What I want to accomplish:

    Ability to serve media to atleast 5 locations in the house over gigabit and wifi

    Run Plugins - Minimal sickbeard,sabnzbd,mysql, others suggested?

    Have the usb pluged in internally (children roaming around)

    Extremely quiet.

    Power efficient.

    Start with 3x3TB no need in my head to go over 10x3TB

    Look nice in the living room.

 

Looking for suggestions on improvements, and if I should spend more to improve something please let me know.

 

CASE: Fractal Designs Define R4 - $109

MOBO :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157326 $59 (cheapest I could find with 6 Sata Ports)

CPU : G540 (would I benefit with going with something more powerful?) - $49

RAM: 2x4GB DDR3 1333-1600 - ~$35

PSU - CX-500 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139027 - $29.99 after rebate

 

Total - $282 after rebates

 

Please let me know what I should change and/or look for! Thanks!

Your motherboard choice has no on-board video.  If you use that board, you will have to budget for a video card.  You might be better off to look for a slightly more expensive board with on-board video. 

Doesnt the G540 have onboard graphics?

Sorry, it looks like it does.  I was just looking at the MB spec sheet and not paying attention to the processor.  (Lots of people have made the mistake when looking for a MB with the maximum number of SATA ports at the lowest price of missing the fact that their choice of MB doesn't have video!) 

Yes I almost made that mistake on a PC build not long ago where I wasn't planning on running a dedicated GPU.  I guess what I havent figured out when it comes to unRAID is what is the optimal amount of CPU(what levels will let me do whatever I want and where will I be restricted), make sure the MOBO is expandable to handle the drives I want, and if the PSU is enough to handle it all up to 11 drives.

do you know how does power consumption look like for this mobo+cpu combo?

No idea, I know it's a 65w processor, how would I figure that out?

I'm not sure, I'm a rookie when it comes to hardware, usually I try to google some tests so I can get any idea, but in this case I couldn't find anything, that's why I figured I will ask, maybe you knew Reason I'm asking is that I'm building a new small, energy-efficient server and haven't settled on mainboard yet, and the hardware you posted is within my budget (actually, because of 6 sata ports it's on top of the list right now)

I myself am a n00b too, experience is limited to building a few pc's and a htpc, all so far ahve gone well, however all are windows machines.  UnRaid seems to be the answer to what I've been trying to do for awhile so I've been very excited about it, however I don't want to make a mistake in buying too little on parts, when I may need more in the future.

 

What kind of useability difference will I see between the G540 and say an AMD-A4 or AMD Athalon?

You probably already know, but the motherboard you have picked out uses the Realtek 8111E LAN chipset so you will have to use the 5.x rc instead of the stable version of unRaid. Oh and for the support of 3TB drives.

yes will definately be running a 5.x build as I want 3TB drives. Still really unsure about CPU/MOBO combo, don't want to make a mistake here.

If you don't plan on having your server do on the fly transcoding I would say your processor is fine.

Getting closer, tell me what you think on this :

 

CASE: Fractal Designs Define R4 - $109

MOBO :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157329&Tpk=pro3-m $69

CPU : G620 or G850 ? 63 or 69

RAM: 2x4GB DDR3 GSkill Ripjaws X - $35

PSU - Corsair CX-500  $29.99 after rebate

 

~305-310

 

2x seagate green 3TB

1x WD green 3TB

1x 80GB cache

 

Anyone on suggestions? g620 vs g850? Anything else I need to look at? I would like to pull the trigger today.

What did you end up going with if you don't mind me asking.

Wow totally forgot to come back and update!

 

Let me say that I cannot praise the Define R4 more for this exact set up.  For those of us that will have the server in a visible space it is AMAZING. Looks great and is quiet as can be. 

 

I ended up with AsRock B75 Pro3-M , Intel G850, 8GB of Ripjaws X(it was on sale for the $35 I was going to spend anyway, may switch it out with the 4 that is in my HTPC, we will see), and the Corsair CX-500.

 

So far I have only installed 2 3TB drives, adding a third and cache drive soon.  With fans set to the lowest setting temps during parity check or preclear are around 32-33 C.  I don't mind bumping up the fan if I have to, medium it is still not audiable from my seating position, and at the top setting barely audiable if everything else in the room is silent.

 

Unraid install went amazingly smooth, all I have left to do is set up my cache, sickbeard and sabnzbd, and the UPS and we are ready to roll.