Pimp Your Rig

[roastdawgg]

Very nice and clean.  I dig your project link too.  What SATA cables are you using?

 

Thanks. The SATA Cables are from www.monoprice.com (another great site I learned about from this forum). They are KGear GC18AKM SATA3 cables. I ordered them color-coded.

 

Red = Data

Blue = Parity

Black = Cache

[Blofeld]

...apart from admiring your nice build, I, too, am totally digging the page you made about your building process. It's a good page to send to friends or prospective unRaiders, to give a quick glimpse of what it's all about. Thanks!

[Bolle]

Nice buid, and I like the page you made detailing the build. Must read for any starting unRAID user!

[skank]

Nice buid, and I like the page you made detailing the build. Must read for any starting unRAID user!

 

what page?

 

[graywolf]

Nice buid, and I like the page you made detailing the build. Must read for any starting unRAID user!

 

what page?

 

Under all the pictures

 

You can see the whole detailed parts list and a few more pictures here

[jamerson9]

Very nice and clean.  I dig your project link too.  What SATA cables are you using?

 

Thanks. The SATA Cables are from www.monoprice.com (another great site I learned about from this forum). They are KGear GC18AKM SATA3 cables. I ordered them color-coded.

 

Red = Data

Blue = Parity

Black = Cache

Dang! That's a nice idea. Next time when I need more cables, I'll see if I can order a rainbow set. 

[mbryanr]

Very nice and clean.  I dig your project link too.  What SATA cables are you using?

 

Thanks. The SATA Cables are from www.monoprice.com (another great site I learned about from this forum). They are KGear GC18AKM SATA3 cables. I ordered them color-coded.

 

Red = Data

Blue = Parity

Black = Cache

Dang! That's a nice idea. Next time when I need more cables, I'll see if I can order a rainbow set. 

 

They have Limetech green as well.

Mine is setup as

Limetech Green - Parity

Blue = Data.

[skank]

Nice buid, and I like the page you made detailing the build. Must read for any starting unRAID user!

 

what page?

 

Under all the pictures

 

You can see the whole detailed parts list and a few more pictures here

 

thanks, overlooked it

[lewcass]

Hey everyone, I am new to the forums but fell in love with unRAID quickly and just finished my first unRAID server build.

Nice job, roastdawg. Well planned, executed, and presented. And the same case I used - looked very familiar at first glance. 

[Ford Prefect]

Hey everyone, I am new to the forums but fell in love with unRAID quickly and just finished my first unRAID server build. ~6TB of storage. My previous solution was using internal SATA drives in a USB-SATA dock. Worked just fine but offered no protections. Here are some pictures. I did a whole writeup to include my parts list, cost, and a brief walk-through of how I made the server.

 

[...]

 

You can see the whole detailed parts list and a few more pictures here

 

Thanks for the great forums and wiki....both were integral in getting this server built.

 

Nice job roastdawgg,

 

but what I think that I see from your parts list and from your pics is that you

appear to have NOT jumpered your EARS drives, or did you?

[roastdawgg]

Hey everyone, I am new to the forums but fell in love with unRAID quickly and just finished my first unRAID server build. ~6TB of storage. My previous solution was using internal SATA drives in a USB-SATA dock. Worked just fine but offered no protections. Here are some pictures. I did a whole writeup to include my parts list, cost, and a brief walk-through of how I made the server.

 

[...]

 

You can see the whole detailed parts list and a few more pictures here

 

Thanks for the great forums and wiki....both were integral in getting this server built.

 

Nice job roastdawgg,

 

but what I think that I see from your parts list and from your pics is that you

appear to have NOT jumpered your EARS drives, or did you?

 

I have only 1 EARS drive, and it was full of files that needed to be transferred to my array. Now that the files are off and safely into the array (the parity just finished) I will set the jumper and clear the EARS and EADS 1TB drives so they too can be added to the array. I know I probably didn't make that clear at all in my write up...I will update the page.

[Ford Prefect]

I have only 1 EARS drive, and it was full of files that needed to be transferred to my array. Now that the files are off and safely into the array (the parity just finished) I will set the jumper and clear the EARS and EADS 1TB drives so they too can be added to the array. I know I probably didn't make that clear at all in my write up...I will update the page.

 

Ah, very good job, indeed....didn't get that at a first glance.

[roastdawgg]

I put the jumper on and started preclearing the EADS and EARS drives last night. Added a few more photos to the gallery on the site. Thought I would put this one up though...the EARS drive with the jumper on (hard to see since it's black on black).

 

 

I also redid the SATA cables because when I added the additional drives to complete my array there wasn't enough room to have them arranged like I did. I still do not like how it looks though so it will be changed again. I am fairly obsessive I know...especially since this server will sit in a closet with the sides on and nobody will ever see the immaculate insides. Oh well. You people will know and that's good enough for me 

 

[Blofeld]

holy ****...I gotta say - I even love your photos (and I'm a photographer myself)....one fine job indeed!

[Rajahal]

This is the latest server I finished for a client.  It is basically a 15 Bay Budget Build with a healthy budget.

 

Hardware:

Mobo: Biostar A760G M2+

CPU: Sempron 140

RAM: 2 GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR2 800

PSU: Corsair 500CX

SATA Cards:

 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

 PCIe x1 SIL3132

Cables: SAS-SATA Forward Breakout x 2, generic SATA

Power Splitters and adapters: Molex Splitters x 3, SATA to Molex adapters x 3

Drive Bays: Icy Dock MB-455SPF 5-in-3 x 3

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two

Drives: precleared 2 TB WD EARS w/ jumpers x 8

USB Drive: 2 GB Lexar Firefly preconfigured with unRAID Pro license by LimeTech.  Running unRAID 4.6-rc5.

 

The new part of this build for me was discovering these SATA to Molex adapters.  They are nice and clean, and let you make use of some of those SATA power cables that generally go unused in builds with hot swap cages or backplanes.

 

Staple shots:

 

 

 

 

As I'm also an amateur photograper and I wanted to play around with some new lighting techniques, so I went a bit overboard with this photo shoot.  Here are a few of my favorite pics, and the link to the full gallery is below:

 

Artsy shots:

 

 

 

 

By the way, for this last one I used a 30 second exposure, so the blue LEDs appear much brighter than they actually are.

 

Full Gallery (3 pages)

[Bolle]

Nice buid, and nice pics.

 

Just for clarification, I believed the CX500 was a bit thight on specs for 15 drives?

[Userpaul]

Hey everyone, I am new to the forums but fell in love with unRAID quickly and just finished my first unRAID server build. ~6TB of storage. My previous solution was using internal SATA drives in a USB-SATA dock. Worked just fine but offered no protections. Here are some pictures. I did a whole writeup to include my parts list, cost, and a brief walk-through of how I made the server.

 

You can see the whole detailed parts list and a few more pictures here

 

Thanks for the great forums and wiki....both were integral in getting this server built.

Great build and the pics are good to..That link is very nice and well written..Well done 

[Rajahal]

Nice buid, and nice pics.

 

Just for clarification, I believed the CX500 was a bit thight on specs for 15 drives?

 

The 500CX has 34A on the +12V rail.  This is enough for 15 green drives, but not enough for 15 7200rpm drives or a mixture of green and 7200rpm drives.  I've instructed the client that he should always use green drives.  If you want a 15 drive server that can support 7200 rpm drives, then I recommend the 550VX instead.

[Bolle]

Ok, clear, thanks!

[Blofeld]

Raj,

beautiful, flawless build as always, and awesome photos...those dark shots could be from the set of Alien or something..nice! I love it when art and technology meet  :)

[teamhood]

Raj,

 

Do you always build withe PSU fan upwards? I ran into this issue the other day when I was putting together a new build and the PSU placement was on the bottom of the case. I wasn't sure which way the fan should go....

[roastdawgg]

Same rig I posted the other. I cleaned up the SATA cables and decided to take some artsy shots while I was at it. Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rajahal]

roastdawg: very nice cabling, and great shots too!

 

Raj,

 

Do you always build withe PSU fan upwards? I ran into this issue the other day when I was putting together a new build and the PSU placement was on the bottom of the case. I wasn't sure which way the fan should go....

 

Yes, I do.  I believe that it helps the airflow in the case (since the PSU will pull hot air from inside the case and vent it out).  The only downside is that it generally doesn't allow you to run the 4/8 pin motherboard power cable behind the motherboard tray, but I think that is a worthwhile sacrifice.

[chanders]

Never thought hard drives could look sexy 

[kaiguy]

roastdawgg, those are awesome pictures.  Really clean build!  I don't know how you guys get your cables looking so neat--I can't do them with just zipties.

 

On a different note, I noticed your RAM is installed in different colored slots/directly next to each other.  If you'd like to run it in dual channel mode (which I think you would considering you have a matched pair), you're going to want to install them in the A1 and B1 slots.