August 9, 200817 yr hi, i'm taking the plunge to make my dvd collection readily available. Since I've collected several different hard disk over the past few years (from 250gb), unRaid is the best solution for me .... my hardware list Case: NORCO RPC-4020 - $ 289.99 MB: GIGABYTE GA-MA78G-DS3H - $ 89.99 PSU: SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-650HT - $ 119.99 CPU: AMD Athlon 64 LE-1600 45W - 34.99 RAM: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 - $44.99 SATA: SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 - $94.99 The mb has onboard video and only 6 sata ports, that's the reason i need the supermicro controller. i'd eventually buy some other controller, if the need arise and if unRaid comes to support 20 disks. I had thought about the abit ab9pro (3 more sata ports), but then i need a video card and be careful with the setup, as per threads in this board. the norco case seems expensive, but it's actually cheaper than a coolermaster 590 or lian li with the supermicro 5in3 cages. id like to hear about any compatibility issues with unRaid. In the hardware compatible list, there's an GA-MA69GM-S2H, hopefully sata chipsets shouldn't be different. please let me know what you think.
August 9, 200817 yr The SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 is a PCIx card which will fit in a PCI slot but will be a bottleneck as you add drives to it. You could add two Adaptec 1430SA 4 Port Serial ATA RAID Controllers (Part #2240900-R) which is PCIex4 Lane to the Graphics slot and 1 to the PCIex4 slot (I bought 2 on ebay; one for $1 plus $10 shipping & 1 for $49.99 plus $10 for shipping). Then get two Syba PCI Express SATA II Controller Cards (Part #SD-SA2PEX-2IR) from Newegg and you have the maximum drive connections without the PCI bottleneck.
August 9, 200817 yr Restating BrantD's point, you've spec'ed a PCI-X card not a PCI-Express (PCIe) card which, in theory, could be a bottleneck if you're going for speed. I'd also recommend going with a 4GB RAM kit (2x2GB) which you can probably find an After-Rebate deal for, for close to the same price. unRAID can already use that much RAM, and going with it could give you some future-proofing if unRAID can support 8GB in the future. Stepping back, in my mind, a lot of the parts choice really depends on what you are trying to achieve...blazing performance, low cost, low entry cost, future proofing, etc. For me (typically prioritizing future expandability), your PSU seems expensive. I know others will disagree, but I'd go with a lower cost PSU (~50-60) and upgrade some of the other parts. However, a lot of this depends on where you are coming from, so I'd suggest stating what drives (quantities and sizes) do you expect to use. I had a lot of 300GB and 500GB drives in my previous iteration, and it made financial sense for me to spend more to get 1TB drives (and use a smaller PSU) to consolidate about 18 drives into 7 or 8.
August 10, 200817 yr Look at the P5B VM DO motherboard. It is the one used by Tom in prebuilt systems and is heavily tested with each release. See good deals section for a link to a vendor. They are pretty hard to find, but I'd recommend it highly if futureproof compatibility is high on your list of features.
August 10, 200817 yr Author thanks for the replies so far. i have 1 250gb 3 320gb 2 500 gb you're right about the 1tb drives. i'll most likely buy 2 1tb and decommission the 3 320 (or something like that). this would also seem to help towards an energy efficient rig (that's why i chose the athlon le, rated for 45w). thanks for the heads up about the PCI-x vs PCIe. i certainly want to run the drives under at least PCIe. the motherboard choice is really killing me. as bjp999 mentions the vm do is scarce and it only has one PCIe slot (from what i could see in the pic). 4 port plus an adaptec 1430sa would net me 8 ports on PCIe (not quite enough). i may have to reconsider the abit ab9pro or the ga-ep35c-ds3r (there seems to be a shortage of ga-ep35-ds3r).
August 10, 200817 yr The P5B VM DO has 2 PCIe slots - an x4 and an x16. Onboard video means the x16 slot is available. With 8 on board ports and 2 1430A boards, you'd have 16 very fast SATA ports. Add an IDE port for cache and you'd be all set. I actually have a 1430a and the Supermicro controller (which I bought before learning about the PCI bottlenck). It works fine as long as you keep the drive count reasonable. 3-5 is about all I'd use to get decent parity check performance.
August 13, 200817 yr I'm using the ECS A740GM-M motherboard. It's also 6 SATA ports and onboard video but you can find it $30 cheaper. I guess the only fault is it doesn't have the same number of PCIe slots. As already posted, try to find a PCI-E SATAII card. I don't think the one you listed is any use. Peter
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.