June 12, 201313 yr I've decided to go with an Unraid as the media server for my new HTPC. This would be my first time building anything other than a Windows PC. The budget i had in mind is about $400. I plan on purchasing a plus license and thus would like future expandability up to 7 drives including a cache drive. I won't be running any add-ons at the moment, maybe a torrent client in the future. These are the components I already have, Fractal Design Define R4 I'm planning on using my old hard drives from my external enclosures, a 2TB WD & a 1.5TB iOmega. I also bought two Seagate 4TB drives, one for parity. I was planning on getting the Intel Celeron G1610 and Rosewill HIVE-550 as it has 8 SATA Power Connectors. I would like to have a motherboard with at least 7 SATA ports and with Intel LAN. Any suggestions for a CPU, motherboard, PSU and RAM for a low power media server would be greatly appreciated.
June 12, 201313 yr The SuperMicro X7SPA-H-D525 is a superb low-power motherboard using the Atom D525 CPU. It only has 6 SATA ports, so you'd need to add a card to get the 7th port if you really need it. It's a great board, however -- my system has 6 3TB WD Reds and idles at 20 watts !!
June 12, 201313 yr Author The SuperMicro X7SPA-H-D525 is a superb low-power motherboard using the Atom D525 CPU. It only has 6 SATA ports, so you'd need to add a card to get the 7th port if you really need it. It's a great board, however -- my system has 6 3TB WD Reds and idles at 20 watts !! So the motherboard has the processor integrated in it? How long have you had this board?
June 12, 201313 yr The SuperMicro X7SPA-H-D525 is a superb low-power motherboard using the Atom D525 CPU. It only has 6 SATA ports, so you'd need to add a card to get the 7th port if you really need it. It's a great board, however -- my system has 6 3TB WD Reds and idles at 20 watts !! So the motherboard has the processor integrated in it? How long have you had this board? About a year. This is the board: http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-X7SPA5
June 12, 201313 yr Author How about a combo of ASUS P8Z77-V + Intel Celeron G1610. The ASUS has 8 SATA ports and has Intel LAN.
June 12, 201313 yr That's a very good combination and will work fine. Won't be as low-power as the Atom board; but it also provides you all the SATA ports you want, and a good bit more CPU "horsepower." Note that if you plan on using some of the CPU-intensive add-ons the do transcoding, you may want to use an even better CPU.
June 12, 201313 yr Author Note that if you plan on using some of the CPU-intensive add-ons the do transcoding, you may want to use an even better CPU. There won't be any transcoding, just streaming. When opening compressed files on the server through a client PC, does the server CPU or the client CPU do the work? If the server CPU doesn't take the load I might just go with the SuperMicro board.
June 13, 201313 yr Note that if you plan on using some of the CPU-intensive add-ons the do transcoding, you may want to use an even better CPU. There won't be any transcoding, just streaming. When opening compressed files on the server through a client PC, does the server CPU or the client CPU do the work? If the server CPU doesn't take the load I might just go with the SuperMicro board. If you're opening them with a client PC, the client PC does the work => UnRAID is just "serving" the file to the client. If you're just using it that way, the SuperMicro Atom board is a VERY good choice -- I couldn't be happier with my choice of that board for my 2nd UnRAID server ... and if I build another it will use the same board.
June 13, 201313 yr Author If you're opening them with a client PC, the client PC does the work => UnRAID is just "serving" the file to the client. If you're just using it that way, the SuperMicro Atom board is a VERY good choice -- I couldn't be happier with my choice of that board for my 2nd UnRAID server ... and if I build another it will use the same board. Awesome! How much RAM should I go with, 2GB or 4Gb? Also, what PSU would you recommend? Also, what's the benefit of the H version over the HF version?
June 13, 201313 yr 4GB The smallest 80+ PSU you can get is plenty ... you'll be running below it's optimal efficiency levels, but a good PSU will still be reasonably efficient -- and at very low loads a few wasted % will still be a small number. If you're going to attach 6-8 drives, I'd go with something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151124
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