I’ve been running my rig for over a year now and I’m looking to upgrade from Plus to Pro, add a drive cage, and controller card.

unRAID Ver.4.7  with one 2TB parity drive and 5 data drives ( 4 - 1TB, 1 - 500GB)

my case is an old Alienware Area 51 tower and here is what’s in the box

MB:

ASRock 880GM-LE AM3 AMD 880G

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157199

 

PSU:

Rosewill Green Series RG630-S12 630W Continuous @40°C,80 PLUS Certified, Single 12V Rail, Active PFC

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182200

 

CPU:

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103903

 

here’s what I’m thinking of getting

cage: COOLER MASTER STB-3T4-E3-GP 4-in-3

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817993002&Tpk=STB-3T4-E3-GP

 

now the question is which card to get?

 

SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8

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

 

or

Syba SY-PEX40013 PCI Express

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124029&Tpk=SY-PEX40013

 

seems like a lot of builds use the MV8.  What’s the benefit of using a SAS as opposed to a SATA card?

 

Also is there a good walkthu in the forums?  Or is it as simple as  - stop the array, shutdown.  Build it.  Restart?

 

 

 

 

SAS gives you one cable attached to the expansion card that splits into fout SATA connectors, its a bit less messy inside the case..

wrt building: yes: shutdown, build and startup again.

is there a big difference in the cables?  for instance what's the difference between these two?

 

http://www.amazon.com/3WARE-Cable-Multi-lane-Internal-SFF-8087/dp/B000FBYS2U/ref=pd_cp_pc_1

and

http://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-Internal-SFF-8087-Forward-Breakout/dp/B005E2XTO8/ref=pd_rhf_ee_p_t_1

 

 

I have both (the monoprice verison i have is not from monoprice, but looks like its twin)

For a one time install the monoprice one is ok, but it feels a bit more weak than the 3ware version.

Both connectors have good fit, and stay on, so that is not the issue.

I'll second that. the monoprice blue cables are inexpensive and do work just fine. But.. they do have this overwhelming fragile feel to them.

 

the more traditional molex rebranded cables (3ware, norco, areca, etc) feel very solid.. and cost a lot more.