I'm rebuilding my HTPC and figured now would be a good time to offload the media to a separate device.  From reading through various forums an unRAID system sounded like the best solution.

 

Below are a list of parts that I have or have purchased but after reading more through these forums I had a few questions.

 

1. Will the SSD work ok as a cache drive?

 

2. I noticed I'm probably missing the parity drive.  I'm assuming I should pick up another 3TB drive since it has to be the largest drive?

 

3. If I get another 3TB drive for the parity drive, i'll make sure it is not a WD Green since I already have two of those (ugh).  Should I use this new drive as the parity or have one of the WD Green's as the parity?  And any recommendations for the new drive?

 

4. I though I had a spare USB drive but I haven't been able to find it. Can I run unRAID from the SSD?  If so, does that eliminate it as a cache drive?  Is it even recommended to run it from the SSD?

 

5. Any other recommendations / advice?

 

 

CPU:  Intel Core i3-3220T 2.8GHz Dual-Core Processor

CPU Cooler:  Noctua NH-L9i 57.5 CFM CPU Cooler

Motherboard:  ASRock H77M-ITX Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard

Memory:  Corsair Vengeance 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

Storage:  Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk

Storage:  Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

Storage:  Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

Case:  Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case

Power Supply:  Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

 

You are going to want to pick up one more drive for parity most likely. Otherwise you will only have 3tb of disk space. I would recommend the WD Red as a parity drive. That's what I run and have not had any issues with it. They are designed for NAS use and the parity will experience more writes than any other single drive.

 

For your cache drive there is nothing wrong with using an ssd. If you are only going to store apps on it then that drive will be more than enough space. My cache is only a 20gb. However if you are going to use it as an actual cache drive just remember if you run mover daily only ~120gb will fit before you start writing to the array directly.

 

For your USB question you are going to need to get a flash drive for unraid. It does not need to be very big at all. Mine is a 4gb and I only use 75mb of it. If you have more plugins you may use more space but you still probably won't fill up your thumbdrive.

 

For your system the big question is what are your long term goals? If you are planning on expanding your drives down the road you should plan your case and your motherboard or controllers accordingly. Based on your current setup you will need to purchase at least the plus license so if it was me I would plan to use every drive available to my license. Again that is my opinion.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Right now my goals are a small, quiet, cool, and relatively fast server to store media (home movies, photos, ripped dvds, etc.) and let my OpenELEC box read from those.  Right now all of my media takes up less than 1TB. 

 

I may eventually expand, however I don't see that need coming anytime soon.  I have an old tower case and mobo I could repurpose later, but for now the smaller form factor is desirable.

 

Can the SSD be used for a cache drive AND apps?  I'm not sure what apps I would want or need though.

 

I guess one app I was thinking of was the crashplan plugin to backup to my crashplan account.  Would that go on the USB or the SSD?

I would not use SSD for cache. I think it's too small and to expensive for that.

the only thing you get with cache drive is better write speed and a space for extra data/apps that do not need to be protected or are temporary in nature.

such as :

temp folders for download managers(transmission, utorrent etc.)

temp folders for subznb, coachpotato, sickbieard if you run them on unraid.

other apps that are not part of unraid plugin architecture and/or need a temp space for writing thus you put them on drive other than your flash to prolong flash stick life.

 

for all that you can repurpose an old 500GB-1TB HDD  and be done with it.

 

I say (if your SSD is not very old) use it as a system drive for your HTPC

and use the regualr HDD from that as your cache drive.

your benefits will be much grater.

I have my HTPC runing like this.

win 7  boots up in no time at all.

have no issue s and it is very quiet.(aside from PSU and CPU fans  that is  :-) )

 

but it is after all your choice.

 

 

The SSD I was planning to use was one I already had.  I upgraded my desktop to a larger SSD so I had this one left over.  I also already had another SSD for my HTPC box.  I simply didn't need it in any other machine.  :-/ 

The SSD I was planning to use was one I already had.  I upgraded my desktop to a larger SSD so I had this one left over.  I also already had another SSD for my HTPC box.  I simply didn't need it in any other machine.  :-/

 

than follow the Nike slogan :-)

You can use the ssd for both a cache and apps drive. It will work just fine. If you house a mysql db on it you have the added advantage of it always being on since ssd drives don't spin down.