need help deciding on parts

[fotd]

So I think I'm ready to take the plunge into starting an unraid server.  I recently purchased 4 750GB drives for my amd/nvidia 590 board and realized the raid chipset not only stops at 2tb, will only let you use the overage instead of up to 2tb.  So I was a little disappointed.  I don't really want to spend $400+ on a raid card and still worry about its reliability. 

 

What I'd like to do is use an existing amd 2400xp machine I already have as an unraid box.  But unfortunately it doesn't have SATA ports.  I was thinking about buying the Supermicro 8 port pci-x card and using that in a pci slot http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009.  That's assuming that the card would work in my existing gibabyte motherbaord in a 2.2 pci slot and it's compatible with Unraid http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1691.  I also have a 1gb d-link pci card in a pci slot for network.

 

So my questions are.

1. will my above setup work, pci-x->pci and dlink 1gb

 

2. will I have decent performance?  This box will primarily be used to serve HD wmv, mkv's, and store my music library.  In most cases it would be through a vista box with WMP11 to a xbox 360.  An htpc is in the future but i'm not really concerned with writing to the unraid box with live tv or anything.  At that point I can either upgrade or just setup batch jobs to copy the files to unraid.

 

3. if the above won't work, what would you suggest?  I'm not looking to spend to much on the system, at some point it becomes easier for me just to do software raid in 2k3 like I do on the AMD xp2400 box now.  I'd be looking for something with 5-6 sata ports, I'd be starting with 5-6 drives and wouldn't want to also have to buy a card right off the bat.  It seems it's mostly nvidia boards that come with 6 sata ports, so any issues there? i.e. the system board i would probably use is my current msi590 http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1028&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=171&cat3_no=351 and upgrade my main pc.

 

4.overall will the sharing from unraid->vista->360 work for 1080p quality HD content (whether higher end system or not)?

[SSD]

You should search for this particular MB to ensure compatibility, but I think you will find it will work. It does not appear to have an ethernet chip on-board, so you'd have to add.

 

I know that the SM SATA board will work - I have this card in my box and it is fine.

 

I know that you own this stuff and assuming all is compatible, you should be pretty happy.

 

But if you are buying new, I'd do some research.

 

unRAID really stresses your bus capaciity.  The newer PCI-E bus is much faster to allow your drives to operate in parallel at a higher speed.  On-board SATA controllers are high-throughput.  You should be able to find MBs with 6 or even 8 PCI-E attached SATA ports on the motherboard.

 

There have been many threads with people posting experiences and advice on motherboards in the MOTHERBOARDS section of the forum.  Suggest you do some searching there.

 

 

[fotd]

Thanks for the info bjp999.  Ya  I have been looking around the forums and searching, unfortanatley it seems the highest recommended boards are mostly discontinued.  For your SM 8port card do you run it on the pci or pci-e?  I'm worried about slow performance with both the dlink and sata card on just pci. 

 

I'm thinking I should just buy something new, my dilema is the 2400xp is my wife's pc, if I wipe that out I need to upgrade our living room laptop so she can combine her 2 computers into one.  I have to buy a new laptop within the next 6 months or so.  The expense of buying a new laptop and a new unraid box at the same time is pretty high, but in the long run I guess I'll have to do it anyways.

[SSD]

I have that same kind of setup now, and am in the process of upgrading to a P5B VM D0 MB I bought on closeout.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure why I am doing it.  Performance rebuilding parity sucks, but besides that my throughput is great.  I have that SM SATA card running with 6 drives on the PCI (not PCI-X) bus.

[Guest Sparkie]

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DSR3 is a fantastic board.

[fotd]

Here's what I ended up with.  I think I stayed pretty cheap. Let me know if you see any issues.  I took a risk on the motherboard with the LAN, but I do have a spare d-link 530t GB card that I can use if there's an issue.

 

Case -> COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP-> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119115 $39.99

PS -> Athena Power AP-P4ATX48F ATX12V Ver.2.2 480W Power Supply-> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817338007 $25.99

Memory -> A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory-> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066 $42.99

2 Case Fans -> Thermaltake A2029 120mm Case Fan - Retail-> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999145 $21.98

MB -> ECS A740GM-M AM2+/AM2 AMD 740G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135076 $109.98 (combo with proc)

Proc -> AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane 2.3GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor-> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103213

 

Grand total $281.58 with shipping.  Will also have 20-30 in MIR's

[SSD]

You're an excellent shopper!  Looks like a good system at a good price.  Hope it proves fully compatible for you.

 

You might wish you had a bit beefier PSU, depending on how many drives you plan to use.  I have a 550, and am hitting almost that much on system power up with 13 drives installed. 480 may max you out at 9-10 drives.

[fotd]

lol thanks.  Ya I went real cheap on the power supply, I'm thinking the 4 750's will last me at least 6-12 months or so and then I can always addon 1-2 at a time (the beauty of unraid!!!!).  If I decide to go over 7-8 drives I'll probably upgrade the power supply, and possibly buy another case and do sata backplanes.  I figure until then I'll keep it as cheap as possible (without going to cheap that I'll be screwed later on).  The sad thing is I spent 1200 for basically this same system a little over a year ago .  But then I also got the $300 video card and $100 power supply, etc.

 

Thanks again for the help.  Hopefully I can post with a successful install in a couple days =)

[RobJ]

I am somewhat concerned about your motherboard choice, with its AMD SB700 'southbridge' chipset.  Patches in support of the SB700 are just being added to the kernel, and it is iffy if they have made the latest kernel in the new 4.3 betas, not much chance of them being in the release versions of 4.2.  I could certainly be wrong, perhaps someone else has tried a similar board, and can give more accurate info.  It is possible though that you may have to wait for the next kernel (in a 4.4 release) for full support.

 

May I respectfully say that it is not always wise to buy the very newest products, until you have heard good reports about them.  I recommend checking the forums and the wiki hardware compatibility page, although the wiki is not as complete as it should be.  I'm as guilty as anyone at not contributing more to the wiki lists.

 

I would be wary of buying a new board on Newegg, when it does not have a single review yet.  But you have not spent much on this board, and it is always helpful to the rest of us for someone to be the first to test a product.  I hope I am wrong, and you find it a very good performing bargain.

 

If you don't mind another comment, I would recommend a better quality power supply.  Two names (but same hardware) known for high quality and low prices are Sparkle and Fortron (FSP Group).  The Athena's don't seem to review well, and I don't recall ever seeing them mentioned among quality PSU's.  I suspect a Fortron 400 would produce more power at full load than the Athena 480.  I think many build-it-yourself'ers would agree that you will save yourself some grief by spending a little more on the PSU.

 

[fotd]

Thanks for the input.  For the motherboard, actually from the reviews and specs on that board, it seemed like the company was more trying to pass off an old board that just accepted the newer procs, i.e. the fact it only supports ddr800.  So I really wasn't worried about stuff like that, except for the NIC which the spare I have has been reported here to work (d-link 530t).  Luckily if I do have issues with it, I have a 1.5 year old MSI board that hopefully will work ok (k9n diamond-590sli).  I actually did look around quite a bit at motherboards, the main issue being I wanted at least 6 sata ports, most of the reviewed boards are either discontinued or have 2-4 sata ports (I expect to cap out around 6 drives).  I was either go all out and just build myself a new system and retire my 4600x2 system or go as cheap as possible with either my exiting xp2400 (which would have cost me at least $100 just to get going) or buy something new.  I didn't want to go to cheap with a celeron or a single core, because of a. if dual proc is enabled in the future and b. If I want to do something else with the system along with unraid.  Hopefully I'm lucky and it works, and everyone else has a cheap board they can use  .

 

For the power supply, ya I know I went way cheap, but honestly I'm a little tired of buying expensive ps's.  I'm personally not to concerned with it because I've seen $100+ power supplies fry boards just as many times as $30 ones.  Also since I'm not running a 8800 on the thing my 12v should be pretty good.  Then you toss in the trying to find a PS with a 12v over 18A and under $120 nowadays, i just said screw it.  I've got a decent PS in my xp2400 (think it's a 550 enermax on antec can't remember but it is 2.2 at least).  When I retire that or if I have an issue I can always pull it. 

 

I'm hoping it all works out ok, but I guess I'm mostly aware of my possible problems and have some sort of workaround ready for them.  pfft I just realized i need a new thumbdrive .  I though I had one but can't find it, although i do have a 1gb shuffle that was given to me and I have absolutely no use for.  Maybe I'll give that a try.  Hopefully I can report back with a positive result in a couple days.  Then I"m sure I'll have a ton of questions .

 

[fotd]

FYI my 1GB ipod shuffle booted unraid without an issue but unfortunately it doesn't have a SN.  I'll never find a use for this thing  :'(.

[fotd]

FYI my 1GB ipod shuffle booted unraid without an issue but unfortunately it doesn't have a SN.  I'll never find a use for this thing  :'(.

 

Ooops turns out that's wrong a 1gb ipod shuffle does have a SN/GUID.  Found that out after getting a 1gb sony that acted the same way, then finding my 1gb kingston data traveller II didn't work either.  Turns out my powered USB hub doesn't pass the SN for the device.  All of my pc's are in the basement and I have powered usb hubs around the house where the monitors are.  When I was 1st screwing around with the shuffle I didn't feel like walking up and down the stairs while playing with it.  Unraid boots fine from the hub, just doesn't give a GUID under devices.  I also found the detected device isn't necissarily the boot device.  When booting from the sony (with both the kingston and sony plugged in), Unraid was detecting the kingston as the device. 

 

 

Although I doubt it would be common for someone to run into my problem I figured I'd post the stuff I learned for search purposes.

 

USB drives boot without issue and have a unique GUID:

1GB IPOD Shuffle

1GB Kingston Data Traveller II

1GB SONY MicroVault (USM1GJ/P full size) -9.99 target

 

MSI k9n motherboard 590 SLI, MCP55 - appears to work great, boots fine, network works, detects drives on sata/sata raid/ide - couldn't test performance

USB hubs (at least my powered one) don't pass the Flash GUID to Unraid

Unraid 4.3.4 (only version tested) can incorrectly show other USB flash drives connected instead of actual boot drive under devices.

 

Now all I have to do is wait until tuesday for the hw to get here 

 

***Forgot to mention my gateway m265 laptop also appears to work =)