Hi,

 

So I've been going through the process of upgrading my Unraid/sab/sick/plex/xbmc setup.  I originally was utilizing an old celeron d home built setup with a couple gigs of ram and a couple drives for storage.  Unraid was generally fine, but when it came to sick/sab/plex it started showing some strain.  So that has prompted me to try and improve everything- I've made some improvements, but I could use some suggestions on how to get to my target state:

 

 

Current State:

DELL T7400 with 2xQC 3Ghz Xeon

32GB ECC RAM

A few random SATA drives 1-3TB in eSATA enclosure

A 7200RPM Cache Drive

OEM 950W PSU

Unraid runs off USB drive, as do Plex/SAB/Sick/Couch

 

Miscellaneous hardware:

HP SAS Expander

High HD capacity empty case

Note missing: SAS Cables, MB, SAS Card for T7400, PSU

Acronova Nimbie

 

I have a few thousand CD/DVDs to archive which I intend to do with the Nimbie

 

 

Target state:

T7400 listed above running ESXi, with connected SAS drives via HP SAS Expander in spare case, separate VMs for Unraid vs Plex vs SAB/Sick/Couch

 

 

I've seen some of the ESXi guides, and I know for the HP SAS Expander all I need is a random MB to power the card (don't need cpu/ram/etc).  However, I could use some recommendations for PSU for the case (note only needs to power mobo with SAS Expander and HD Drives, already have PSU for T7400), MoBo, and a SAS card to place in the T7400 to connect to the HP SAS Expander.  I'm trying to keep everything as inexpensive as possible.  The extra case will hold ~12 drives (planning on 3TB for all future drives) which should be plenty. 

 

Please let me know what suggestions/recommendations you may have.  Note, as some may be aware, the primary reason for going this direction is to start leveraging ESXi (for things other than Unraid too), and it does support eSATA at all.

 

Thanks!

Any ideas?