New unraid with i3-2100t and SUPERMICRO X9SCM-F

[olssy]

I'm about to  upgarde my unraid server and before buying the components I'ld like to see if anyone has any suggestions or sees any problems with my build. Money is a relative concern but seeing how I am building this for work I'm not going for the least expensive components. Here is my list:

 

Case: Fractal Design Define Mini 100$CAN

Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O 205$CAN

CPU: Intel Core i3 2100T Dual Core Hyperthreading Processor LGA1155 2.5GHZ Sandy Bridge 3MB 140$CAN

Memory: Micron 128MX8 DDR2 SDRAM PLASTIC FBGA 1.8V 8GB 92$US + Duties

                OR

                Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Server Memory Model CT2KIT51272BA1339 80$CAN

                OR

                Kingston ValueRAM KVR1333D3E9S/4G 4GB 1X4GB DDR3-1333 ECC 240PIN CL9 W/ Thermal Sensor Memory 80$CAN

PSU: Seasonic X-460FL ATX 12V 24PIN 460W Active PFC 80PLUS Gold Fanless Power Supply 150$CAN

          OR

          SeaSonic X series SS-400FL Active PFC F3 400W ATX12V Fanless 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply 120$CAN

Drive Cage(optional): ICY DOCK MB453SPF-B 3 in 2 SATA I, II & III Hot-Swap Internal Backplane Raid Cage Module 105$CAN

 

Which give me prices between approximately 550$ and 800$. I will start by using my 3 old hard drives and will upgrade to WD Green drives or the equivalent when needed.

 

I chose the memory based on these forums and also the Supermicro web site though it seems like the Kingston or Crucial will work as well as the certified Micron. If no one has any feedback I'll probably go for the Kingston as it has the thermal sensor(got a feeling this is a gimmick).

 

For the power supply, I'ld really like something fanless as I hate fan noise. I'm not planning on having more than 6 low power drives in the server so doews anyone think the 400W is not enough and I should invest in the 460W?

 

Do I really need a drive cage? I've read through the forums and understand why I don't "need" one but that it will be very practical. I still haven't made up my mind about it so if anyone wants to share their opinion here it will probably make me decide 

 

I'm confident the case is what I want, I gave into the good looks of the Fractal Design cases Same for the motherboard, it seems ideal except the lack of USB3, but it's a NAS server so I doubt I'ld use external drives ever(especially not with the drive cage)

 

Only thing missing is the CPU heatsink/fan, anyone think I can pull off a passive cooling solution for this CPU? It's only a max TDP of 35 watts... I'm guessing I will need some kind of fan just to move the air a bit... Also, the reason for me wanting this CPU is that the server will also be hosting Plex and most probably Squeezebox on it and I don't know about squeezebox but I do know Plex needs to transcode all video it seends and that's pretty CPU intensive.

 

Thanks to anyone who reads this and special thanks to anyone who has anything to say about the build.

 

 

[dstroot]

for the price of a drive cage you can buy a spare drive in case of failure, or just more capacity.  I think drive cages are overrated.  Having said that - the first unraid I built I used drive cages because I thought they were cool.  Don't need a cage if you only swap a drive once or twice a year is what I discovered - oh and extra problems with the cages due to more points of failure.  The fans in my cages started dying. 

[Johnm]

I see no issues with that combo.

 

I'd go with the kingston ram.

 

That mobo needs an EPS+12V PSU (both seasonic's have that)

 

drive cage is optional. they provide easy removal and added cooling.

 

just keep an eye on the temps on any drive you shove in the top bays.

[olssy]

Well I listened to both your advice and went for the Kingston memory and no hard drive cage. Got everything up and running pretty fast as I had already pre-cleared my drive and installed the Plex add-on(took me a while to realize AFP needed to be enabled for Bonjour to start broadcasting...)

 

I got to say the Fractal Design case looks great and the whole machine is inaudible with cool temps, hard drives around 30degrees and CPU was in the mid 30s last time I checked. I wonder if I can't run this passively cooled with no fans at all...

 

My one disappointment is the network speed, before I built this server I tried UnRaid out on my desktop with the same hard drive and got close to 80MBs and now, with my new build, I'm "only" getting 40MBs. I've benchmarked the disk on the UnRaid server and it can get over 130MBs internally. I'll play around with it this weekend and try to see what is limiting my speed. Not a big deal in any case as apart from photos it won't need to much bandwidth.

[Johnm]

Glad you got it up and running..

 

as far as the network speed. I am sure it is not the intel card on the mobo. did you have a parity drive on your beta build.

 

a drop from 80 to 50-30 would be expected if that is the case.. test transfers to a cache drive if you have one.

 

also did you switch from SMB to AFP?

 

im sure there is an explanation for that.

[olssy]

No parity drive yet and have tried using a cache drive but didn't see any real improvement in speed... I'll try changing network cables and things like that to see if it helps a bit, I can also try my second LAN port as it doesn't use the same intel controller(52874L and 82579). I'd really like to figure out how to test the maximum network speed between the machines without using any disks, I thought of maybe doing an ssh file transfer with dd supplying the data from the UnRaid box to see what kinds of speeds I'm getting. Or maybe I should boot to a live CD and see what kinds of transfer rates I get with it, that would possibly confirm if it is a network issue... Thanks again for the help.

[chickensoup]

Pics or it didn't happen 

 

After all, this is "unRAID Compulsive Design"

[Blofeld]

Pics or it didn't happen 

 

After all, this is "unRAID Compulsive Design"

I second that! 

[olssy]

Ok, here goes, I only took these quickly with a small point and shoot, maybe later I'll get more artsy and take out my DSLR and a nice prime lens

 

 

As for my networking issues, they have gotten better and worse! I tried setting the MTU of one of my windows machine to 9000k and I got a burst of 130MBs!!! then it stabalized at around 100MBs. I was so happy that I changed all the MTU settings of my machines to 9000 but Ubuntu clients weren't seeing much of an improvement, maybe 25% better. So I messed around with a few settings, buffer sizes, window size and alot of wierd stuff. Well, now my Ubuntu clients aren't any better and my Windows client is only getting 80MBs but the worst of it is I am now getting dropped RX packets on my UnRaid server... All of this is my fault of course, gonna be a great learning experience to fix it now

 

Now, the one thing that would make my machine even cooler is an Icy Dock cage in front, just for the aesthetics

[Johnm]

Just out of curiosity, is that CPU cooler sucking or blowing?

hot air should be moving upwards for convection and escape. I cant tell from the photo.

[olssy]

Hmmm, good question about the cooler! The fan spins so slowly I can't tell without removing it but my suspicion is I put it on backwards! I'm gonna need to fix that the next time I shut it down. Thanks for noticing that!

[chickensoup]

Looks good

 

At a guess I'd say your CPU fan is blowing down through the heatsink but double check it.

You want the air moving towards the top of the case, doesn't really matter which side of the heatsink it is mounted on though.