I've been taking a crash course on unRaid so that I can migrate from my WHS. I discovered that my existing hardware doesn't play nicely with unraid (specifically my Gigabyte MB), so I've ordered a few parts to upgrade. Most of the replacement parts I found on the Greenleaf-Technology site (thanks Raj!). I would appreciate any feedback on things that I might have missed or that have historically not worked well together.

 

Case - Norco 4020

Motherboard -  ECS A885GM-A2 (V1.1)

Processor - AMD Sempron 145 Sargas 2.8GHz

Parity Drive - HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000

Hard Drives -  I have various other drives including Western Digital (EARS, EADS, and an EACS) Green Drives and some Samsung drives

RAM - 2 x Crucial 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 1333

PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W (I believe this is a single rail supply)

Expansion Cards - SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8

Flash Drive - Lexar JumpDrive FireFly 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive  (Probably should have ordered a spare of these)

 

Did I overlook anything here? I build a computer maybe once every 5 years, and I've never used unRaid so I'm a little concerned I may have overlooked something.

 

Thanks!

 

I'm glad you found my prototype blog helpful!  My only suggestion is to use the Norco 4220 instead of the 4020.  The difference is in the SATA connections - the 4020 has 20 individual SATA connections, which is a cabling nightmare.  The 4220 has 5 miniSAS connections, each of which connects 4 drives (one per backplane).  If you go with the 4220, you will also be able to connect directly to the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8's miniSAS ports.  If you went with the 4020, you would either have to use forward breakout cables from the SASLP, or go with the older SAT-MV8 which has direct SATA connections, but is a slower card.

 

I assume you've been following my 20 Drive Budget Build (rackmount) design, which is good.  Just doubling the 2 GB RAM sticks I recommend is fine, but you might also be able to find a single 4 GB RAM stick for a bit cheaper.  The 850W PSU is appropriate if you plan to use mostly 7200 RPM drives.  Otherwise, the 650W PSU I recommend is sufficient.  16 GB is a bit overkill on the flash drive, but no big deal.  You also don't mention any of the cables you would need, but I list them all in the link above.  If you care about the noise level of the server, then I highly recommend the fanplate + fan upgrade as well, as the stock fans in the Norco units are pretty loud.  If you are on a tight budget, you can get away with just replacing the rear 80mm fans, as they are the loudest of the bunch.

 

Good luck with your build, and have fun!

Thanks, Raj!

 

I'm actually reusing my 4020 case and power supply, so I'm stuck with those components. I didn't, however, catch on to the difference in the expansion cards. Looks like I'll have to look into which cables I need to make that work. I'm glad you mentioned it. Hopefully I can get them ordered today. And saying it's a cabling nightmare is an understatement. It looks like a box of spaghetti exploded in there 

 

BTW, I made a small donation to the prototype builds. It's not much, but I do appreciate you taking the time and effort to post that! Thanks again!

 

EDIT: Ordered a couple of forward breakout cables. It's pretty tough to verify that the 4020 required a female SATA cable. I finally looked at enough pictures to convince myself that it did, but I really don't do this often enough.

Yep the mv8 to 4020 backplane is a forward breakout cable.

 

Build looks good

16gb flash is a bit overkill but no worries.

4gb ram is fine but I bet 8gb is about the same price. It won't hurt to buy 8gb for things like cache_dirs.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the sanity check. I guess I did go overboard on the flash drive. They're pretty cheap, though. I did order another smaller drive since I decided to buy the 2nd license.

 

Well. The easy part is over, now I've just got to put all this stuff together and figure out how to use unRaid 

Sorry it took me a while to get back to this thread.  Thanks very much for the donation, I really appreciate it!

Rather than starting a new thread, I thought I'd ask here.

 

I've got the new hardware in my server, and I've loaded unRAID and started pre-clearing my first four drives. I noticed that one of the drives is being reported as an IDE (hdx) drive. I can't seem to find a setting int he BIOS that says anything about ACHI or legacy. Am I missing something? Is anyone familiar with this board that could tell me if this is normal, or what I need to change to correct it?

 

Thanks again, guys. UnRAID is my first real experience with Linux, so I'm afraid I'm spamming the board with my noob questions. But there's a lot to learn, and a lot of fine details that are hard to find with a search.

I don't have the board, but I checked the online manual.  Under "Integrated Peripherals", try setting "SATA configuration" to "Enhanced".  That might do it.

cassiusdrow offers good advice.  Another thing to look for: IDE/SATA combined mode - if you find it, disable it.