KB36 Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 Hi A little bagground. At the moment my NAS situation is like this: 1 x Netgear Readynas duo v1 with 2 x 2TB Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 (discs in JBOD mode) 1 x D-Link Sharecenter dns-320 with 2 x 2TB WD20EARX (discs in JBOD mode) 1 x Netgear Readynas duo v1 with 2 x 2TB WD20EARS (discs in JBOD mode) (update 4. july ran out of space on the 2 above) 3 x 2TB external backup discs with the most important files on hidden away in a closet. + 1 x empty 2TB disc (WD20EARX) (edited 4. july) The 3 nas boxes contain video files. These files are viewed on a WD TV Live 3. gen in the bedroom and a WD TV LIVE 2.gen with WDLXTV (due to moviesheets) (We use the network share function on the wdtvlive) And that's what the unRAID server will be used for also. The WDTV Live box can't play 3D BD iso files. But in the near future i'll probably get at box that can, so if this has a influence on hardware specs. Please let me know. The 2 nas boxes are almost full, so i need to find a new solution. (the 3. one is now in place 4. july) My first Idea was to get another 2 bay nas box, or a 4 bay (synology DS413j) But searched the internet for other options. Have used most of the weekend reading and watching youtube videos about unRAID. And it hit me. THIS IS WHAT I NEED. (thanks to Robbie Fergusson's youtube video's) My mom's boyfriend and my father in law both have some old pc's standing around and i could probably get some hardware from them. BUT the question is what is the minimum system requirements today for a task like this. And where is it most important to have mashine power, to avoid bottlenecks in video playback. Budget 350-400 us dollars (1990 – 2275 dkk) Number of drives Room for 12 discs, would be great, 9 discs is a minimum unRaid add-ons unMENU - Preclear Disk - Monthly parity check - SMART tools – The only thing i have is 7 discs. (2 TB discs WD20EARX + WD20EARS + Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 discs I already have) The requirements don't have to be model specific only a ruff idea of the minimum requirements. Then i'll go and have a look at what my mom's boyfriend's got i can use. And maybe contact my father in law in Germany and ask him what he has no use for anymore. I live in Denmark, so if you get model specific please make sure that the part is on the european market. Shopping online like Ebay/amazon Germany and UK is not a problem. Thanks. Quote Link to comment
Frank1940 Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 Basically, you are looking for a MB with a 1Gb/s NIC and (most probably) six SATA ports on it. The 1Gb/s NIC is not necessary for video playback but it does help when uploading files to the server. So if you want to minimize your costs, check and see what in those old computers that your family and friends have. The processor and memory are is really not that important for just running unRAID. If the CPU and memory ran any version from Windows XP on, it will work just fine. The case is another issue. I would suggest that you read through this thread for some ideas: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=17799.0 The power supply is another point of concern. If you will have have more than five or six drives, you will need one that has a single 12V rail. See this thread for more information on that topic: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12219.0 A third item to think about drive enclosures since you already have 10 HDs. Many people have found that using front loading drive enclosures are a big help after you get more than five or six drives into a single case. The 'rat's nest' of power cables and SATA cables makes adding or changing drives a real hassle and the danger of dislodging (or, even worse, partially dislodging) a connector on a drive that you are not working on is recipe for disaster. Hope this gives you a starting point... Quote Link to comment
doorunrun Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 unRAID is a good system that lets you grow it as your need for storage grows. As you probably have heard, your parity drive will need to be as large or larger than your data drives. If you can, consider starting your system with a new large capacity parity drive. Take your time and run PreClear on all your drives at least 3 times. This helps lay a good solid foundation for a reliable system. Provide good air flow across the drives both during PreClear and normal operation. PreClear also gives you SMART data from the drives and helps to weed out marginal used drives. It's never fun to see one of the drives in your array show a "red ball" in the GUI; there are a number of reasons why unRAID will take a drive off line and here the Syslog becomes a good tool. There is a lot of help available on this forum to help decipher it and point you in the right direction to correct the problem. Good Luck! Quote Link to comment
Frank1940 Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 Forgot one thing. An UPS to allow for a proper shutdown in case the power fails. A lot of unRAID problems have been traced to improper shutdowns that occur when the power fails. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted June 25, 2013 Author Share Posted June 25, 2013 Thanks for the input. I'm now waiting for my bonus dad (mom's boyfriend) to come home from his trip to New York. And have a look at his old stuff. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 1, 2013 Author Share Posted July 1, 2013 Found this on a "second hand" website. Gigabyte GA-G33-DS3R Intel Core 2 duo E6550, 2.33GHz (Passmark 1466) 4GB RAM (2 stk Corsair DDR2 PC6400/DDR800 2GB) The guys who has is wants 104 USD for it. Is is worth it? Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Found this on a "second hand" website. Gigabyte GA-G33-DS3R Intel Core 2 duo E6550, 2.33GHz (Passmark 1466) 4GB RAM (2 stk Corsair DDR2 PC6400/DDR800 2GB) The guys who has is wants 104 USD for it. Is is worth it? Yes, that's a very reasonable motherboard and CPU, and has 8 SATA ports. It would work very well for UnRAID with no need for any add-on SATA interface cards unless you get beyond 8 disks. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 1, 2013 Author Share Posted July 1, 2013 Is it possible to check if this MB is a HPA model? Cuz i would hate to throw 100$ out the window. Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 I am reasonably certain HPA is not an issue with that board ... I don't think anything new enough to support the Core architecture CPU's does. But even if that's an issue, there's a simple workaround that will eliminate the HPA issue. Wait until you get the board before worrying about that, however => I'm fairly sure you'll find it's not a problem. If you buy the board, install ONE of your older, smaller disks in it; boot to a Live CD (Knoppix, etc.); and then shut down. Now boot to a bare UnRAID USB Flash drive and see if the disk has an HPA on it. IF by chance it does, post a note and we can tell you how to work around that. But as I noted already, I do NOT think that's an issue. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 1, 2013 Author Share Posted July 1, 2013 I am reasonably certain HPA is not an issue with that board ... I don't think anything new enough to support the Core architecture CPU's does. But even if that's an issue, there's a simple workaround that will eliminate the HPA issue. Wait until you get the board before worrying about that, however => I'm fairly sure you'll find it's not a problem. If you buy the board, install ONE of your older, smaller disks in it; boot to a Live CD (Knoppix, etc.); and then shut down. Now boot to a bare UnRAID USB Flash drive and see if the disk has an HPA on it. IF by chance it does, post a note and we can tell you how to work around that. But as I noted already, I do NOT think that's an issue. Thanks Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 2, 2013 Author Share Posted July 2, 2013 Damn! The guy had forgotten to remove the add from the website. Hmm back to the starting point for me again. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 3, 2013 Author Share Posted July 3, 2013 Got my hands on a Core i3 I3-540 with cooler http://ark.intel.com/products/46473/Intel-Core-i3-540-Processor-4M-Cache-3_06-GHz Intel dh55hc motherboard: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-motherboards/desktop-board-dh55hc.html For 88 $ , is that a fair deal? Quote Link to comment
mrow Posted July 3, 2013 Share Posted July 3, 2013 Granted I don't live Denmark so I don't know what current generation hardware goes for but I wouldn't pay that much for hardware that old when you can spend a little more for hardware that is not used an more up to date. In the fall when the Haswell i3 CPUs are released that CPU will be 3 generations old. Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted July 3, 2013 Share Posted July 3, 2013 For 88 $ , is that a fair deal? For $88 that's a very nice system. Six SATA ports, and a reasonable CPU for about the price of a new Celeron. The only issue is the limited expansion ports, but as long as you limit yourself to no more than two disks per PCIe x1 slot you'll easily be able to support the 9 disks you want. I agree it's a bit dated ... but there are a LOT of much more dated systems running UnRAID quite nicely. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 3, 2013 Author Share Posted July 3, 2013 Granted I don't live Denmark so I don't know what current generation hardware goes for but I wouldn't pay that much for hardware that old when you can spend a little more for hardware that is not used an more up to date. In the fall when the Haswell i3 CPUs are released that CPU will be 3 generations old. I have no idea myself. It's not a thing i buy often, and when i buy it's always new and complete plug and play systems. But this is a bit different. I'm gonna build a small unRAID system and see if i can get it to work at all. Going all in and buying new parts, not knowing if i even like the unRAID system, is not me. If it turns out bad, i can always give the parts to my father in law or my mum's boyfriend. And the loss isn't that great. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 3, 2013 Author Share Posted July 3, 2013 For 88 $ , is that a fair deal? For $88 that's a very nice system. Six SATA ports, and a reasonable CPU for about the price of a new Celeron. The only issue is the limited expansion ports, but as long as you limit yourself to no more than two disks per PCIe x1 slot you'll easily be able to support the 9 disks you want. I agree it's a bit dated ... but there are a LOT of much more dated systems running UnRAID quite nicely. Ok i'll keep in mind about the disc max.n As written in the previous post, this system is my test run to see if my limited skills can make this unRAID thingy work. Quote Link to comment
electron286 Posted July 4, 2013 Share Posted July 4, 2013 For testing purposes... I would wait to buy, unless you find something cheap you would want to use for another purpose later. You can also just check around and see if anyone has an older computer they want to just get rid of for free. Like was already posted, if an old computer was an XP era machine it should work well for unRAID. This would be an easy and CHEAP way to test what unRAID will really do for you, before you decide what you may want to buy, or re-use for your actual unRAID configuration to use as a "real" system. :-) The main things to look for for a test machine, in my opinion are: 1. That the mother board can BOOT from a USB flash drive. I have a few machines that CAN NOT boot from USB, that CAME with XP installed on them from the manufacturer, and has NO BIOS update available to allow it either... (P4 socket 755, with hyper-threading) So not as old of an XP machine as could be had, but a headache to boot USB. A BOOT CD using a boot loader like PLOP Boot Manager, can be used to boot from, then in turn allow booting from USB, then after booting they also do work well with unRAID. 2. That the motherboard has hard drive interface ports that will work with your test hard drives... IDE or SATA will be fine for this. Just so you have drives that will work with the mother-board. 3. Two or three test hard drives. They can be very small, and smaller the better I feel for testing, since it will take less time to prepare and do some real testing to see how you like unRAID. But any size will be fine. This will allow you to play with Parity, and even see what happens with drive loss, (just remove a drive after a power down - then reboot). Then you will be able to see the real magic of unRAID! :-) 4. NIC to use on your network. 5. Video, either on-board, or add-on will be good. Finally, even though ultimately you may run unRAID headless, (no monitor, keyboard, mouse) for initial set-up and testing it is much easier to have a seperate monitor, and keyboard on the unRAID system, (or a KVM switch). As far as how much of a machine is needed to run unRAID, I have test machines running well on OLD 386 hardware with 256MB of RAM... They have no problems streaming videos, that are compressed. Too slow for larger higher bit-rate videos however. Not because of the CPU and RAM, but even larger files would be, but I am hitting the limit on the very small old IDE hard drives in the machines. I would not even consider for your purposes of testing anything less than a motherboard with a P4 3.0 Ghz, with Hyper-threading. I think you will be very impressed at that point already, as long as you also test with hard drives of the same age or newer. For testing, It would also be good to go through the full recommended procedure of pre-clearing the drives before use. It will help you get familier with the process, and also test the old drives that you may end up testing for the test system. There is nothing wrong with FREE and very minimal for testing. That way you can know just how much a very limited system can do, and that you can expect more performance with newer hardware! I am always amazed at how many videos I can stream at the same time from rather old hardware! :-) unRAID is much more efficient at streaming out files than any tests on various versions of Windows on the same hardware that I have tested. (tests using Windows 98, 98SE, ME, NT 3.x, NT 4, 2000, XP) Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 4, 2013 Author Share Posted July 4, 2013 For testing purposes... I would wait to buy, unless you find something cheap you would want to use for another purpose later. You can also just check around and see if anyone has an older computer they want to just get rid of for free. Like was already posted, if an old computer was an XP era machine it should work well for unRAID. This would be an easy and CHEAP way to test what unRAID will really do for you, before you decide what you may want to buy, or re-use for your actual unRAID configuration to use as a "real" system. :-) The main things to look for for a test machine, in my opinion are: 1. That the mother board can BOOT from a USB flash drive. I have a few machines that CAN NOT boot from USB, that CAME with XP installed on them from the manufacturer, and has NO BIOS update available to allow it either... (P4 socket 755, with hyper-threading) So not as old of an XP machine as could be had, but a headache to boot USB. A BOOT CD using a boot loader like PLOP Boot Manager, can be used to boot from, then in turn allow booting from USB, then after booting they also do work well with unRAID. 2. That the motherboard has hard drive interface ports that will work with your test hard drives... IDE or SATA will be fine for this. Just so you have drives that will work with the mother-board. 3. Two or three test hard drives. They can be very small, and smaller the better I feel for testing, since it will take less time to prepare and do some real testing to see how you like unRAID. But any size will be fine. This will allow you to play with Parity, and even see what happens with drive loss, (just remove a drive after a power down - then reboot). Then you will be able to see the real magic of unRAID! :-) 4. NIC to use on your network. 5. Video, either on-board, or add-on will be good. Finally, even though ultimately you may run unRAID headless, (no monitor, keyboard, mouse) for initial set-up and testing it is much easier to have a seperate monitor, and keyboard on the unRAID system, (or a KVM switch). As far as how much of a machine is needed to run unRAID, I have test machines running well on OLD 386 hardware with 256MB of RAM... They have no problems streaming videos, that are compressed. Too slow for larger higher bit-rate videos however. Not because of the CPU and RAM, but even larger files would be, but I am hitting the limit on the very small old IDE hard drives in the machines. I would not even consider for your purposes of testing anything less than a motherboard with a P4 3.0 Ghz, with Hyper-threading. I think you will be very impressed at that point already, as long as you also test with hard drives of the same age or newer. For testing, It would also be good to go through the full recommended procedure of pre-clearing the drives before use. It will help you get familier with the process, and also test the old drives that you may end up testing for the test system. There is nothing wrong with FREE and very minimal for testing. That way you can know just how much a very limited system can do, and that you can expect more performance with newer hardware! I am always amazed at how many videos I can stream at the same time from rather old hardware! :-) unRAID is much more efficient at streaming out files than any tests on various versions of Windows on the same hardware that I have tested. (tests using Windows 98, 98SE, ME, NT 3.x, NT 4, 2000, XP) Thank you for your long and detailed post. I'm gonna wait and see if my bonus Dad has a system i can borrow for a test run. (He'll be back from New york saturday. I have to give i'm a day or two, to get over the jetlag) Eventhough i can hardly wait to get started. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 10, 2013 Author Share Posted July 10, 2013 What do you guys say to the Enermax Ostrog GT case? I've looked for a case with 8 3,5 disc spaces, i like the idea of the "sideways" HDD install, i figure it's easier to add discs or exchange discs that way. And it pains me a bit because i LOVE the Bitfenix Shinobi case design, but this case only has the front to back disc spaces. http://76.my/Malaysia/bitfenix-shinobi-korean-edition-gaming-casing-window-usb3-0-lingloong-1304-03-lingloong@7.jpg As you can see it can get a little tight http://static.pcinpact.com/images/bd/news/101333-bitfenix-shinobi.jpg Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 The layout and airflow of the Ostrog look very nice ... although personally I'm not a fan of "bling" => the lights and windowed panel aren't things I look for in a case But from a functional standpoint, it's a VERY nice case. Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 11, 2013 Author Share Posted July 11, 2013 I'm not into the "bling" thing either, but the reasons why i like this case. - Good airflow - 3 fans included - 2 fan connector adapters are included (fan plug to "normal" 4 pin plug) My motherboard only has 2 fan headers, so i need an ekstra. http://www.eteknix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/DSC_8715.jpg - screwless drivebays - The right side of the case has a deep cable compartment. http://www.eteknix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/DSC_8714.jpg Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 Agree ... as I noted above, from a functional perspective it's a VERY nice case. ... for all the reasons you just listed Quote Link to comment
electron286 Posted July 12, 2013 Share Posted July 12, 2013 That looks like a very easy case to work with! I don't look at me unRAID servers all the time anyway, so to me it is fine if it has red and blue flashing lights, or even looks like a UFO, as long as it works well for my system and keeps the drives cool, it is GREAT! Quote Link to comment
KB36 Posted July 21, 2013 Author Share Posted July 21, 2013 Got my hands on a Core i3 I3-540 with cooler http://ark.intel.com/products/46473/Intel-Core-i3-540-Processor-4M-Cache-3_06-GHz Intel dh55hc motherboard: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-motherboards/desktop-board-dh55hc.html For 88 $ , is that a fair deal? Sold these parts again, since the response here was somewhat lukewarm. Sold for 106 $ Quote Link to comment
garycase Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 Sounds like you did fine with reselling the parts ... although as I noted earlier, they were fine for a system with up to about 10 drives. A lightly dated i3, but still far more power than UnRAID needs. But now you can get a more modern board that will provide even more processing power with lower power consumption Quote Link to comment
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