I have decided to build a new rig since I see that 5.0 is out of RC not (haven't looked in over a year).  My last rig had failed on me I had a memory issue that caused data loss and replaced the OZC memory with corsair memory that I had very good luck with.  then I had a SAS card issue happen after the memory was replaced while I was preclearing drives.  So I decided to hold off on unraid till 5.0 got finalized till I built a new server.

 

Since none of the data that was stored on this server was vital and I had other backups I wasn't heartbroken.

 

I was hoping my new rig wouldn't cost me that much but I was thinking of getting a MB that supported ECC memory.  But the difference in price between the ASUS/Asrock desktop boards that I have been looking at are about a third of the price.  Should I spend the extra cash on a server board with ECC Memory or a Z77 or Z87 desktop board and spend more on memory.

 

I am also looking for suggestions on what MB/Memory/CPU to buy.  I am only going to serving files mostly straight Blu-ray rips to XBMC, so I don't need a powerful CPU just bandwidth.  I am only going to put my 5x3TB drives back into the server and want expansion to 8 maybe 12 drives (I have 3 - 4in3 drive cages but thinking of only using 2 of them), so I would like at least 6 SATA ports with at least 2 of PCIe 8x/16x for SATA/SAS cards.

 

I'm trying to keep the budget under $300 for MB, ECC memory, and CPU.

I'm an Intel guy, so I don't follow the specific AMD offerings;  but I do know that several AMD-based boards support ECC RAM.    That's probably the only way you're going to meet a $300 goal for motherboard/CPU/memory.

 

I suspect some of the AMD fans will chime in with specific suggestions.

 

Personally, I'd spend a few extra $$ and get a good Xeon-based server board with ECC.  Ideally I'd prefer buffered RAM (either registered or FBDIMMs), but that adds even more to the cost.

 

I'm an Intel guy, so I don't follow the specific AMD offerings;  but I do know that several AMD-based boards support ECC RAM.    That's probably the only way you're going to meet a $300 goal for motherboard/CPU/memory.

 

I suspect some of the AMD fans will chime in with specific suggestions.

 

Personally, I'd spend a few extra $$ and get a good Xeon-based server board with ECC.  Ideally I'd prefer buffered RAM (either registered or FBDIMMs), but that adds even more to the cost.

 

I am also an Intel guy, my last board was a AMD and not 100% happy with it.  Is there a particular server board that you have in mind that is i3, Celeron, or Pentium? I don't need the processing power of an xeon processor and I could save a few bucks.

I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions.

 

I'd buy a SuperMicro board and a Xeon E3 series processor -- but this isn't going to come in under $300.    [it could probably be done for ~ $450 including the memory if you use a low-end E3 and relatively inexpensive motherboard]

 

With Intel you *must* go for a server chipset to get ECC but for AMD you can also go for *some*  AM3+ socket desktop boards, as not all motherboards do implement that.

Almost all ASUS AM3+ mobos have it in their specs.

All CPUs that will fit in there, including "lower" AM2, AM3 and the AM3+ (FX and Opteron33xx) will support unbuffered/unregistered ECC.

 

I am running a ZFS build very successfully with one of that kind, see: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=27822.0

My build was running i3-2120t CPU on a super micro x9scm-f board before I upgraded to an ESXI build.

 

I was happy with the cpu , enough performance for unraid and plugins, including plex server.

Being a low tdp CPU it's definitely noteworthy!

 

It's now rehoused to my htpc

 

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How about this setup?

 

ASRock E3C224-V+ ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1150 Intel C224 DDR3 1600/1333

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157403

 

Has a total of 8 SATA ports 2 are on the Marvell SE9172 controller.  Does anybody know if ASRock server boards are any good I like their desktop boards.

 

Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell 3.0GHz LGA 1150 54W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646G3220

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116950

 

I don't plan on having any plugins or video processing being done by the server so I think this processor should be able to keep up but I could move up to a i3

 

2x Kingston 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Server Memory Intel Model KVR13E9/2I

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239132

 

Total Price $297

 

Good choices => and you even got under $300 

 

With no plugins or video processing requirements, the G3220 is fine ... although personally I'd step up to an i3-4130 "just in case".  [but then you won't be under $300]

$300 was a soft budget so I will probably up the CPU to an i3.

 

 

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What would you guys recommend for stress testing the server before throwing drive in it and pre-clearing them?  I would like to stress test the memory and CPU for a few days before  and make sure there are no issues before pre-clearing.  Is there a tool right in unraid, plugin, or live CD/USB drive I could use?

 

 

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When you boot, choose MemTest and just let it run for 24 hours or so.    This will thoroughly test the memory; and the fact that it's running is clearly exercising the CPU.

 

If you want more thorough CPU testing, boot to the UBCD and run CPUStress, which is an excellent CPU burn-in utility.

 

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

Note that if you don't have an optical drive on your UnRAID system, you can download the USB-bootable version of UBCD and boot it from a flash drive.