Skrumpy Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Subject says it all! I am pretty new with all of this stuff so after the better part of a week spent researching have decided to go with unRaid for my first ever NAS. I know the machine I listed below is probably a bit of overkill but I don't mind and I want to have some future upgrade potential (via the CPU). If my space demands overtake my current maximum capacity (6 drives) I will upgrade to pro and toss my current hardware into a new case and continue to expand. I will be hooking my NAS up to my HTPC which I would primarily stream movies to. I would also be streaming music/movies to other devices (android phone, tablet, etc). What is your budget? Even if you don't have a strict budget set out, at least give us an idea if you are pinching pennies or splurging on your build. ~$1100 or so, not pinching pennies so I have wiggle room but I like to get my money's worth. How many drives do you want your server to be able to support and how much capacity do you need? I currently have about 4TB of used space I want to transfer to my box right off the bat. I am kind of a hoarder, so I like to save everything and plan to further grow my current movie collection with additional Blu-ray remuxes. Is expandability important to you? If so, what's your long term goal? Yes, I figure I can add more 4TB drives to my NAS as needed (up to 6 total). I calculated that at full capacity (~20TB) I'll be able to store about 570 Blu-ray remuxes (along with a few TV episodes, music, etc). That should give me enough space for a good start IMO! Are you interested in running any unRAID Add Ons (see here)? If so, which ones? Be specific. Apcupsd, Beets, BitTorrent Sync, Couch Potato, DenyHosts, Dropbox, MySQL, NZBGet, OpenSSH, OpenVPN, Plex Media Server, (I'm an addons whore so I plan to play around with a lot of them). Do you want to run green/low power drives or faster 7200 rpm drives? If you don't have a specific need for 7200 rpm drives, then choose green drives. Honestly, I don't have a specific need for 7200 rpm drives, but the HGST 4TB NAS drives (listed in my prospective build below) have gotten pretty rock solid reviews. I am all for spending more to have extra peace of mind that my data is in better hands. I guess if it isn't going to make a performance difference for streaming media I will take recommendations for alternatives, but I don't want to sacrifice too much drive quality for quantity. Do you have any spare parts laying around that you would like to apply towards your build? This includes drives. I have 1 Seagate Goflex 3TB drive. It was purchased as a USB drive but I'm going to remove the enclosure and toss it in my rig. I understand that I will have to transfer the data off of it before adding it to the array. Other than that I do not have any other parts laying around. If you already have parts in mind, please oh pretty please post links to them so that we don't have to look them up. (1) USB Flash Drive ( ) = ~$20 (Any recommendations? I don't want to get a cheap POS) (2) HGST – 4TB (1) Parity Drive & (1) Storage Drive= $47.50/TB = $189.99 ea = $379.98 (1) Seagate Goflex 3TB drive = ------ (already have) (1) SSD Cache Drive Samsung 840 EVO – 120 GB = $69.99 (1) BitFenix Phenom BFC-PHE-300-KKXKK-RP Midnight Black Steel / Plastic Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case = $79.99 (1) Intel Core i3-4150 Haswell 3.5GHz LGA 1150 54W Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600 BX80646I34150 = $109.99 (Microcenter) (1) ASUS H87I-PLUS LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard With UEFI BIOS = $104.99 (1 set) G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-16GBXL = $134.99 (1) CORSAIR CSM Series CS450M 450W ATX12V v2.4 and EPS 2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply = $59.99 Total: $1058.92 (includes Plus key 2 pack registration. Note: prices listed are not all from NewEgg links above). Any and all advice, criticism and hints would be appreciated. Once I get enough of you unRaid veterans to sign off on my project I'm going to pull the trigger and get to building. Thanks in advance guys, I'm pretty excited to get started! Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Suggest a Silverstone DS380, or adding a 5in3 (like CSE-M35T-1B) to a traditional case. Having to open a cramped computer case when a drive has failed and needs to be rebuilt is a big mistake. Disturbing the cabling of other drives is too easy and will interfere with trying to recover precious data. Do yourself a huge favor and go for easily removable drives. Quote Link to comment
Skrumpy Posted June 1, 2014 Author Share Posted June 1, 2014 Hmm looked into the Silverstone DS380 and I like the style and the fact it can house a few more drives than the BitFenix Phenom. The only downside is that it is twice the price. I'm not entirely worried about jiggling a cable, but it would definitely be more hassle free for swapping drives. I'm going to have to think about that one a bit more. The reason why I have shied away from the cages in traditional cases are because most cases these days are rather gaudy. I just want something that looks simple and unobtrusive like the Phenom/Silverstone as the case will be sitting out in the open and I really don't want a bunch of flashy lights, etc. It looks like I'll also have to rethink my PSU as I don't think the one I've chosen is single rail. I also just calculated exactly how much wattage I need using http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine (says I need a min of 173W and recommends 223W so 450W would put me about the 50% sweet spot), though wouldn't mind someone verifying that it sounds correct. Lastly, I read in "the first UNRAID build thread" in this forum that unRaid is moving towards VM so I want to make sure I am capable of that technology (not sure how I'd use it as of yet but I would rather be prepared to use it then be forced to upgrade if I want to in the future). Can anyone recommend a low power CPU option that supports VT-x, HT, and VT-d? Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Hmm looked into the Silverstone DS380 and I like the style and the fact it can house a few more drives than the BitFenix Phenom. The only downside is that it is twice the price. I'm not entirely worried about jiggling a cable, but it would definitely be more hassle free for swapping drives. I'm going to have to think about that one a bit more. ... Certainly your decision. But I help a lot of users with support issues and will tell you the #1 most common issue with users getting red-balls is cabling issues. And the incidences of people going to replace a drive and then having the rebuild fail due to a cabling getting jiggled loose is very high. Your somewhat cocky attitude is very common. And I admit thatI, in my earlier days, felt just like you and others that the cages were an unnecessary and expensive luxury. But many battle scars later I will not have an unRAID server without them. If you can find a case with 6 5.25 drive slots, you could try 2 of these ... Rosewill 4in3 But I prefer the ones I listed before. The advantages of the cages is you can move them iinto a different case should your needs grow beyond current expectations. This ia also very common ! The DS380 does not take an ATX PSU, so keep that in mind if you want to that route. Good luck! Quote Link to comment
Jomp Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 The DS380 also runs the drives a little hot too, so keep that in mind. Some people worry about that more than others, just a heads up. Quote Link to comment
Kryspy Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Consider the Lian-Li PQ-25 case. Found on sale for $99. Paired with a Silverstone SFX power supply for maybe $10 more than the one you have listed and you are laughing. Kryspy Quote Link to comment
Skrumpy Posted June 1, 2014 Author Share Posted June 1, 2014 The Lian-Li PC-Q25 was actually the first case I was looking at but it looks like it is sold out everywhere (Newegg/Amazon at least) :'(. How are those Silverstone SFX power supplies? Never really heard of that brand before, so that scares me a bit. So the DS380 runs the drives a bit hot? Not a fan of that, especially at the $150 price point. What kind of PSU's fit in it anyways? Do you have to use their propriety Silverstone PSU? Aside from the smaller size, what is the reason most people seem to stick with mini itx boards? Seems to really limit your choice in mobos. Quote Link to comment
Kryspy Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Silverstone.... as in Silverstone PC cases. Very good power supply and small form factor. Not sure where you live. I know in Canada there are a few at Canada Computers that they are clearing out for $99. Thats where I got mine from. Kryspy Quote Link to comment
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