Looking for a new Build

[senrab]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking to build an Unraid server for a friend(I've had one for a year or so now and love it).

 

He really wants to store pictures and movies on it so his family can access them from anywhere in the house.

 

I'm trying to price the hardware out for him but I seem to be having some difficult getting it to be somewhat in expensive.

 

When I did mine I think I was between 300-350 for board, CPU, Ram and power supply. Now I can't seem to get things under $500.

 

I'm looking at newegg.ca

 

Any suggestions on a decent board to get me started would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for the help!

[vl1969]

if that true you are over complicating things  .

 

if all he needs is a basic NAS the most expense will be the drives.

although as it seams you you are in Canada so your pricing might be a little higher.

still should be able to get something together under 400$ - 500$

Or the amount needs to include drives as well?

 

[senrab]

Thanks for the reply.

 

I was hoping to do the build including hard drives for around $600.

 

I guess I just need a starting point for a motherboard. Is there a good board for fairly cheap that I should be looking at?

 

Thanks for the help!

[trurl]

When I did my build the first thing I considered was the form factor. If you are going for small then that will put some limits on the available motherboard choices.

[garycase]

Agree -- pick your form factor first;  then choose good components for that form factor.  Don't buy the cheapest components you can get -- you want a high quality basic infrastructure ... it adds very little to the overall cost, but will be rock solid reliable.

 

As you likely know, I'm a big fan of the Lian-Li PC-Q25B for a small, very-well-built case that works perfectly for an UnRAID Plus system.    With modern 4TB drives, you can build a 20TB system in this little case 

 

An excellent baseline system can be put together with:

 

=> Lian-Li PC-Q25B  ($135.99)

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112339

 

=> Silverstone 300w SFX PSU  ($55.99)

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256097

 

=> Asus Haswell motherboard w/6 SATA-III ports ($119.99)

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132032

 

=>  Haswell CPU of your choice.  A $66.99 Pentium G3220 [PassMark 3192]  is plenty for most UnRAID needs; but a $129.99 Core i3-4130 [PassMark 4848]  or a $219.99 Core i5-4570 [PassMark 7081]  would give you a lot more processing "horsepower" if your friend plans to run add-ons (or just wants the extra headroom).

 

=>  Add 4GB to 16GB of memory (depending on expected use) and you'll have a VERY nice baseline system ready to pop in a few 4TB hard drives and an UnRAID flash drive 

 

Total cost for the base system: $312 plus CPU & memory

 

[Kryspy]

HP N54L microserver at Canada Computers ---> $424.00 plus tax. Just toss a few hard drives in there.  Add two WD 1 TB Red NAS drives and you  are at $583.98 plus tax.

 

Kryspy

[garycase]

The Neo N54L processor in the HP Microserver scores 1412 on PassMark.  And it only has 2GB of RAM.

 

If you used the G3220 processor (More than twice the power of the N54L at 3192 on PassMark) and only installed 2GB of RAM (I don't recommend this, but it matches the HP), the PC-Q25B setup I suggested above would cost you $407 -- less than the HP for a much nicer system that holds 7 drives instead of 4; has a better PSU; and is a lot roomier to work in.  ... and could be easily upgraded to provide FAR more processing power if ever needed, by simply swapping in a Core i3, i5, or even an i7.

 

 

 

[Kryspy]

I was merely pointing out an option

 

Kryspy

[garycase]

By the way ... advise your friend he does NOT want to just use 1TB drives.    That's a false economy -- both from a cost/TB perspective and from a utilization of the available SATA ports perspective.

 

Start with a pair of 4TB drives ... and build from there.  If he can't afford a pair of these, he should simply wait until he can 

 

[garycase]

I was merely pointing out an option

Kryspy

 

Understand -- and it's not a bad option.  I was just noting that you can do better for less if you don't mind doing the build yourself.    Clearly the HP has the advantage of no assembly ... although "building" computers these days isn't really much of a task.

 

[senrab]

Wow thanks for all the great info.

 

I'm going to check out the parts that were suggested and go from there.

 

I know my friend wants to keep it fairly cheap but not totally cheap out. He will not be doing any add-ons. Basically I will be building him the server and handing it over to him. He was going to get 3-2TB drives to start. I suggested to go with at least a 3TB as a parity but the cost started to get out of control for him. I will have to consult with him and hopefully convince him that spending the little extra now will save him money in the long run(and a headache for me lol).

 

When choosing a motherboard is there anything specific I should be looking at besides the number of SATA ports?

 

Thanks again for all the help. It is really appreciated.

[garycase]

He was going to get 3-2TB drives to start..

 

Note that 3 2TB drives will give him 4TB of protected storage -- the same as 2 4TB drives would. 

 

Assuming he's buying high-quality NAS drives, 3 2TB Seagate NAS drives would cost $354 (at Newegg.ca);  2 4TB Seagate NAS units would cost less than $380.    There's a promo code - CEMCPFPH27 - good until the 8th, but it's not valid in the US, so I don't know how much of a discount it provides, but if it's more than $13/disk, it would actually be CHEAPER to buy the 4TB drives !! 

(as long as he buys them NOW to take advantage of the promo code)

 

If he's buying cheaper drives -- e.g. WD Greens, then 3 2TB units are $285, and 2 4TB units are $370 (a pair of the Seagate NAS units are probably less right now).    But I'd still pay the difference to have the ability to add larger drives when the storage needs grow.

 

[senrab]

So a Unraid Server can only have 2 drives to run? One for parity and the other for storage? I'm not sure why I assumed you needed to have 3 drives.

 

Getting 2-4TB drives makes way more sense.

 

Thanks!

[garycase]

So a Unraid Server can only have 2 drives to run? One for parity and the other for storage?

 

Sure.  In fact it could have ONE drive with no parity drive ... although obviously there's no reason to do that 

 

[senrab]

Well thanks for the info. Now I just need to find a board for a decent price and build from there.

 

Thanks for the help!