I've also just started twiddling my way into Arduino's and am thinking of the possiblities.. there is so much you can do with an Arduino.

 

Although TBH I'm always looking for any excuse to build another PC/server 

I'm going to convert from my antec twelve hundred to a norco 4224. I have 10 drives in 2 5-in-3 chassis, and decided that if I intend to buy 2 more 5-in-3s it would be more cost effective to sell my chassis and buy a norco.

 

And as much as I want to be content with my hardware, the prospect of swapping motherboards and running an esxi build is very tempting. I can't wait for P+Q parity and hopefully a drive limit increase. All of this virtualization has be just begging to be able to build a second chassis with sas expanders and go to 40+ drives. Not that I need the space yet, but the concept is just mouth-watering.

Just ordered a norco 4224 and a pair of the recommended Arctic 80mm fans. I've tried to justify the cost of the Antec 1200 and the 3x5 bays but in the end the 4224 is the most cost effective purchase. With drive prices up the Norco will allow me to add all my junk drives I have lying around. Hopefully prices on drives will drop and v5 will get released. 

 

I got my server moved and in it's new home.  Will have to get all my "ducks in a row" and get a proper UCD post put up between Christmas and New Year.

I got my server moved and in it's new home.  Will have to get all my "ducks in a row" and get a proper UCD post put up between Christmas and New Year.

 

Looking forward to it... I may do the same too. I'm almost done building mine out totally... and then I'm going to start swapping it out for more modern motherboard for ESXi support. (I'm never done!).

putting everything in a case

 

Pic1: NZXT case with a 2 drives esata enclosure in the front and a lian-li 4 in 3 in the back

 

Pic2: Behind the nzxt is a second 4in3 laying there ... both 4 in 3 connected to the br10

 

Pic3: the second powersupply that is powering the 8 drives and 2 fans of the external enclosures

 

All this will be going into a Icute Super 18 when they are back available ... went to the it mall last Saturday but they were not in stock due to the flooding

would like to power everything with a corsair enthousiast 850w v2

 

Christmas vacation work is setup... if the end of the year bonus is big enough then i might change the systemboard and processor to something more powerfull as plex craps sometimes out when i am doing too much at the same time

 

Edit : Resized pictures

 

Just bought a few 3 to 4 cages for the existing box to utilize several smaller (500gb and 1tb) drives that weren't being used.  I was not going to use them considering how quickly they've been filling up, but I can 't stomach paying the current prices for new 2TB drives. 

 

Hoping that the 3TB's come back down now that a stable 5.0 is on the horizon.

With the norco assembled my attention is fixed on virtualizing some systems. Tying my hand at virtualbox but that is going slow. I picked up a M1015 of the bay. Now I have another pcie card to work into my system.

 

I'm thinking my next move is a supermicro mb, e3 and ram. I'm looking at consolidating my xp and win7 box, unRaid and possibly creating some additional vms for messin around. I have 3 different hbas to add on the mb.

With the norco assembled my attention is fixed on virtualizing some systems. Tying my hand at virtualbox but that is going slow. I picked up a M1015 of the bay. Now I have another pcie card to work into my system.

 

I'm thinking my next move is a supermicro mb, e3 and ram. I'm looking at consolidating my xp and win7 box, unRaid and possibly creating some additional vms for messin around. I have 3 different hbas to add on the mb.

 

I'd love to go down this road but it appears that unRAID via VM/ESXi is still a lot of headaches. Good luck with it, there are a few clever chaps on these forums that have working setups and are posting results/logs/tips/walkthroughs etc. Might consider making a test server for this but the essential data can stay where it is 

I'd love to go down this road but it appears that unRAID via VM/ESXi is still a lot of headaches. Good luck with it, there are a few clever chaps on these forums that have working setups and are posting results/logs/tips/walkthroughs etc. Might consider making a test server for this but the essential data can stay where it is 

so long as the hardware is supported by ESXi and unRAID there is no real problems.  the SASLP works in ESXi with a slight hack/work around.

 

By far the best route is a board and processor that supports VT-d so that complete hardware passthrough can be done.  The RDM of a whole unRAID array would be a complete pain in the arse I think, especially once you get about about 5 disks.

well, need to get my datastores setup correctly...been running my VMs off a single 200Gb drive for the move to ESXi from VMWare Server...need to put my 2x500Gb Blacks in and move the VMs across.

Then install my new 5-in-3 hotswap bay

then rewire the whole server.

 

I also have a M1015 to play with.

I'd love to go down this road but it appears that unRAID via VM/ESXi is still a lot of headaches. Good luck with it, there are a few clever chaps on these forums that have working setups and are posting results/logs/tips/walkthroughs etc. Might consider making a test server for this but the essential data can stay where it is 

 

I just completed vmware training. I'm in lots of trouble of I can't handle some basic guest. The hardest part is unRaid and the group here seems to have it down. Based on what I've experienced the beta is the biggest unknown.