Bizarro Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 Hi guys, Looking at jumping on the UnRAID bandwagon, seems to suit me better overall than going down the FreeNAS path, as I need to run the Plex media center on it. Other attractive features are the ability to mix drive sizes and add more drives easily. What do you think of this build? I currently run a MacBook Pro with around 10GB of Firewire800 drives attached (all in RAID1), which is set up as a Plex Media server and shares via ethernet to a Mac mini under my TV. It's like a disco in my room at night so I am try to condense it all into a nice server box I can bundle under the staircase or somewhere. I'm torn 2 ways, one part of me just wants to build a beastly hackintosh as a Mac Pro costs too much, and the other part of me wants to keep my laptop and use this UnRAID setup. OS: Will purchase unRAID 4.7 Pro CPU: Intel Core i7 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (compatible?) - picked for its 10 SATA ports, can all 10 be used with UnRAID? RAM: 2 GB or 4GB Case: iCute S901-5G1-BB - has 9 5.25" bays Drive Cage(s): Norco SS-500 5-in-3 cages (x2 or x3) Power Supply: What wattage is needed for 10 or 15 WD Greenpower 2TB drives? SATA Expansion Card(s): Looking at the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8, PCI-Express x1 Controller Card (Silicon Image SIL3132), are these any good? Fans: All stock fans I'd consider a Core i5 or Core 2 duo setup if significantly cheaper than the i7 etc. If I dump UnRAID and rebuild it as a Hackintosh then having the i7 and ability to run a beastly video card is advantageous. Final desired drive setup: Parity Drive: 2 TB WD Black Edition Data Drives: 2 TB WD Greenpower EARS (x13) Cache Drive: 2 TB WD Black Edition Total Drive Capacity: 26TB of usable storage Primary Use: Data storage, media streaming to HTPC and other computers Likes: Very quiet, runs cool, low power usage I hope Future Plans: Install AFP, set up Time Machine, set up some sort of backups to the mac, install Bonjour Link to comment
Rajahal Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 An i7 is complete and utter overkill for unRAID. Most of us use cheap single cores, Atoms, or at best an i3. I would recommend against using an expensive processor in a file server. i3 is the highest I would go. See my prototype builds thread (link in my sig) for some motherboard recommendations. See the PSU thread for more detailed power supply recommendations. And yes, those SATA expansion cards are fine. I recommend using green drives for parity, data, and cache. In my opinion, the extra heat, wasted power, and added expense of black drives are not worth the 5 - 10 mb/s write speed boost you might see. Link to comment
vca Posted July 18, 2011 Share Posted July 18, 2011 An i7 would be overkill for unRAID, but some people go with bigger processors to support extra processing tasks - so you might need it for the Plex media center? As for the power supply, if you stick with green drives then a 400-600W supply will be fine provided that it is a "single 12 volt rail" design. Corsair makes a lot of these. If you do go with the Gigabyte MB you should check to make sure its magic "backup the BIOS to the hard disk" feature (often referred to as the Gigabyte HPA) is disabled (if it has such a feature). This causes people grief because it will reprogram one of your drives to be a slightly different size. Search for gigabyte HPA for more details. This page has a collection of links (under the HPA title) that talk about the issue: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Topical_Index Both the SATA expansion cards work well with unRAID. Regards, Stephen Link to comment
Bizarro Posted July 18, 2011 Author Share Posted July 18, 2011 Cheers guys The Plex media centre will use the CPU in the NAS to transcode media on the fly for low-powered devices such as iPads, Apple TV etc. Currently the Core 2 Duo in my laptop does this reasonably well. What is the price difference between a Core 2 Duo build vs an i7 build? Good tip with the HPA issue, has anyone had any experience with this model of Gigabyte board? If I went for a basic Core 2 Duo board and used expansion cards to gain SATA slots, what would be a cheap and suitable board? Cheers Link to comment
PeterB Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 No video??? As far as I'm concerned, my i3-530 configuration already has too much processing power for supporting unRAID with Squeezeboxserver and Dovecot running on it. You really do not want the power draw of an i7 (plus additional graphics card?). You don't state which Core 2 Duo your laptop is equipped with, but even the i3-530 is likely to be more powerful. I have two Core 2 Duo systems here, and the i3-530 outperforms them by a substantial margin. If you truly think that you need more power, then look to a socket 1155 i3 (or 1156 i5?) configuration. Whatever you do, I would recommend that you go for on-board video support. Are you going to include more than 14 drives from day one? Consider starting with a single SATA card (or no expansion card), then add interfaces as you need them. You indicate that your goal is for a 15 drive system - that is the same as my intention .... I will need to add one two port SATA interface to my current setup in order to achieve that. What would I change from my current setup if I was starting again from scratch - nothing .... except that I might consider spending more on the mobo, and going for a Supermicro (true server-class?) board, and using a second generation i3 cpu. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my Intel board. Link to comment
Bizarro Posted July 19, 2011 Author Share Posted July 19, 2011 I haven't picked a video card yet, was just going to get a little cheapie one or even temporarily borrow one from work. I think the power bill with an i7 might be a bit much, might save the i7 for the hackintosh and just do a separate build. That way the power-hungry beast can be powered off when not in use. Initially I'll have about 6-8 2TB drives and slowly grow from there. I have enough drives in the house to totally populate the device, but that would leave me with no backups What is a good (but affordable) board for an i3, with a decent number of SATA ports and onboard video? Are the Supermicro ones substantially more? Link to comment
PeterB Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 What is a good (but affordable) board for an i3, with a decent number of SATA ports and onboard video? Well, I think that I was hinting that something similar to my configuration would fit the bill - see my signature. Newegg list the DH55TC at USD95. Link to comment
Bizarro Posted July 19, 2011 Author Share Posted July 19, 2011 Nice one Peter, that looks like a great board!! Thanks for the tip Perfect as it removes the need to buy a separate Intel NIC and video card, and has 6 SATA sockets etc. Plus it is from the manufacturer of the CPU itself http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboards/DH55TC/DH55TC-overview.htm Link to comment
PeterB Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Plus it is from the manufacturer of the CPU itself Well, as I see it, Intel probably produce these boards as 'reference' designs. They don't have all the 'bells and whistles' that other manufacturers my include in their products, but I believe that it is a good, solid, design - just what I need for a system which is going to run 24/7 and has to be reliable. Link to comment
Bizarro Posted July 19, 2011 Author Share Posted July 19, 2011 Is there anything cheaper than the Seasonic that have similar features? $189 is pretty steep for a power supply (or is it?). Don't care if it is modular, but good power efficiency and a variable speed fan are very desirable. Link to comment
PeterB Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Is there anything cheaper than the Seasonic that have similar features? $189 is pretty steep for a power supply (or is it?). A Rolls-Royce doesn't come cheap! Actually, Seasonic are an OEM for other well regarded brands. Compare features, and I think you will find a direct equivalent to the Seasonic X series. Don't care if it is modular, but good power efficiency and a variable speed fan are very desirable. The real beauty of the Seasonic is that the fan is not just variable, but it doesn't actually turn on until the power drawn reaches 20% of capacity ... in an unRAID system that is likely to be the case for all except parity check/build operations. I do know that I cannot hear anything from my unRAID server until I get within three feet, and then it's a mixture of case fan and disk drive noise. I wonder whether this will change when my 5 in 3 cages arrive! Link to comment
AlphaBravo Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 I recommend using green drives for parity, data, and cache. In my opinion, the extra heat, wasted power, and added expense of black drives are not worth the 5 - 10 mb/s write speed boost you might see. I picked a WD raid edition for my parity drive. Not so much because of the speed (although preclearing was about 30% faster than the greens), but because the parity disk is the one disk that gets a write operation for every write to any of the other disks. I've seen a few too many of the greens go foul prematurely (out of the 8 EADS' I originally bought, 3 have had to be replaced within 2 years and one more would've now, if it were still in warranty). I've also decided I won't upgrade to 3TB disks until some form of enterprise class drive is available to use as parity I do agree anything other than Green is overkill for cache though. @Bizarro: It looks like you're aiming for something similar to what I've built myself. Maybe my UCD post will give you some useful pointers: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=13898.0 Link to comment
Rajahal Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 I picked a WD raid edition for my parity drive.... If you aren't using a cache drive and if you write to your array a LOT (nearly constantly), then this makes sense. However, most of us use our unRAID servers in a WORM (write once, read many) type of role. In this case, a faster and more robust parity drive really makes no difference. In a WORM role, the parity drive is actually the least used disk in the array since it is not needed for reads. Bizarro: The new Corsair TX650 V2 has a variable fan speed (though it never completely shuts off). It is a very high quality PSU and reasonably priced. I recommend it. While I do love Seasonic PSUs as well, I would only buy one if I found it on sale, they are just too expensive normally. Link to comment
Bizarro Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 Cheers guys, the Corsair looks good enough for my needs. Apparently an i3 CPU to suit that board is hard to come by, is this true? Which i3 should I be looking for to suit the board? Link to comment
Johnm Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Any I3 Clarkdale or 1156. like this http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Processor-3-06GHz-LGA1156-BX80616I3540/dp/B0031M9QZ4/ref=sr_1_2 you can also use a faster or slower I3. Link to comment
Bizarro Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 So any i3 will fit? Awesome The "previous generation" part on the Intel site was what threw me. Link to comment
PeterB Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 So any i3 will fit? NO! Any LGA1156 i3 will fit - that's an i3 which has the description 'Socket LGA1156' on the packaging. For example, an i3-530, i3-540, i3-550. Definitely NOT an i3-2xxx. Link to comment
Bizarro Posted July 25, 2011 Author Share Posted July 25, 2011 Good to know! OK I've ordered CPU, motherboard and RAM, just need power supply, Norco SS-500's, thumbdrive and a few other bits as I save up! Can't wait to power it on! Link to comment
Bizarro Posted August 7, 2011 Author Share Posted August 7, 2011 OK it's up and running! Installed UnMenu straight up, assigned a static IP and set up a DNS entry "NAS" on the local DNS server here. What speed does it usually build the initial parity at? As it is sitting at 726kB/sec? I'm using a 2TB Caviar Black for the parity, and 2 greenpower drives for the storage for my initial setup. Link to comment
Bizarro Posted August 7, 2011 Author Share Posted August 7, 2011 Ahh it has decided to speed up now, let her rip! Total Size 1,953,514,552 KB Current 27,892,384 (1.4%) Speed 58,530 KB/sec Finish 548.3 minutes Sync Errors 0 (corrected) Link to comment
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