First time unRAID build - Norco 4220 case

[ts4273]

I am looking to put together a unRAID server to store/stream my Blu ray rips to various media devices across my home (WD TV Live, Roku 3 (plex), HTPC. This will also server to backup family photos and videos. I currently have a old Windows Home Server v1 that isn't cutting it. After much research it is clear to me unRAID is the solution I am looking for. Here is my build list in progress, comments and suggestions welcome:

 

Norco RPC-4220 (Newegg has a sale currently, 15% off all Norco products!)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219033

 

Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101792

 

Supermicro MBD-X10SLL-F-O

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182819

 

Intel Core i3-4130

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116946

 

OCZ Fatal1ty 550W Modular (Currently own and plan to reuse)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341022

 

Norco 8087 to 8087 x 2

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133034

 

Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB x 3

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136874

 

The current plan for the hard drive setup is (1) 3TB parity and the other (2) 3TB drives as data. I own other miscellaneous drives currently in my WHS that I plan on  incorporating, (1) 1TB WD Black for cache, (2) 1.5TB Seagate ST31500541AS data, (1) 2TB HD154UI data, and (1) 1TB Seagate ST31000340AS .

 

One question I had was do you all recommend I transfer the data from my existing WHS over my 1GB network or install the drives in the unRAID array and transfer them first before preclear?

 

I've heard the 4220 case comes with very loud case fans. I plan on installing this in my home theater rack in my basement and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on replacement 80mm and 120mm fans?

 

I am starting out with 8 hard drives and I may just go ahead and buy a second Supermicro SAS card or buy a reverse breakout cable to use the sata ports on the motherboard. Please feel free to comment with any suggestions before I pull the trigger. A newegg preferred account is a very dangerous thing to have!

[vl1969]

Looks like a very nice setup.

I do not have norco case, but I got a supermicro case from TAMS and it has the same issue wih fans, so my mod was

A. Take out the fan wall and replace it with 3 x 120mm fans ziped together. Now you will need to mesure it up but in my case it was a mistake as I could have used 3x140mm fans. For better fit. Maybe you can di that with norco as well.

 

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk

 

 

[garycase]

OCZ Fatal1ty 550W Modular (Currently own and plan to reuse)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341022

 

This will work with your initial drive complement;  but it's a dual-rail supply, so you'll have to be very careful about distributing the 12v load as your drive count grows.  It'd be a better idea to replace it with a high-quality single-rail unit.

 

 

One question I had was do you all recommend I transfer the data from my existing WHS over my 1GB network or install the drives in the unRAID array and transfer them first before preclear?

 

I presume you mean before parity sync -- NOT before preclear.  You should preclear all of your drives to thoroughly test them BEFORE you build your initial array.    I'd get the array built; then just copy the data across your Gb network.    If you want this to be faster; then you can initialize the array WITHOUT assigning a parity drive;  copy the data; and then assign a parity drive.  The copies will be ~ 3 times as fast ... but of course the array will NOT be fault-tolerant until you've got a parity drive.  As long as you still have a complete backup of the data, that's probably an acceptable risk.

 

[pkn]

Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB x 3

If buying new, I wouldn't buy anything smaller than 4TB. Much more future-proof.

 

One question I had was do you all recommend I transfer the data from my existing WHS over my 1GB network or install the drives in the unRAID array and transfer them first before preclear?

Not too much difference in terms of speed, unRAID's ability to write will be severely limiting it in both cases. Choose whatever setup would be easier for your. Note, that if you chose "install inside the case and copy" way, you might find it difficult to mount the drives to the unRAID. Stock unRAID NTFS driver isn't  very smart, and even with added "ntfs-3g" driver I was not able to mount some of my 3TB drives which were supposedly NTFS but had some strange RAID-related flavor of NTFS.

 

I've heard the 4220 case comes with very loud case fans. I plan on installing this in my home theater rack in my basement and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on replacement 80mm and 120mm fans?

I currently have NORCO 4020 with 25 drives in it. I could not stand the noise of the original fans, so I replaced them: on back wall with two Noctua NF-R8 PWM 80mm. Midscase, I've replaced the original middlewall (case came with 4x80mm fans wall) with the 3x120mm fan wall (NORCO makes and sells them, sorry can't find the link Edited: found it ) with three Noctua NF-S12A PWM 120mm.

 

The Noctuas are relatively quiet - ergo, slow-rotating and relatively low airflow fans. Therefore the thermal regime is not excellent, but it's good enough for me.

 

Actually, at first attempt I installed three Enermax Marathon 120mm Fan UC-12EB and two Silenx IXP5211 iXtrema Pro 80mm fans. This setup turned out to be an overkill in the opposite way: extremely quiet, but very, very weak airflow, therefore I've replaced them with the more powerful Noctuas.

 

Before I did the "air-tightening" the case (I actually simply patched all openings - including on the back wall - with the masking tape) the disks were running approximately 19-21 degrees Celsius above ambient. After the "air-tightening" the difference reduced to 16-18 degrees. This is during parity check or a drive rebuild, and some cache drive operations, so, essentially, with all 25 disks spinning.

 

I still have an option to install, as was planned, a 156 CFM BitFenix Spectre Pro 230mm Case Fan BFF-SPRO-23030WW-RP thru the top cover if I need to drop the temperature difference another few degrees.

 

In your setup (server in an air-conditioned space) the last step would probably be not needed.

[ts4273]

If buying new, I wouldn't buy anything smaller than 4TB. Much more future-proof.

 

The more I read about this I agree. I am palnning on getting two 4TB WD Red drives as they on sale now at Newegg for $166.49 each.

 

Not too much difference in terms of speed, unRAID's ability to write will be severely limiting it in both cases. Choose whatever setup would be easier for your. Note, that if you chose "install inside the case and copy" way, you might find it difficult to mount the drives to the unRAID. Stock unRAID NTFS driver isn't  very smart, and even with added "ntfs-3g" driver I was not able to mount some of my 3TB drives which were supposedly NTFS but had some strange RAID-related flavor of NTFS.

 

I will just install my two new 4TB drives, preclear them, build the array, then transfer my data from my WHS over my 1GB network. Once that is done I will start adding the drives from my WHS to the unRAID server.

 

I currently have NORCO 4020 with 25 drives in it. I could not stand the noise of the original fans, so I replaced them: on back wall with two Noctua NF-R8 PWM 80mm. Midscase, I've replaced the original middlewall (case came with 4x80mm fans wall) with the 3x120mm fan wall (NORCO makes and sells them, sorry can't find the link Edited: found it ) with three Noctua NF-S12A PWM 120mm.

 

The Noctuas are relatively quiet - ergo, slow-rotating and relatively low airflow fans. Therefore the thermal regime is not excellent, but it's good enough for me.

 

Actually, at first attempt I installed three Enermax Marathon 120mm Fan UC-12EB and two Silenx IXP5211 iXtrema Pro 80mm fans. This setup turned out to be an overkill in the opposite way: extremely quiet, but very, very weak airflow, therefore I've replaced them with the more powerful Noctuas.

 

Before I did the "air-tightening" the case (I actually simply patched all openings - including on the back wall - with the masking tape) the disks were running approximately 19-21 degrees Celsius above ambient. After the "air-tightening" the difference reduced to 16-18 degrees. This is during parity check or a drive rebuild, and some cache drive operations, so, essentially, with all 25 disks spinning.

 

I still have an option to install, as was planned, a 156 CFM BitFenix Spectre Pro 230mm Case Fan BFF-SPRO-23030WW-RP thru the top cover if I need to drop the temperature difference another few degrees.

 

In your setup (server in an air-conditioned space) the last step would probably be not needed.

 

Is this the Norco fan bracket you purchased?

http://www.amazon.com/Norco-120mmfanbracket-120mm-wall-bracket/dp/B0075790SO

 

I may wait on the fans until I have everything setup and ready to install in my media rack. Thanks for all of your advice, much appreciated!

[pkn]

 

Is this the Norco fan bracket you purchased?

http://www.amazon.com/Norco-120mmfanbracket-120mm-wall-bracket/dp/B0075790SO

Yep.

[pkn]

If buying new, I wouldn't buy anything smaller than 4TB. Much more future-proof.

 

The more I read about this I agree. I am palnning on getting two 4TB WD Red drives as they on sale now at Newegg for $166.49 each.

Check out the "Good Deals" subforum here regularly, harddrives are frequent there.

[shawn]

Looks like a nice setup. I'm thinking about building one around the Norco 4220 too. What made you decide on the CPU and motherboard? By the way you didn't specify the amount of RAM.