Hi I'm new to the forums and to unRAID. I am in the process of building my first unRAID server and I have already purchased a Fractal Design Define Mini which appears perfect for the job and a Corsair CX430 power supply. I will start out with just 3 drives and the free license to fully test and see if it will do what I want. I have a media PC currently running XBMC and I was probably going to run plex media server...

 

I was looking at the MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) motherboard. It appears to tick all the boxes, microATX for the case and has 8x SATA ports for plenty of expansion. I was going to pair this with an Athlon II 610e which is a 45w quad core.

 

Question is A) is this a good idea. B) has anyone tried one of these boards and is it likely to work?

 

Thanks in advance!

OK well I've decided to take the plunge (it's only money right?)

 

At some point someone needs to test it so it might as well be me! I've read some scare stories regarding the Realtek RTL8111E gigabit LAN which annoyingly is on this board. The posts are back from 2011 so I'm hoping it's been resolved now, failing that I'm sure I can get my hands on a PCI nic card if the worst comes to the worst. Has anybody had any experience with this LAN controller?

 

So my build is: (all parts now ordered or already delivered so no going back!)

CASE: Fractal Design Define Mini

PSU: Corsair CX430 (if I like this setup and start adding drives will switch to a 400W Seasonic SS-400ET)

MOBO: MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) - 2 SATA III (Asmedia controller) 6x SATA II (AMD SB710 chipset)

CPU: AMD Athlon II 610e (2.4ghz quad core 45w)

Cooler: Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 pro (24/7 rated fan)

RAM: 4gb (2x2) Corsair XMS3 1333mhz CL9

USB Drive: 8gb Kingston Data Traveller USB3

HDD #1 Parity : Samsung HD103UJ 1tb

HDD #2+3 Data: wd6400aaks 640gb

 

Basically the hard drives I already own and will be using them for testing, if everything is great I'll invest in some new drives. I was making the assumption with this board that I could use one of the SATA III ports for the parity and another for the cache, then use the remaining 6 SATA II for data. In my head this all sounds great, I'm just hoping in practice it actually works!

 

I will be building this, all going well next weekend so if anyone is interested I will update this post with my success or failure.

 

Well the server is online!

 

Assembled all the components yesterday evening, very happy with the cooler which was pretty cheap and seems to be keeping the processor temperature very low. Slight concern about one of the drive temperatures but this improved when I realised I'd forgot to plug the intake fan into the motherboard header Still almost 10c over the others though.

 

Everything looking promising so far, although I haven't really done a lot other than play around inside unmenu and create an array + build parity. I'm going to setup some shares tonight and copy some large files tonight into the array. If I have time I might dabble with plex also. I was very happy to see that both the asmedia and standard SB710 SATA controllers were detected in unraid no problems so I have 8x SATA direct off the board. Also really impressed with the Fractal Design Define Mini. Really easy to work inside, loads of space and really high quality.

So I've been using this for a couple of days now...

 

I'm pretty happy so far I must say, I got plex up and running and streaming via the web to my laptop as a test and worked perfectly. I've managed to copy about 10gb of media to the server without issues and added into plex no problems and I have my HTPC running XBMC looking at the server and playing back media. So far it's doing everything it says on the tin.

 

I am a little disappointed by the web interface, I would call it functional but it sort of isn't. Almost every task I've needed to consult the forums or google to figure out it's not very intuitive. It did lead me to have about 2 days of extra research into unRAID alternatives however I must say that after hours of reading unRAID as an actual functional OS still strikes me as the almost clear winner. So I'm definitely going to persevere, unRAID strikes me as the elitists home NAS/RAID option. The community appears friendly but even though I'm quite competent and work in IT myself it's by no means an easy thing to get into!

 

So my one suggestion, or constructive criticism if you like is the web interface could be improved. I'm not suggesting it needs bells and whistles and shiny bits but I like a system that I can turn on and figure out myself by tinkering with the interface. This is not possible with unRAID! Setting up shares and deleting them is a prime example.

 

But as far as the back end goes, the way the file system works and the features it delivers I can not fault it. Well except for one piece of information I read about file corruption, but I shall ask that somewhere in the forum for a definitive answer.

So I've been using this for a couple of days now...

 

I'm pretty happy so far I must say, I got plex up and running and streaming via the web to my laptop as a test and worked perfectly. I've managed to copy about 10gb of media to the server without issues and added into plex no problems and I have my HTPC running XBMC looking at the server and playing back media. So far it's doing everything it says on the tin.

 

I am a little disappointed by the web interface, I would call it functional but it sort of isn't. Almost every task I've needed to consult the forums or google to figure out it's not very intuitive. It did lead me to have about 2 days of extra research into unRAID alternatives however I must say that after hours of reading unRAID as an actual functional OS still strikes me as the almost clear winner. So I'm definitely going to persevere, unRAID strikes me as the elitists home NAS/RAID option. The community appears friendly but even though I'm quite competent and work in IT myself it's by no means an easy thing to get into!

 

So my one suggestion, or constructive criticism if you like is the web interface could be improved. I'm not suggesting it needs bells and whistles and shiny bits but I like a system that I can turn on and figure out myself by tinkering with the interface. This is not possible with unRAID! Setting up shares and deleting them is a prime example.

 

But as far as the back end goes, the way the file system works and the features it delivers I can not fault it. Well except for one piece of information I read about file corruption, but I shall ask that somewhere in the forum for a definitive answer.

 

I am assuming that you are running 5.0.4.  You might want to try Dynamix for your webGUI.  I think you will find it is a step-up from the default interface.  You can find more information in this thread:

 

    http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=30939.0

Ah thanks, will read and digest that... But first Game of Thrones!