Can i reuse my existing hardware to run Unraid?

[waterfallbay]

Hi, I have an unused PC that i wish to convert into a NAS running Unraid. I am completely new to the DIY NAS area and is wondering if Unraid can fully support my existing motherboard and CPU, which they are:

Gigabyte Aorus Z590 Master
Intel Core i7 10700 
2 x 32GB DDR4 RAM

Can Unraid recognize all the chips on the motherboard? including the onboard graphic, NIC and SATA controller?

Also, I planned to run it with a 8 bay case and create a 8TB x 8 RAID 5 configuration. However the motherboard only have 6 SATA port. Is it possible for me to use an SATA expansion card to acheive what I want to do?

Thanks in advance and i wish you all have a great day.

[apandey]

The great thing is that unraid boots from a usb and then runs fully from RAM, so it is fairly trivial to create an unraid usb and boot it on your hardware. You can then see what the system detects. Unless you explicitly format drives, simply booting will not touch any existing data on the drives in your system, so it's fairly safe to confirm hardware compatibility 

 

Based on the spec you posted,  I think it should run fine

Edited May 9, 2023 by apandey

[apandey]

18 minutes ago, waterfallbay said:

Also, I planned to run it with a 8 bay case and create a 8TB x 8 RAID 5 configuration. However the motherboard only have 6 SATA port. Is it possible for me to use an SATA expansion card to acheive what I want to do?

You should understand that unraid array is not RAID, but rather a JBOD optionally protected by parity drives

 

As for adding sata ports, the recommended solution would be add a pcie HBA (I have 16 drives running off LSI HBA and remaining 8 running off motherboard sata ports myself). Beware of simple sata port multipliers as they kill the bandwidth and may not be stable enough

Edited May 9, 2023 by apandey

[XiLENE1337]

On the last weekend I did exactly that. I scalvaged all parts from my Gaming Desktop PC to build an Unraid Server. 

All I had to buy was a new mainboard, because I wanted a mini-itx sized case (Node 304). 

So no problem. Unraid is Linux based, so it will work fine with your Hardware.

 

Regarding the SATA Ports - I'm in the same boat. My mini-itx mainboard only has 4 SATA Ports, so I bought a LSI HBA Card (Don't buy a SATA Expansion Card!!) from eBay which was already flashed into IT Mode. If you plan to do it, just be sure that in the BIOS of your Mainboard you change your PCI Slot where you will install the card to "Legacy" (or whatever your manufacturer calls it). I spent hours figuring out why my card was not recognized

 

Other than that, just try Unraid out. The great thing is, that you have 1 month trial and actually just fire a USB Stick into your PC and Unraid will boot - no installation process.

[waterfallbay]

On 5/9/2023 at 10:02 PM, apandey said:

You should understand that unraid array is not RAID, but rather a JBOD optionally protected by parity drives

 

As for adding sata ports, the recommended solution would be add a pcie HBA (I have 16 drives running off LSI HBA and remaining 8 running off motherboard sata ports myself). Beware of simple sata port multipliers as they kill the bandwidth and may not be stable enough

Hi apandey,

 

For HBA card is there any specific card that have a better support in Unraid? Or I can just pick anyone available in Amazon?

 

Thanks.

[waterfallbay]

On 5/10/2023 at 2:03 AM, XiLENE1337 said:

On the last weekend I did exactly that. I scalvaged all parts from my Gaming Desktop PC to build an Unraid Server. 

All I had to buy was a new mainboard, because I wanted a mini-itx sized case (Node 304). 

So no problem. Unraid is Linux based, so it will work fine with your Hardware.

 

Regarding the SATA Ports - I'm in the same boat. My mini-itx mainboard only has 4 SATA Ports, so I bought a LSI HBA Card (Don't buy a SATA Expansion Card!!) from eBay which was already flashed into IT Mode. If you plan to do it, just be sure that in the BIOS of your Mainboard you change your PCI Slot where you will install the card to "Legacy" (or whatever your manufacturer calls it). I spent hours figuring out why my card was not recognized

 

Other than that, just try Unraid out. The great thing is, that you have 1 month trial and actually just fire a USB Stick into your PC and Unraid will boot - no installation process.

 

Hi Xilene,

 

May i know why you have to flashed the LSI HBA card into IT mode?

 

Cheers.

 

[itimpi]

15 minutes ago, waterfallbay said:

May i know why you have to flashed the LSI HBA card into IT mode?

If the card is NOT flashed into IT mode then it functions in RAID mode which stops Unraid managing it effectively.

[apandey]

20 minutes ago, waterfallbay said:

For HBA card is there any specific card that have a better support in Unraid? 

Generally, LSI cards are well supported. There is a list and some recommendations here: https://wiki.unraid.net/Hardware_Compatibility#PCI_SATA_Controllers

There is also a thread here to talk about more recent updates to the list 

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by apandey

[XiLENE1337]

3 hours ago, waterfallbay said:

 

Hi Xilene,

 

May i know why you have to flashed the LSI HBA card into IT mode?

 

Cheers.

 

It's exactly what itimpi said! Without flashing to IT mode the LSI HBA will not work with unraid because of the Cards RAID. On eBay you will find cards already pre flashed to IT mode, worked well for me and costed only 70€. I'm in Germany and the cards here were a little more expensive than in other countries but it works so nice, that i now don't even use my mainboards sata ports.