First Build Review

[mullencm]

Perspective Build

CPU AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - C3 Revision HDZ555WFGMBOX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846

 

MB BIOSTAR A880G+ AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138283

 

PSU CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026

 

CASE AZZA Helios 910 Black Japanese SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517007

 

DRIVE RACK NORCO SS-500 5 Bay SATA / SAS Hot Swap Rack Module

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133030

 

RAM 2X - Kingston ValueRAM 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) KVR1333D3N9/2G

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134812

 

UPS APC BE450G 450 VA 257 Watts UPS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101349

 

Su-total $438.92

 

Important Question - What do you think? Will it run?

 

Less important - Do I need that UPS if my power blips are few and far between, is UNraid tolerant of mid-write or recovery power failures?

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It is a bit of an overkill to for a home server but it may be repurposed in the future and I don't mind paying a bit more for expandability. I have read a ton of info on both the wiki and in the forums, I am incredible impressed by the level of community involvement and support, it is the chief reason why I started down the unRAID road.

 

This will be my first build of any kind. I plan on transitioning from my Drobo FW800 that is used as as primary storage for basically every thing (family photos, movies, music, data backup). I stream and share via the mac mini (snow leopard server) that it is USB'ed into. It has worked well until the 4th (of 4 bays) was filled and 2 drives have died in 3 months (wd 2tb) and the mediocre performance went to bad (<20MB/s). I do make semi-regular backups to a external USB drives also.

 

I hope (but am sightly unclear on this) to make one big share that is spread over all the drives and share that (looks like ver 5  will go stable soon with AFS for time machine) and use that and either re-share via the mac mini or just connect directly.

 

Anyway...Thanks

 

 

 

[mbryanr]

 

UPS APC BE450G 450 VA 257 Watts UPS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101349

 

 

 

Less Very important - Do I need that UPS if my power blips are few and far between, is UNraid tolerant of mid-write or recovery power failures?

---

 

It is a bit of an overkill to for a home server...

I hope (but am sightly unclear on this) to make one big share

You know the CPU is slight overkill for unRAID, single core processors like the Sempron 145 have more than enough...but if you decide to transcode video, photo processing, or unrar then the extra power is needed.

 

You can create multiple "user shares" which will accomplish what you want.

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Configuration_Tutorial#Create_User_Shares

 

 

While tolerant, losing power to the server can do many bad things. It also protects against voltage fluctuations and resulting possible motherboard failures.  Any time a write is made, and you lose power...bad things can happen - potentially red balling a drive.  Better to be safe than sorry.

 

Depending on how many drives you plan to use, the UPS selected may be undersized.  The UPS must be able to handle the peak load when all drives spin up prior to shutdown.

Example:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=14546.msg137199#msg137199

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101311

 

 

INFO on UPS Selection:

 

One issue we face is that in a power-down situation we MUST be able to size the UPS for the peak demand of the server when initially spinning up all its drives at the same time.

 

To shut down the server, all the disks must be cleanly un-mounted. That requires spinning them all up.  The UPS must be able to handle the peak load of initially spinning the all drives up, all at the same time, not just the average load with them all spinning.

 

I have a APC Back-UPS 750VA UPS on my older unRAID server.  It is barely able to handle spinning up the 14 disks mounted in it. (all older non-green disks) It "beeps" telling me it is overloaded for a second or two if I loose power.   It is only able to provide an estimated 7 minutes of run-time.  It is "rated" at a nominal load of 450 Watts and with all its disks spinning during a parity check it is at 53% of its capacity.

 

Joe L.

You can go with one of these estimators...

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6695.msg64801#msg64801

 

(Also read that thread for approximate sizing and estimated time based on watts. )

or the APC configurator

http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm

 

Note:  Only 4 SATA ports on the A880G+ so you'll have to buy the PCIe card sooner.

Edit:  Also the Helios 900 pulls in a lot of air with the side fan..which means dust.

http://www.demcifilter.com/

I ended up getting a custom dust filter, but I saw another build where they removed the fan.

[Rajahal]

You can also just leave the side fan unplugged.  It is not needed to keep the server cool.

 

The Biostar A880G+ is a good choice for a server 12 drives or smaller.

 

All of mbryanr's advice is solid, so I won't repeat that.

 

There are a few cheaper places to get some of the components that you want.  Check my prototypes build thread for links to the best source for each component.

[mullencm]

thanks, this community kicks ass.