Pimp Your Rig

[wholly]

 

Not a good setup for me tho, my kid would have his finger in that CPU fan in about 2 seconds....

 

He'd only do it a maximum of 10 times.  Hopefully the little tyke would figure it out before then.

[starcat]

Woaaaa $§$&§$&

[Romir]

 

 

20x 1TB WD10EADS in the right Norco + 1 spare. (X7SBE with 2 AOC-SAT2 controllers)

10x 2TB WD20EADS in the left Norco (C2SBA+II with 2 1430SA,1 Sil x1 2 port controller, and an unused 4 port Sil PCI controller) The new AOC-SASLP-MV8 support will perfect this build, but more than 16 drives won't be needed for a long time.

 

The Chenbro mini-itx sever hosts VMs and applications on 4 WD20EADS drives and a Vertex ssd. Daily WHS + Crashplan, and monthly Acronis backups of 6-8 systems from three buildings are the primary data stored on it.

 

The 2TB drives (Christmas cashback sale) were purchased to replace most of the 1TB drives (10 from a black friday sale), but I still haven't sold them and re-balanced the two systems. I should take two 2tbs from the Chenbro, put 6 2TBs in each Norco, and then sell all the 1TBs. That will leave a ton of bays for expansion going forward at cheaper prices per gigabyte.

 

Although, I'm really happy right now not constantly thinking about storage to be honest. These builds were were the culmination of two years of tinkering. It's nice to be "done".

[starcat]

Why haven't you just replaced the 1TB Drives in the first Norco one by one with 2TB drives instead of buying a second case? Just curious, but looks good anyway :-)

[Romir]

Oops, I didn't explain the second Norco's use. It duplicates the other two servers data and eventually is going to be half a mile away, with another 54g wireless link bridging the locations.

 

It originally was going to be stored in one of the business's backrooms, but that sites metal siding where the wireless CPE is attached to plays havoc with the signal. That connection had to be set to 11b speeds to keep it 100% reliable. A perfect 54g signal is only good for 9gb an hour. 11g, lets not go there...

 

The other hold up was finding a smart differential backup solution with encryption. Crashplan+ seems to have been working well for this purpose.

[330T]

Oops, I didn't explain the second Norco's use. It duplicates the other two servers data and eventually is going to be half a mile away, with another 54g wireless link bridging the locations.

 

It originally was going to be stored in one of the business's backrooms, but that sites metal siding where the wireless CPE is attached to plays havoc with the signal. That connection had to be set to 11b speeds to keep it 100% reliable. A perfect 54g signal is only good for 9gb an hour. 11g, lets not go there...

 

The other hold up was finding a smart differential backup solution with encryption. Crashplan+ seems to have been working well for this purpose.

 

I'd really like to build a 2nd Unraid and have the data from mine replicate to the offsite one.  I've even got space in a data center about 20 miles away to host it.  But I've never found a good solution for keeping the data on both up to date.  What are you using?  note i'm not a Linux guru

[starcat]

You may use rsync for instance and it is build into unRAID.

[Romir]

I've been using doing a weekly wake-on-lan rsync over ssh (whew!) of /mnt/user. That sounded a lot more complicated than it is. It's just one rsync command once SSH is installed.

 

This gives me a small window to recover any potential accidental data loss and more confidence when moving data around on the live server. It's a peace of mind thing, except for the extra worrying about theft. 

 

I've been trialing Crashplan, with all that free space, and its been going well so far. I appreciate having true backups of deleted files for X days and not only a mirror that would also duplicate unwanted changes.

 

 

[WeeboTech]

I appreciate having true backups of deleted files for X days and not only a mirror that would also duplicate unwanted changes.

 

There is a way to have incremental rsync backups and multiple days worth of full backups.

 

see my script here for hints.

http://code.google.com/p/unraid-weebotech/downloads/list

using -link-dest and a scheme for pointing to the most recent backup, you can have x days of archived backups and still only rsync over the changes.

 

To discuss in further detail, start a new thread on the forum.

[magistratee]

You guys have some really nice rigs =p.  I had a question for some of you DIYers if you don't mind because I do not really mod cases myself.

 

I saw that bjp999 and smino made their own custom rack and cage. 

 

I was wondering what kind of spacing do you need to have between drives.  They need to be cooled correctly right.

 

I currently have an Antec 300 and my case is full.  I do not want to buy a new case right now and I only want to add 1-3 more drives to it.  I was planning to make the lower cage of the case hold more drives.  I was just planning to drill new sets of holes and remove the semi-tray inside the bottom half (cannot be seen).  The only cooling they will get are the 2 120mm fans that I currently have.  I attached a pic of the case so you guys get an idea of what I am talking about.

 

What kind of spacing between the hard drives can you suggest I can use?  Can I just tightly pack the hard drives as long as they are not touching?

I currently measured 11.5".  So I was thinking 1/4" space for top and bottom.  Hard drives about 1" each. 

[11.5 - 2*(1/4)] / [1+x] = # of drives. x- spacing between drives.  @1/4" spacing I can make it go from 6->8-9 drives

 

Any opinions would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[SSD]

Here is a better picture that shows the distance between drives.  It is a bit more than 1/8".  But I do have fans blowing fresh air into the case.  My drives run VERY cool (maybe cooler than healthy according to some reports).  Note that there is more spacing between the top drive and the drive below it.  This was by design because I knew there was not as much direct airflow at the top.

 

[runnerma]

I knew there was not as much direct airflow at the top.

 

 

I'm running unraid for only a week, and I have discovered what bjp said (about air flow at top) by myself also

here is my setup:

 

 

The upper disks running hotter that the other by 4-5 C.

Prolly I will put them a bit lower .

This is an old Lian-li V2000 case that I had. There are 6x 5.25" bays in the upper and I can put there some 3in4 trays if I need upgrade.

Here are some other views of my Unraid system (to be on topic )

 

 

 

[magistratee]

Thanks.  I will try it out either this weekend or next weekend.

[unraided]

This is my rig below. I was nspired to get some of these parts from this forum. I have a CoolerMaster Centurion 590 case, Antec TruePower 650W Power Supply, Gigabyte GA-MA770-US3 System Board, AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.9GHz CPU, 2 GB Kingston Value RAM, seven 1.5TB Seagate disks (about 8TB of storage), two 3 to 4 disk enclosures and a SanDisk Cruzer 2GB for the unRAID OS (I installed it inside my case).

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm hoping this year to to install another additional disk enclosure, 5 more disks and I want to get an additional SATA RAID card (either a 8 Port 16x PCIe or two 4 Port 1x PCIe cards) to replace my PCI card. If I run out of room and need more disks, I'll be getting a Antec case which these days can hold 12 5.25 bays.

[neilt0]

This is my rig below.

 

Thanks for posting your pics, but they are tiny! Do you have any higher resolution ones?

[unraided]

Yeah i know there a little rank. i'll try and post some better pic's hopefully soon. Thanks.

[WeeboTech]

which 4in3 modules are you using?

also, as cool as your sig is, (and it is cool), I find it useful when people post their rig specs in the sig.

It sorta helps anyone coming along to get an idea of good setups.

I'm probably going to change mine too. heh, but my systems are constantly in flux.  

[unraided]

Hi neilt0. I've uploaded better shots of my rig. Might be a little too big now  .

 

This is my rig below.

 

Thanks for posting your pics, but they are tiny! Do you have any higher resolution ones?

[unraided]

Hi WeeboTech. The disk enclosures I bought were from eBay, their called SNT-3141 SATA-II Hot-Swap 4 Drive RAID Enclosure Server. I've seen a lot of them for sale on eBay and thought I'd buy them, seeing that they look sturdy, which they are. Here is a link below of one auction listing:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/SNT-3141-SATA-II-Hot-Swap-4-Drive-RAID-Enclosure-Server_W0QQitemZ310187757204QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_15?hash=item4838a18e94

 

The disk enclosure is mage from solid aluminum, the disk drawers are made from solid aluminum too, with the handles made from strong ABS plastic. The link mentions the specifications. They seem pretty good and do the job for me.

 

which 4in3 modules are you using?

also, as cool as your sig is, (and it is cool), I find it useful when people post their rig specs in the sig.

It sorta helps anyone coming along to get an idea of good setups.

I'm probably going to change mine too. heh, but my systems are constantly in flux.  

[Rajahal]

Nice rig, unraided!  Just to clarify, are those disk enclosures trayless?  It sounds like they are not.

 

Love your cable management!  That must have taken some work.

[unraided]

Hi Rajahal. The disk enclosures include trays, which the actual tray is made from a solid single piece of alloy, mounted on to a ABS plastic front/handle (very strong and sturdy engineering), which has a spring-loaded handle. It wasn't cheap ($125 AUD each disk enclosure excluding delivery), but it wasn't expensive too and it is doing the job quite well. Thanks for the cabling comment, yeah well I like to be a perfectionist when it comes to PC/Server assembly, and yeah it did take a while to get it the way I liked . Thanks.

 

Nice rig, unraided!  Just to clarify, are those disk enclosures trayless?  It sounds like they are not.

 

Love your cable management!  That must have taken some work.

[Chris Pollard]

So neat and tidy!  I might have to post pics of mine later, it looks like a bird made a nest inside the case

[pfp]

Figured it's time to post some pics of my rig (Heavilly influenced by neilt0 http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg34915#msg34915)

 

I REALLY like this Antec Twelve Hundred case and these Scythe hard drive stabilizers are just incredible for $9.  With this case I figured I might as well go for the power supply made for the it so I'm using the Antec 850.  Even ordered a fourth hard drive enclosure from Antec to get the 4th front fan with a knob (not switch) and filter - for $25 it was worth it.  Power and sata cables came from monoprice (started with 18 inch sata cables which were WAY too long and then got 10 inch for all but the top drives - much better)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[neilt0]

Figured it's time to post some pics of my rig (Heavilly influenced by neilt0 http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg34915#msg34915)

 

I REALLY like this Antec Twelve Hundred case and these Scythe hard drive stabilizers are just incredible for $9.  With this case I figured I might as well go for the power supply made for the it so I'm using the Antec 850.   Even ordered a fourth hard drive enclosure from Antec to get the 4th front fan with a knob (not switch) and filter - for $25 it was worth it.  Power and sata cables came from monoprice (started with 18 inch sata cables which were WAY too long and then got 10 inch for all but the top drives - much better

 

Nice! I'm glad to see my write-up was useful. There are a couple of people on another AV related forum who have used it too.

 

I was going to tidy up my cabling after upgrading drives at some point in the future, and I think your pics have convinced me that I should. 

[pfp]

Very useful! 

 

This Monoprice power cable works great in this setup - just use one per Scythe assembly.  You can get the fan and all four drives connected with the power connector fed through to the other (hidden) side of the case.  Make it nice and clean.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=5188&seq=1&format=2

 

I had a nice mess with all 18 inch cables but didn't really want to buy all new cables.  I'm glad i did thouhg -with the 10 inch ones it cleans up really nice.