So for the past few weeks I've had my eye set on buying a Synology DS1512+ but just couldn't bring myself to spend $800 for my first NAS and that's when I came across everyone in the xbmc forums praising unraid. So after spending literally all day reading through the wiki and FAQ and forums and then spending a few hours playing around with an unraid boot stick to make sure I could handle it I'm now ready and excited to build a full-fledged unraid server. Here is what I have so far:

 

Case: Antec Three Hundred (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042)

Mobo: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131540)

CPU: AMD Dual Core 2.6GHz (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103002)

RAM: G-Skill 2x1GB DDR 400 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231047)

Array drives: 2x3TB (WD30EZRX) 1x2TB (WD20EARS)

Cache drive: WD 750GB Black (WD7501AALS)

 

Here is what is missing from my setup and would REALLY like to hear some input on whether or not what I have picked out will work and if there are possibly better or cheaper alternatives out there:

NIC: From researching the forums people seem to suggest an Intel PCI-e Gigabit card, will this one work? (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CY0P7G/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&smid=ASF0S1GFIHF5V)

USB Flash Drive: Which drive should I get to get the best speeds in my USB 2.0 Mobo slots? Currently I have this one picked out mainly because of its small form factor but that's really not that important to me (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FYNSPK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

Parity Drive: Is there a significant advantage to getting a WD 3TB Red drive or should I just save the $27 and get another WD30EZRX? Or should I get the Seagate 7200 rpm drive?

 

Thank you in advance to anyone that provides their input!

I'm still pre-clearing the drives on my first build, so consider me a newb when it comes to unRAID.  I have however built my share of systems, going back to an 80386sx in grad school. 

 

If you can boot into unRAID and run unmenu install script with onboard NIC, then there's no need to buy the PCI-e network card.  If that's a no-go then that Intel NIC should be fine.

 

As to flash drive, it's not going to spend a lot of time reading or writing, so speed shouldn't be a factor provided it's a modern-ish flash drive.  The Cruzer Fit is what I'm using.  You'll be writing to it when installing and configuring unMENU.  The bottleneck on the unMENU install was the bandwidth for downloading programs, not the writes to flash.  It's a dinky little drive, not a thumb drive but more of a fingernail drive.  I almost lost it at one point because I dropped it while clumsily pulling it out of my laptop.  It's so small it took me a few minutes to find.  But it very low profile and I like that aspect a lot.

 

No comment on the parity drive, other than to suggest getting the longest warranty possible.  unRAID seems to have a knack for pushing hard drives to the manufacturer's limits and beyond.