First time poster, long time lurker.

Been reading up on various NAS systems and while I originally was heading towards a FreeNAS setup decided to finally go with unRAID because I liked the idea of a JBOD w/Parity setup. I have a bunch of old drives doing nothing right now that could help get this project off the ground, plus with the cost of HDDs right now trying to put together a 12 drive RAID5 is way out of budget for me.

 

This box is going to be mainly used as a media server for XBMC. Currently my roommate and I run XBMC from a jail broken AppleTV, but we have our movies and TV shows spread over about 4 systems. I want a setup that can house eveything in one server with RAID style recovery so if a drive goes bad we don't loose whatever was on that drive. I'm also considering setting aside a few GBs of space for system backups for the other PCs in the house.

 

The plugins/programs I plan to use are:

- Couchpotato

- SickBeard

- SABnzbd

- UPS plugin for a battery backup

- Possibly Headphones

- unMENU

- Simplefeatures

 

Here are the components I'm looking at and would like some advice if people don't mind.

 

Motherboard: ASRock 880GM-LE FX AM3+ AMD 880G Micro ATX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157292

Question on Motherboard. Was planning on going again with the Biostar A880G+ AM3 as suggested on the Prototype blog, but it seems to be deactivated on Newegg now. I contemplated going with the ECS but looking at how much space the Norcos take up in the VS-9 case I believe I'm stuck with having to go with a mATX baord, unless I upgrade to a larger case. I've seen the ASRock being discussed and wanted to make sure it was a good fit.

 

CPU: AMD Sempron 145

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888

 

Memory: 2x2GB DDR3 1333

Question on Memory. Was planning on purchasing the sticks that were suggested on Raj's Prototype blog (Kingston ValueRAM 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model KVR1333D3N9/2G), but newegg seems to be out of stock. Any other suggestions?

 

Power Supply: CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 V2 500W

Question on Power Supply, will the CX500 be fine for a 12 drive setup that will start out with a mix of Green 5900 and regular 7200 drives and then go all 7200 later when I finally get 3 and 4TB drives in it? I went with 500 because it was on sale at the time hoping it would work for the long run, but since I'm not seeing 5900 drives on larger than 2TB I figure I would ask.

 

Case: AeroCool VS-9

 

Boot Drive: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 4GB Flash Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171586

 

SATA Expansion Card: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101358

 

SAS Cables: 2x 3ware CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116097

 

SATA Cables: 6x 18inch SATA Serial ATA cable

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022601&p_id=1251&seq=1&format=2

 

Drive cages: 3x Norco SS-400 4x3

 

Hard Drives: 3TB Parity, 2x 2TB Seagate Barracuda 5900 Green drives to start. Any recommendations for the 3TB?

Also as soon as I upgrade to a Pro license I plan on using a few (~6) 7200 SATA drives ranging from 80GB to 1TB that I have laying around doing nothing and will be adding a cache drive to the mix. I'm planning on using a 500GB 2.5" HDD, or possibly a 60GB SSD, in a StarTech.com 2.5-Inch SATA Removable Hard Drive Bay for PC Expansion Slot to free up a drive slot.

 

As for the unRAID version, I was thinking of just loading 4.7 since it's the most stable version currently, until 5.0 is finished, however, since I plan to use a 3TB drive for the parity I assume I need to go with a beta version of 5. Is b14 stable enough or should I try one of the current RC's being tested?

 

One last question about a battery backup. I have an APC Back-UPS 350, just needs the battery replaced, would that work fine or would it be better to get a different model?

 

Any way, thanks for any input/suggestions that can be made, it's much appreciated.

 

mix of Green 5900 and regular 7200 drives and then go all 7200 later

The CX500 V2 500W would be good for a "mix" of the following based on a 34A rail and 5A for MB based on the power suppky thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12219.0

 

Green    Other

  0      9

  1      9

  2      8

  3      7

  4      7

  5      6

  6      5

  7      5

  8      4

  9      3

  10      3

  11      2

 

As you can see you'll never approach "7200s" later. You'll need a larger power supply.

 

The APC Back-UPS 350 is only rated for 210W (350VA) not a good match for what you want.

 

PB

OK, so looks like I'm going to need to upgrade to a 650W at least, thanks for that info.

 

About the UPS, what range should I be looking for?

If I did the math right 14x36w (7200 HDDs) + 60w (Motherboard) = 564w, round up to 600? That about right or am I missing some piece of information?

 

Thanks.