What is your budget?  Even if you don't have a strict budget set out, at least give us an idea if you are pinching pennies or splurging on your build.

   

    Already own the majority of items required for unraid.

    Require Suitable PSU and awaiting 4224 delivery

   

    How many drives do you want your server to be able to support and how much capacity do you need?

   

    As I already own 4 WD 2TB, 4 Samsung 1TB, 4 Seagate 2TB & 4 Hitachi 2TB. Also have 2 1TB Hitachi drives in my i7 Desktop.

    Only see need to replace 1TB drives eventually for bigger replacements.

   

    Are you interested in running any unRAID Add Ons (see here)?  If so, which ones?  Be specific.

  Probably not.

 

  Do you want to run green/low power drives or faster 7200 rpm drives?  If you don't have a specific need for 7200 rpm drives, then choose green drives.

  Already own multiple drives but should have opted for green's I suppose when originally purchased.

 

    Do you have any spare parts laying around that you would like to apply towards your build?  This includes drives.

 

 

    If you already have parts in mind, please oh pretty please post links to them so that we don't have to look them up.

 

 

 

Thinking of picking up a norco/Xcase 4224 server case.

 

Already have

 

  AMD FX-8150 Eight Core Processor - 3.60GHz, 16MB, L3 Cache, Socket AM3+

  Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Motherboard (AMD 990FX, 4x DDR3 RAM, SATA 6GB/s, ATX, USB 3.0, MemOK!, Network iControl, Multi-GPU Support, Socket AM3+)

  Corsair CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 16GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Memory Four Module Kit[

 

Hard Drives I own are

 

4 WD EARS 2TB

4 Samsung HD103UJ 1TB

4 Seagate Barracuda 2TB ST2000DM001

4 Hitachi F30EHRTD 2TB

 

Thinking of getting two of the supermicro cards most users of this forum have purchased.

Bit perplexed with the P.S.U.

 

At the moment I am using  two 8 Bay Sans Digital towers.  These are connected to by e-sata to a  i7 860, 2TB HDD, 8GB 1600Mhz desktop.

 

But want the ability to have the drives spin down when not in use and also the back plane in one of the devices is faulty.

 

Any advice appreciated

 

Like most it's to be used to serve XBMC clients

 

Based in the UK. Had problems getting a m/board with enough PCI-E slots.

 

I would look at either a seasonic or a corsair, as I live in the UK corsair seem to be easier to get here and Im using a Corsair AX760 which is made by seasonic for my 24 bay server, all my drives are WD 3TB red so I could get away with a 650 maybe but Im going for the AX760 as it has great reviews and a platinum rating to save power. The whole idea is to use 50% of the PSU's maximum rating when your server is in normal use. For me that would have been about 400 watt but my system could use up to 700 watt on boot with all drives spinning, although I doubt it. But Im not taking a chance.

Corsair AX750 Professional Series 750W AX ATX/EPS Fully Modular 80 PLUS Gold PSU

 

Have just ordered above PSU. I believe it has 62A which I believe should be enough.

+1 for Corsair. Reasonably priced. Good reliability. 750 or 850watts would be good.

Also have a query regarding expander cards as neither IBM or Supermicro mentioned are easily available here.

 

Any 16-24 Port Expanders recommended for use.

HBA and expanders are a big topic of conversation. You could buy a M1015 for about £100 and add an intel port expander at another £300. The M1015 is selling for about £85 on e-bay used which is way overpriced. After a lot of talk with different users Im looking at getting a LSI 9201-16i which will give me 16 drive support so should last me for a while until I need to add more drives, then I will just buy an M1015 or a LSI 9211-8i. Im paying about £100 more doing it this way but it will free up one PCI slot and keeps me future proof, even though its only PCI 2.0. The PCO 3.0 version is way to expensive and as Im using my server for blu-ray ISO storage I don't need it as Im using spinners and not SSD's.