Feel free to restore it all. I removed it as I am simply not interested maintaining it against the sea of salty responses received.

 

No offence meant but the negative responses took the shine of the idea so much for me I am no longer interested in maintaining it... and an unmaintained list is a dangerous list.

NAS, I believe that what you were trying to do here was a good idea, a very worthy effort, even if its first iteration turned out to have a serious snag.  And useful info can be found in the discussion above, even if it becomes a little salty at times.  I think it just needs a little rethought, a change in direction, because new users still need the guidance.

 

I was a big part of the saltiness.  Apologies to all and espeically to NAS.  I just wish NAS would not selectively respond to posts / questions to him.  It is frustrating to engage in dialog and have very direct questions and comments ignored.

 

I agree 100% that users need guidance and direction, but I have real issues with the support community trying to set hardware standards.  Although I appreciate and agree with many of NAS's motives, I think adding this section made NAS's personal hdardware decisions seem like a de facto standard that was being adopted by the entire unRAID community.  I was uncomfortable with that, and tried to add some text to make sure readers realized that this was one person's opinion, but not endoresed by LimeTech or the support community.  I think lists of "my hardware components" are great and belong in the FAQ and linked in the "Best of" page via the forums, but trying to take it beyond that into something resembling a standard is not our place.  This is just my opinion.

 

I very much agree that many users should just go with Tom's offerings, the best choice for simple setup and stable operation.  But there is always going to be segment of the market, like many of us here, that are do-it-yourself'ers at heart, that will always want to build our own machine, and customize it in ways we can't with a prebuilt machine.  It's one of the real advantages of the current versions of unRAID, that it is so hardware compatible and portable, that it lends itself well to the DIY market.

 

Agreed.  Tom's offerings should be purchased by commercial users, and also by non-DIY users.

 

So I have a few ideas...

 

Idea 1:  I think there's an opportunity for Tom here, to offer several levels of DIY kits, and a barebone machine.  Perhaps a motherboard kit, complete with RAM, CPU and CPU cooler installed, and a barebone kit with same motherboard kit installed in a case plus power supply plus unRAID license.  As well as sell the individual components.  This may very well satisfy many different kinds of users, with differing levels of DIY experience, and at the same time allow Tom to make a little more money off the DIY'ers.  He might want to provide 2 different motherboard setups, one for value and the other for performance, and they would instantly be the recommended and tested boards for everyone.

 

I think this is a good idea.  I think Tom should consider selling DIY kits  But I also know that hardware can be very low margin, and by the time Tom adds even a small markup, it may just not be worth his time. 

 

On a similar vein, I have been wondering if Tom (or someone on the forum) might have connections with a hardware supplier that would be able to arrange "group buys" of hard drives.  I have seen similar kinds of things on other forums where a group of users combine their buying power to get steep discounts.  I am wondering if we could get 100 orders for 1T Seagates, if we could get the prices down around $100- (that maybe too low but who knows until we try). Tom may be in a unique position to orchestrate these as we all trust him to broker the purchases. 

 

Idea 2:  Quite obvious and used often elsewhere, ask users to list their motherboards and builds in their sigs.  It's an easy way for new users to see what veteran users are happy with, but we unRAID users have rarely provided such info.  One special request here for Tom though, the sig size is too small currently.  I don't want to see giant sigs, but a small increase I think is necessary.  I would love to add Best of the Forums and a little build info to my sig, but don't have the spare bytes.  The limit is currently 300, how about 500 bytes?

 

You are reading my mind.  I was thinking along a similar line.  On many forums there is a place to give a little bio and list your hobbies and special interests.  I was thinking we might be able to use that - but just checked and see that isn't there on this forum.  There is some "Personal Text" but it is pretty short.  A person could get their MB and components listed, but without much commentary.

 

I had an idea to do something on the wiki to replace/supplement the motherboard section.  Instead of so many technical details about each motherboard (which can easily be found on the Web), I'd like to see it focused on unRAID compatibility and experiences. For each motherboard, I'd like to see a list of the unRAID users that are using (or have used) that motherboard, along with their experiences.  Things like specail settings required for unRAID, BIOS settings, limitations encountered, etc. could be added by the users themselves.  As new versions come out, users that have specific problems with specific motherboards can keep a "log" of issues.  Users making purchasing decisions could review these logs and get a sense of how well that MB is working with unRAID.  Another thought I had was creating a thread (or wiki) for each motherboard and using it in a similar way.

 

I agree that the sig limit of 300 is too short.  I want to add a link to the FAQ, but not enough room.  300 chars of visible space is reasonable, but since links get so long, 300 chars of total space is too short.

 

Idea 3:  Run a poll perhaps every 6 months, listing commonly used boards, to help others see what boards are currently most popular.  I don't generally care for polls, as they often seem silly, or agenda-driven, or have too few votes to provide credible recommendations.  But this seems like a legitimate use, if we get at least a reasonable response, and if the list has a significant number of boards plus Other (which will always be the largest vote-getter), then it serves part of the purpose of presenting a base build.  It would be good to have an early post in the poll thread that included links to primary threads for each board, threads that include pros and cons, BIOS recommendations, gotchas, etc for each board.

 

I like this idea  Might be a good way to get things kicked off.

 

- Brian

I like the idea of a poll. It gives new people or even old people who are wanting to build a second server up to date info. Things change so fast. Even from version to version. X motherboard might work on the current version of unRAID but when a new version comes out the motherboard has problems. I have seen that with my old motherboard.

 

Just something to think about.

 

Phil

An opinion, and I may be off base with this (since I'm not a hardware/Linux guru):

 

In my own experience during my new build, it would have been much easier to know what technical specs unRaid supports vs. the actual brands or model names of the components.  Many of the MBs listed as 'proven' on the Wiki were obsolete and/or not available for me.  I spent a lot of time combing through the forum (and Wiki) looking for a proven build from others, then emulated that.

 

Specs might include chipset (Northbridge/Southbridge),  LAN controller, and other hardware that has the drivers integrated into unRaid kernel.  In this manner, a user may research the brands of components that meet those specs instead of trying to find specific motherboards that are proven to work.  If Intel P965/ICH8R chipset is supported, one could find a MB with those specs.  If the Atheros LAN is not supported, users would know to steer clear of it.

 

I used the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R MB in this example:

LGA 775 socket for CPU

P35 Northbridge

ICH9R Southbridge

Realtek 8111B LAN

 

The P5E VM DO Board has this spec:

LGA 775 socket

Q35 Northbridge

ICH9DO Southbridge

Intel 82566DM LAN

 

By conforming to a MB spec, I can choose CPU and RAM accordingly, since there may be many MBs available with those same specs.

 

Since component technology is constantly changing, it becomes exceedingly difficult to keep track of all the different brands/manufacturers, but it might be easier to maintain a base specification for unRaid compatibility. 

 

Again, although I have hardware knowledge, I am by no means an expert, and the above task may prove just as difficult as defining a base component build.

In my own experience during my new build, it would have been much easier to know what technical specs unRaid supports vs. the actual brands or model names of the components.   Many of the MBs listed as 'proven' on the Wiki were obsolete and/or not available for me.  I spent a lot of time combing through the forum (and Wiki) looking for a proven build from others, then emulated that.

 

Specs might include chipset (Northbridge/Southbridge),  LAN controller, and other hardware that has the drivers integrated into unRaid kernel.   In this manner, a user may research the brands of components that meet those specs instead of trying to find specific motherboards that are proven to work.   If Intel P965/ICH8R chipset is supported, one could find a MB with those specs.   If the Atheros LAN is not supported, users would know to steer clear of it.

 

I used the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R MB in this example:

LGA 775 socket for CPU

P35 Northbridge

ICH9R Southbridge

Realtek 8111B LAN

 

The P5E VM DO Board has this spec:

LGA 775 socket

Q35 Northbridge

ICH9DO Southbridge

Intel 82566DM LAN

 

By conforming to a MB spec, I can choose CPU and RAM accordingly, since there may be many MBs available with those same specs.

 

Since component technology is constantly changing, it becomes exceedingly difficult to keep track of all the different brands/manufacturers, but it might be easier to maintain a base specification for unRaid compatibility.

 

I have long wanted to add that chipset info to the Hardware Compatibility page, and probably others have too, but no one has had the time.  It would require looking up each of the boards listed, and adding Northbridge, Southbridge, LAN, and extra disk controllers, and possibly CPU family compatibility to the table.  It would be good to add supporting commentary, that a board that is unlisted, but has all of its components listed, is probably fully compatible.

 

Anyone with some time available, interested in enhancing that page with chipset info?

I've begun the process of upgrading the Hardware Compatibility page, according to comments above, mine and others.  I've added a column for chipset info, network chipset info in the networking column, cleaned up the page formatting a bit, added a few boards, added the chipset info Rob_Esc mentioned, added some links, and added commentary at top (in line with Rob_Esc's ideas and mine), including Brian's ideas about Personal Text and grades, and Joe's ideas about forum posts about boards.  The info still looks incredibly spotty though...

 

Please feel free to add and expand or correct the info and comments...

Awesome! I'll start doing some research and adding info on chipsets and such

That is looking great RobJ!

 

I am about to go on vacation and will likely not be very active for a week or two.

 

Later!