this thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11014.0 you may have to install a separate NIC card.  It's possible that drivers for this NIC have been added in a later unRAID version, but I don't know.

 

ASUS also makes the M4A78L-M which uses a Realtek Gigabit NIC and which works well with unRAID (this is what I am using), in Canada there was about a $5 price difference between the two.

 

 

Q1: what is needed in terms of power for a server like this? i plan on starting out with 6 2tb drives (maxing out the onboard sata connections)

 

but planning to upgrade to an optimal 20 drives over the coming year or so.

 

will there be any issues with a standard PSU starting up 6 drives at once?

 

 

Get a power supply that has a SINGLE RAIL 12 volt design, most of the ones from Corsair do.  Their 430W model will run a system with 10 green drives nicely (http://www.corsair.com/power-supplies/non-modular-psus/builder-series/builder-series-cx430.html this has a 28A 12V rail), their 500W to 600W units should take you to the 20 drive range (the http://www.corsair.com/power-supplies/non-modular-psus/builder-series/builder-series-cx600.html has a 40A 12V rail).  If you are using conventional 7200 RPM drives you may need more.  The issue is not really the amount of power the drives draw while running but their peak 12V current requirements, these are specified as 1.75A for the Western Digital green drives, so 20 of them might need 35A of current for brief times when all drives are in use (like when starting up your system or when all the drives spin up from standby at the start of a parity check). 

 

 

Q2: Once i get the server setup with 3 drives to startup can i then transfer data from my current PC to the Unraid server with no problems? do i just transfer it thru windows networking?

 

Yes, that's the simplest way.

 

also once i've transfered the data across can i then power down the unraid server and add the drives that i just transfered the data from? if that makes any sense lol

 

You can, but since your drives are going to be NTFS formatted and unRAID only uses ReiserFS for drives that are in its array you cannot add them directly to the array.  What you can do is connect them to the motherboard but leave them outside of the array, they you need to use the Linux command line to mount them and then copy their contents over to the regular array.  Really not worth the bother.

 

Q3: I plan on keeping my current torrent setup on my main windows PC as is but just direct utorrent to the unraid server as the download directory, will this be an issue?

 

I seem to recall some people reporting performance problems when doing that.

 

in reference to the free version v paid version with users. what does this mean?

 

if i have the free version i can't share any files from the server? i dont quite understand the users section.

 

The users feature allows you to set up different users (like wife, kid1, kid2...) who can then be given access to different directories.  It also allows you to grant write access separately - for example I don't let the kids have write access to the family photo album, that way they can't delete things by accident.

 

You'll need the paid version anyway just for the drives.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

 

You might want to check  little more before buying that "AMD SEMPRON 140 2.7Ghz"

 

You said you were going to use PS3media server. I am not sure if that CPU will have enough horsepower to transcode 1080P files on the the fly. especially if you have more then one ps3 watching video at once.

you might want to do some research on that before you invest in a CPU.

 

As far as the XBMC clients, it is more then fine.

yeah most of the main video watching will be done with xbmc the ps3s that are setup around the house only use ps3mediaserver every now and again and the main one which gets used for video watching in our bedroom is only used by my missus to watch simpsons and daria etc which are all only small files so never any issues there.

 

thanks for the info about the mobo i will have a look at another option.

also one last question, if i use the free version to start with and go with using all 3 drives without the parity drive can i just add a parity drive later on once i purchase?

also one last question, if i use the free version to start with and go with using all 3 drives without the parity drive can i just add a parity drive later on once i purchase?

 

The Basic version (free) allows 2 data drives plus parity.  You cannot use it for 3 data drives without parity as far as I can tell.

 

As and when you do update to a paid version, you only need to add the license key file to your USB stick - you will then be able to expand your existing set up.

You might want to check  little more before buying that "AMD SEMPRON 140 2.7Ghz"

 

You said you were going to use PS3media server. I am not sure if that CPU will have enough horsepower to transcode 1080P files on the the fly. especially if you have more then one ps3 watching video at once.

you might want to do some research on that before you invest in a CPU.

 

As far as the XBMC clients, it is more then fine.

 

I agree, the Sempron 140 is lacking for PS3MS.  Get a dual core CPU.

also once i've transfered the data across can i then power down the unraid server and add the drives that i just transfered the data from? if that makes any sense lol

 

Yes. Unraid will clear and format them before they can be used in the array

You might want to check  little more before buying that "AMD SEMPRON 140 2.7Ghz"

 

You said you were going to use PS3media server. I am not sure if that CPU will have enough horsepower to transcode 1080P files on the the fly. especially if you have more then one ps3 watching video at once.

you might want to do some research on that before you invest in a CPU.

 

As far as the XBMC clients, it is more then fine.

 

I agree, the Sempron 140 is lacking for PS3MS.  Get a dual core CPU.

 

I dont see this as being a problem if my mediaservers are running XBMC as wont XBMC just use the CPU from that computer, not the fileservers computer?

 

also dont people run unraid fine on old socket A durons etc lol

Yes xbmc is very light. I run it on an atom from an atom server that's not the question. It was already answered.

 

You said part of your requirements was to run ps3m server for 3 ps3's. That is what we flagged as an issue with that CPU.

 

That's a Very heavy CPU intensive application.

 

Last time I ran ps3m with full HD, I needed a quad core on a desktop to not cripple the desktop.  Or a high end dualcore (E8500ish or newer) on a server to not get stuttering and dropouts. A P4 just failed... This was just for one ps3....

 

So to answer the question again. The build is fine for every thing you required except ps3media server will most likely fail. Possibly even locking up the sever while the process is running.

 

 

I found that uploading my data was more efficient using FTP. The only problem was the permissions set at the end of the transfer were not allowing me access to those files. I just ran the new permissions script under utilities to rectify that issue. I found FTP transfers to be 15% more efficient than the smb transfers. It makes a huge difference when transferring >1tb of files

I found that uploading my data was more efficient using FTP. The only problem was the permissions set at the end of the transfer were not allowing me access to those files. I just ran the new permissions script under utilities to rectify that issue. I found FTP transfers to be 15% more efficient than the smb transfers. It makes a huge difference when transferring >1tb of files

 

Try NFS and then you won't have to worry about permissions.

Yes xbmc is very light. I run it on an atom from an atom server that's not the question. It was already answered.

 

You said part of your requirements was to run ps3m server for 3 ps3's. That is what we flagged as an issue with that CPU.

 

That's a Very heavy CPU intensive application.

 

Last time I ran ps3m with full HD, I needed a quad core on a desktop to not cripple the desktop.  Or a high end dualcore (E8500ish or newer) on a server to not get stuttering and dropouts. A P4 just failed... This was just for one ps3....

 

So to answer the question again. The build is fine for every thing you required except ps3media server will most likely fail. Possibly even locking up the sever while the process is running.

 

 

 

ok thanks for the info, i will just make sure the ps3media server is running off my main PC.