Right off the bat I already own 4 1TB Samsung spinpoint drives. I plan on putting those in first, and then adding some 2TB or 3TB (depending on how rich I'm feeling) drives later. I'm guessing I will just go with WD green drives. I see no real reason to get 7200 rpm ones. I'm also not a huge fan of Seagate but I would be willing to give them a chance if the people here have had good experiences with them. So all in all for the expansion of drives, I'll start with the 4 drives, then purchase two 2 or 3TB drives and switch the parity drive over. For further expansion I will have to purchase a SATA card, but that's down the road. I suppose I can use the PCIe x1 for one SATA card, then the PCIe x16 slot next seeing as they are backward compatible with x4 cards. I will also end up with one of the 4 in 3 cages eventually. So this machine will allow for a total of 12 drives. My goal is to get up to (at least) 12TB of available storage.

 

I've put some research into these parts and have tried very hard to keep the price as low as possible while keeping the ability to expand easy. I figure the processor I picked, I *should* be able to unlock into a dual core, and if not, oh well. (If anyone has a suggestion for a good CPU that they recommend for on the fly transcoding, I might consider that for streaming to consoles.) The motherboard I picked because it has 6 SATA ports built in, it doesn't have the infamous Realtek 8111E LAN chipset (it has a Realtek 8111DL), and the north and south bridges that is has are used by other boards listed on the hardware compatibility page.  For the RAM... It's cheap, 4GB should be enough. For the power supply, I realized after the fact that it is one of the recommended PSU's. Although I chose it because it has a single 12v rail, with more than enough amps to power all my drives, even if they are 7200 rpm ones. Plus, it has six SATA connectors and six peripheral connectors. The case I think is self explanatory, cheap, sleek black case, eight internal 3.5 slots and three 5.25 for a 4 in 3 cage. It also has two 120mm fans directly in front to keep the hard drives cool. The flash drive, I just tried to pick something cheap, with a small form factor so it doesn't get broken off by accident. The speeds of the flash drive aren't spectacular but I don't know how the read/write speeds of the flash drives really play into the usage of an unRaid server.

 

SO! As you can see I have been obsessing over this build a little bit and have been trying to do my homework. The parts list is below, have at it. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  AMD Sempron 145 2.8GHz Single-Core Processor  ($39.23 @ Amazon)

Motherboard:  ASRock 880GM-LE FX Micro ATX  AM3+ Motherboard  ($54.99 @ Amazon)

Memory:  G.Skill NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($19.99 @ Newegg)

Case:  NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($47.98 @ Newegg)

Power Supply:  Antec Neo Eco 520W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply  ($46.98 @ Newegg)

Other: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 4GB ($6.99)

Total: $216.16

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

Looks like it will work for the basic unRAID function.  I have a very similar hardware and it works fine. 

 

I will point out that unlocking the second core in the Sempron is hit-or-miss proposition.  In some cases, it doesn't work at all, and in other cases, it is unstable.  So best advice I would give you on this point, is to consider if you really want to be doing on-the-fly transcoding in the near future, you might want to consider the AMD duel core right from the start or an Intel i3 processor and MB. 

Do you think this AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz would do the job then?

Do you think this AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz would do the job then?

 

No problem.  It has way more than enough computing power.  However, as you can easily see, it is a 95W power profile as opposed to the 45W for the Sempron.  (All things are a trade-off -- and you have to make be willing to accept that fact or you will never get your system built.    ) 

Great! That sounds good to me. It's only 30 dollars more for the processor and if it will do the job well, then power efficiency can take a backseat. Thanks for the help.