April 6, 201412 yr Im new to unRAID and would really like to give it a shot I am currently collecting a bunch of components from friends, work and great offers so I now have: 1x Intel i3-3225 CPU 1x Gigabyte GA-B75N ITX motherboard 1x Silverstone SFX 300watt semi-fanless PSU 2x 4GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile CL9 DDR1600 RAM (total of 8GB) 1x Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16GB USB flash disc 1x Plextor M3 64GB SSD (for cache) 1x Hitachi 5K3000 3TB HDD (for parity) 2x Hitachi 5K3000 2TB HDD (total of 4TB) 1x Antec H2O 620v4 AIO watercooler 2x Corsair SP120 high pressure / low noise fans suitable for the water cooler ...thats it for now. I know it's not a server CPU, it's not ECC ram and it's not a very big cache drive - but would it be any good as a unRAID server??? What I want to use it for is running a Plex server and a general file server for all my pictures, movies, music files so I can stream them all around the house to my other computers running Plex. Transcoding is not necessary. I am thinking of soon buying something like a SilverStone DS-380 chassis to assemble the thing in. Plus I can get a IBM Br10i card incl. cables for a really good price from a friend. Would then use a pair of Noctua NF-12A fans and two Akasa PWM splitters and I would think the machine would be pretty silent... An alternative I am considering is a Lian Li PC-Q35 chassis with sound damping matts, two 3in2 cages and a 2.5+3.5in1 cage (for a total of 8 drives), complete with two silent 80mm Noctua fans cooling the drive cages and a HighPoint RocketRaid 2310 4-port card as the motherboard already have 4 ports. This is double the price, but would the sound reduction be worth it? I really like this chassis compared to the DS-380, slightly more space and looks a lot more sturdy... What do you think, anything I should consider changing and what route should I choose??
April 7, 201412 yr It'll all work fine, but I don't see any reason for the water cooling ... the stock fan on a i3-3225 works very all and is VERY quiet. Since you already (apparently) have the motherboard and the drives, I'd just go ahead and build with those ... but if you were buying from scratch, I'd suggest a board with more than 4 SATA ports; and would get 2 4TB drives instead of a 3TB and 2 2TB drives -- same total storage space; but more flexible in the future, as you can add larger drives AND have an additional SATA slot. The Silverstone case is very nice; as is the superb Lian-Li PC-Q25B, which I like better for a small system like this than the Q35B.
April 7, 201412 yr I'd also skip the water. These things run 24x7 and pumps IMO are not reliable enough. And what if it sprung a leak? Could fry the box. You'd be sick! The BR10i does not support drives larger than 2T. Free is a good price, and if you have a bunch of 2T drives it's ok for now. But if it limits your drive choices I'd skip it.
April 7, 201412 yr Author I'd also skip the water. These things run 24x7 and pumps IMO are not reliable enough. And what if it sprung a leak? Could fry the box. You'd be sick! The BR10i does not support drives larger than 2T. Free is a good price, and if you have a bunch of 2T drives it's ok for now. But if it limits your drive choices I'd skip it. Good point about if the water leaks... It is a non-conducting fluid and not actual water, but still... Also, I will skip the BR10i and focus on finding a M1015 - that one should allow 3 and 4TB drives right? (or can you recommend any other that will fit in the DS380 chassis)
April 7, 201412 yr I'd also skip the water. These things run 24x7 and pumps IMO are not reliable enough. And what if it sprung a leak? Could fry the box. You'd be sick! The BR10i does not support drives larger than 2T. Free is a good price, and if you have a bunch of 2T drives it's ok for now. But if it limits your drive choices I'd skip it. Good point about if the water leaks... It is a non-conducting fluid and not actual water, but still... Also, I will skip the BR10i and focus on finding a M1015 - that one should allow 3 and 4TB drives right? (or can you recommend any other that will fit in the DS380 chassis) I have 3 and 4 TB drives running off my M1015s.
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