First Ever build UK based

[acebass007]

Hi all.

 

I am hoping to build an unraid server mainly for backing up all my music and old dvd's and blu rays as I no longer have any physical space left in the house.

 

I want to be able to access my media from two rooms in the house over a wired home network. I have come up with a short list I do know its a bit on the pricy side, but I do want reliability, speed and noise levels kept to a minimum.

 

My short list does not include any drives at the moment but they will all be 3TB Wester Digital Green drives, also would it be possible to attach a bluray drive so I can rip sraight to the server? or would I need to do that on another PC. I am trying read up all I can about building a raid so please excuse the ignorance

 

Here is my short List: (thanks)

 

Corsair Professional Series AX1200 High Performance 1200W Modular '80 Plus

Gold' Power Supply (CMPSU-1200AXUK)  £234.98 

 

Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM  £215.99

 

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card  £154.99

 

Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred (V3 with USB3.0) Ultimate Gaming Case - Black  £149.99

 

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard  £149.99

 

Kingston HyperX Genesis 24GB (6x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (KHX1600C9D3K6/24GX)  £139.99

 

[Johnm]

Here is my short List: (thanks)

 

Corsair Professional Series AX1200 High Performance 1200W Modular '80 Plus

Gold' Power Supply (CMPSU-1200AXUK)  £234.98  

 

Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM  £215.99

 

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card  £154.99

 

Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred (V3 with USB3.0) Ultimate Gaming Case - Black  £149.99

 

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard  £149.99

 

Kingston HyperX Genesis 24GB (6x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (KHX1600C9D3K6/24GX)  £139.99

 

WHOA!

 

Ok, your specs are that of a massive gaming PC or bluray encoding PC, not for a storage server.

 

unraid will never see or use a fraction of that machine.

An I3 would be better and 4gigs of ram (maybe 8gigs with a 20 drive array and cache_dirs add-on)

 

also, since unraid is a console based OS, the cheapest video card you can find will work.

 

to answer your question. you will not be able to use the unraid server to rip the blurays.

There might be handbrake or similar app for unraid. but i would keep it workstation sided.

[tritron]

Fir st of all I would thing about power usage. You will be wasting lots of power and lots of cpu cycles. For case it makes lots of sense to get norco case. I will get one soon. You will get 20 hot swapable drives If you plan on storing rips of blu rays than you will need more and more space. Buying regular case and then adding hot swapable bays it pure waste on money.  If you want to just store files using unraid than I will get low power cpu and lots of memory. I would get raid controler cards seems that people recomend raid controler card s made by ibm. Now if you have other servers that you want to move to that box then llok for motherboard that supports iommu and esxi.

 

[acebass007]

Hi ok, I will look into a more sensible solution and post my proposed system, I dd hear about the Norco case but I havent done much homework on it, I will do now.

 

I do not have other servers, and yes you are right i will alway have films and music, its a never ending story... so far I have about 600-700 films to back up  :'(

 

Would I still need raid controller cards if the mother board has 8 sata ports? Im confused now

 

lets clarify, I want reliability because after backing up 700 films I dont think I would like to do that again, then it has to be fast within reason when transfering data from another pc over a wired network, and finally have the capability to grow as my media collection expands.

 

It terms of CPU cycles are you saying that i7 consumes more power than say an i3?

[neilt0]

If you're spending that much money, put it in to the case, not the CPU/mobo.

 

Assuming you want expandibility, get this case: http://www.xcase.co.uk/24-bay-Hotswap-rackmount-chassis-norco-RPC-4224-p/case-xcase-rm424.htm

 

How many drives do you want to use (including those in future)?

 

I'm in the UK, so when you have re-assessed, I'd be happy to help further.

[acebass007]

Hi Neilt0,

 

Just been looking at this case, on a usability and future proofing point it fits the bill not sure if the other half will approve, I will not be rack mounting it I'll to check if there is a non rack version available, either way I will have to do my best to convince her.

 

I future the system will just have to grow as a go along  but in the immediate nearby future I will most likely start with 10TB unless unraid supports the 3TB drive then 20TB

 

I'm checking out some sites as i type and will get back soon.

[Johnm]

As of right now,

 

there is Beta Support for 3T Drives in 5.0-beta8 or later.

That is, if you are willing to run beta versions for now, 3TB drives are supported.

 

As far as the "other half", if you decide against the Rack mount unit, x-case does sell 5-in-3 drive cages.

you could get 20 swapable drives  into the antec 1200 or similar case using 5in3 cages. while it costs a few $ more, it might be easier to get the other half approval.

Many people prefer the tower with swapable bays over the rackmount style.

 

 

[neilt0]

In hindsight, even though I wouldn't rackmount it, I'd still get that case.

 

I'd LackRack it (with some serious reinforcement): http://wiki.eth-0.nl/index.php/LackRack

 

Or mount it sideways, or on top of a cupboard with the lip hanging over the front.

[acebass007]

Ok looks like the norco case is a definite no no, so i'm more or less decided on the Antec 1200.

 

I'm having problems trying to spec a system without hard drives for less then £700 in the UK, i've checked overlocker & overclockers and no joy.

 

 

[neilt0]

Ok looks like the norco case is a definite no no, so i'm more or less decided on the Antec 1200.

 

I'm having problems trying to spec a system without hard drives for less then £700 in the UK, i've checked overlocker & overclockers and no joy.

 

 

 

Antec case £120

mobo/cpu/RAM £200 (ish)

4x 5in3 http://www.xcase.co.uk/hotswap-stoarge-kit-p/hddkit-xx-500.htm = £240

 

Total: £560

 

Did I miss anything?

 

Or, if you want do it on the cheap, without hotswap bays, see my sig.

[acebass007]

Hi there case and cages are fine but I cannot seem to find a MB/CPU/Ram for £200 also will need t good PSU

[neilt0]

Hi there case and cages are fine but I cannot seem to find a MB/CPU/Ram for £200 also will need t good PSU

 

Scan prices:

 

I haven't looked in to whether this mobo is any good/current/compatible with unRAID, but you can do your research on that. I'd go for whatever the latest i3 CPU is and whatever is the best value/quality mobo you can get that has at least 6 SATA ports.

 

i3 540 £76

MSI H55M-E23 Intel H55 £50

KVR1066D3N7/4G £16.68 (Crescent Elec. price)

Corsair TX 850 V2 £85 (dabs price)

Antec case £120

4x 5in3 http://www.xcase.co.uk/hotswap-stoarge-kit-p/hddkit-xx-500.htm = £240

 

TOTAL: £588

[Johnm]

Are you going to buy all of your Hard drives at once?

 

It sounded like you are going to get 5-8 drives now.

If so, you can skip on buying some or all of the drive cages until you need them.

you can use the built in cages for now. those should do just fine.

If I am not mistaken, you can mount 9 hard drives in a 1200v3 before you need to get any additional mounting brackets.

 

If you go that route, that should give you a bit of upfront cash for a "20 drive ready" motherboard, CPU, RAM and a PSU. those are more important then drive cages in my opinion.

while pullout bays are nice to have. they are also just a luxury and only "needed" to get the server to 20 drives once you run out of room to install drives in the provided drive bays.

 

that should give you few months (weeks? days? lol) to save up for the drive bays and additional hard drives.

 

I have built many "budget minded' systems using old recycled cases from my junk pile or from a cheap case from stores clearance section knowing i would have to transfer everything to a new case or pullouts in the future. My first unraid server was a silent yet cheap $20 throw away desktop case and 1 5in3 (that i already had) to net me 9 drives until a bigger case was in my budget.

 

 

Edit:

the MSI H55M-E23 is probably not a good recomendation for Ace,

It is limited to a 16 drive build using PCIe and onboard headers. It also uses the famous realtek 8111e Network card.

 

[acebass007]

Hi,

 

I will not be buying all the drives at one i already have about 5 WD green drives 2TB each, so yes I could skip the drive cages for now and maybe in a couple of months I could add them as and when needed.

 

Neilt0 Thanks for the spec, i'm a bit confused regarding what Johnm said about the PCIe and on board headers you've totally lost me and the realtek 8111e network card.

 

I think I need to do some more homework its becoming scary at the moment

 

Found this looks good I think and it doesn't use that Realtek 811e network card

 

Intel i3 2120 3.3GHz CPU,

Asus P8Z68-V PRO Motherboard,

Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600MHz,

Corsair TX 950W Ultra Quiet PSU SLI & Crossfire Ready Power Supply - CMPSU-950TXUK

Antec 1200 case:

 

Total Price :  £604.80