tarataqa Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 I'm a fairly huge unRAID fan in my neck of the woods. I love to proselytize about the joys of unRAID and make new converts. This is a recent upgrade to my unRAID build. After building a small HTPC back in '07 and finding it lacking(no HD audio & 1080p's would stutter in Vista MC), I moved to a Popcornhour. But then I got tired of trying to get the PCH to see all my Windows-shared harddrives in my increasingly-hot desktop. So, I took the various parts and built a test unRAID box(and grew to love it). My first build was using the cannibalized HTPC parts: old AMD 5000+ with Gigabyte board, DDR2 RAM, multi-rail Thermaltake PS. After I noticed my power supply was chugging pretty hard and needed upgrading so it didn't kill anything, I got new parts. This set-up was fairly adequate, but the new parts below were nice as an upgrade and a lower electricity bill is way better!(the old AMD would IDLE at 150w) I re-re-purposed the slower components and made a great low-class 2nd unRAID build(ya gotta support Lime Tech by buying more PRO keys!). I'll post it soon. I chose this setup since it was going to sit on a closet shelf upstairs. The Norco case seemed too big,loud,expensive. And every backplane or Icydock box I looked into was also overpriced for use in a home data server. So I ended up with this: OS at time of building: unRAID 4.7 Pro CPU: Atom 330 Motherboard: ASUS AT3IONT-I refurb/openBox ($120) RAM: Kingston ValueRAM (2 x 1GB) DDR3(PC3 8500) DualChannel Kit ($26) Case: Antec Twelve Hundred ATX Full Tower Case ($95AR) the huge fan on the top vents hot air beautifully Drive Cage(s): none added Power Supply: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ($75AR) 80Plus & Single Rail is the only way to go! SATA power cables:24inch 4pin MOLEX Male to (4) 15pin SATA II Female Power Cable (Net Jacket) SATA Expansion Card(s): Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Ports SAS ($105) Cables: 2x 3ware SAS CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M ($18x2) Fans: all fans came with Antec case. I don't use the 2 rear fans as it doesn't need 'em and having them off saves a few watts. Total cost new(w/o disks): $457 Parity Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB Data Drives: 10xSeagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB Cache Drive: cheap 160GB 7200RPM for SABnzbd/SB/CP download & repair Total Drive Capacity: 22TB total, 20TB usable Primary Use: Movies, TV, concerts, documentaries, fitness vids, mp3s, photos, Acronis backups, e-books, audiobooks, comic books, PC Apps, PC/PS3/Wii games, & general digital hoarding. Likes: Very quiet, Very low power, unRAID Dislikes: no pins on Asus board for a PC speaker; tiny Asus ATOM board only allows 12 drives max, but 20TB is alot for only 60w Add Ons Used: APCUPSd, unMenu, rsync, mail notify, monthly parity, SABnzbd, SickBeard, CouchPotato Future Plans: Web server, find a way to use unRAID as a security camera DVR. Boot (peak): 191w Idle (avg): 53w Active (avg): 99w Light use (avg): 63w Powered On: adding the drives: Not quite headless...Since I'm short on space, I use an old VGA-to-composite box(remember in 1998 when lots of gadgets were made in that aqua iMac-G3 color?) that runs off the keyboard ps2 and a refurbed 2006 Toshiba portable DVD player.: Closing comments After my HTPC woes, I was shocked that an ATOM cpu could stream full Blu-ray isos in 1080p w/DTS-HD MA simultaneously to 3 devices(maybe more). (I know, I know...the ATOM isn't doing any decoding, just passing the files to media machines, but still!) IMO, I over-bought on the full-tower case and power supply, but both had nice rebates, and I was worried about overheating(yearly closet temps range from 45F to 100F). I guess if I ever need a 20-drive monster, I'll be ready. (don't think that'll be an issue) Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 Nice build! Very impressive for under $460...watching and waiting for the right deals really can pay off. Your power usage stats are quite enviable as well. I love the idea of re-purposing the DVD player as your system console That thing is small enough that you could probably store it inside the server! By the way, I have plenty of extras of those Antec 3-in-3 drive cages, in case you need a 4th one Quote Link to comment
technojunkie Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 Future Plans: Web server, find a way to use unRAID as a security camera DVR. There are IP cameras with Samba clients that will record directly to NAS. This looks like one. Quote Link to comment
tarataqa Posted October 5, 2011 Author Share Posted October 5, 2011 I wanted to start buying 3TB Hitachis for use in my unRAID server so I asked Asus if my mobo would allow it or if the BIOS would need updating. This is their response: Dear Valued Customer, Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service. My name is Stacey and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem. Generally, the motherboard could support most devices from some famous manufacturers which are complied with the specification of the motherboard. But in actual operation, maybe there would be some compatiblity issue happen. So in theory, it will work. LOL Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Thanks, I needed a good laugh Quote Link to comment
wsume99 Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Yeah, it looks like the Chinese need to get to work an a better translator. If that person's real name is Stacey then I'm the King of Siam! Quote Link to comment
mbryanr Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 See original text below. Translated to: You can do whatever makes you happy. Have no clue whether this works or not, actually I have no idea what you just said. Stacey told me she had a brother who once worked on a toaster that could play 8-tracks. Good luck with your nonsense. Go Yankees. Quote Link to comment
tarataqa Posted October 20, 2011 Author Share Posted October 20, 2011 Dear Valued Customer, Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service. My name is Stacey and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem. Generally, the motherboard could support most devices from some famous manufacturers which are complied with the specification of the motherboard. But in actual operation, maybe there would be some compatiblity issue happen. So in theory, it will work. Well Stacey was right, the 3TB Hitachis work fine with my Asus Atom board. But there seems to be a problem with the 3TB as parity and 5.0beta12a in my box. I had upgraded to 12a in prep for the new drives and everything worked fine using Asus with old 2TB Seagates and WDs. After clearing the new 3TB disks, I added two of them to the array (1 parity and 1 data). After the parity check completed, I started copying files from an old 2TB to the new 3TB using Midnight Commander. The system froze.(I've never seen that before) After some troubleshooting, I found that everything works normally as long as the 3TB parity disk was removed from the array. Once added in, reading is fine, but copying with CLI or MC will freeze the system. I tried beta11 and everything works again with all drives present. Quote Link to comment
Johnm Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 There are some issues with the saslp-mv8 running 12a in some builds. It is possible you are a victim of that issue. check the 12a thread for more issues. Quote Link to comment
guiri Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 I wanted to start buying 3TB Hitachis for use in my unRAID server so I asked Asus if my mobo would allow it or if the BIOS would need updating. This is their response: Dear Valued Customer, Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service. My name is Stacey and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem. Generally, the motherboard could support most devices from some famous manufacturers which are complied with the specification of the motherboard. But in actual operation, maybe there would be some compatiblity issue happen. So in theory, it will work. LOL Ooo, sounds like Stacey should be in politics Personally, I have a $600 graphics card and an Asus netbook and I think their support sucks Quote Link to comment
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