My Lian Li PC-343b build


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Hello,

I was using Unraid for the last 3 years starting from a free license to Plus.

As in my country people says that the appetite is coming with the meal, my storage needs started to grow.

 

I upgraded to Pro license and set up the current Unraid machine with the following components:

 

1. Case: Lian Li PC343b- as it was not available in my country I bought it from a member of this forum.

2. Drive cages: 4 x Supermicro CSE - M35T

3. Motherboard: Supermicro X9SCA

3. CPU: XEON E3-1220, v2

4. RAM: 4GB Xynix ECC (additional 4 already bought, but not installed)

5. SATA Contollers: 2x Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

6. PSU: Corsair RM-750

7. FANS: 2 x Noctua NF-S12A ULN

 

Currently I have only 8 x 3 TB storage drives, 1 Parity and an old 500 gb cache drive (every 4-5 months I need additional 3tb). With the prices getting lower I think my next HDD will be a 4tb one.

The main purpose of the machine is to store my Family Photos, Movies, TV Shows and Concerts and to serve them via Samba to my 4 XBMC based media centers in the house. All of the Movies stored are 1080p and 720p for the TV Shows.

Thanks to the community I have managed to install Plex Media Server and now have access to the media via Plex in my country house.

 

As I have one more server, based on debian I plan to aggregate them both with Unraid (XEN) once the stable 64bit V6 gets ready.

 

What I like:

The server operates really nice. The HDD temperatures are in safe levels (around 35 C during parity check). No major problems at all except the usual web interface disappearance (every 4-5 weeks). To be on the safe side I added a UPS and the problems I had in the past with the old server just went away.

 

What I dislike:

I do not like the case. For such a massive case (and for the price it comes) the construction is more than poor. The side panels are made from a single aluminum sheet which resonates very unpleasant. Some tweaks with absorption materials were applied in order to lower the resonances.

 

Thank you all for your support during the last 3 years. Without all of you this project would not be a reality.

photo1.jpg.f474ee5fa80662c79f2357549c603a2e.jpg

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Awesome build!

 

That case is a monster! Never seen one before that could hold 6 5in3s = 30 drives! Sorry it isn't your favorite after the effort and expense to ship it.

 

Funny I bought a Sharkoon 12 drive case that I had to order from Europe because it couldn't be bought in the US. With some effort I was able to mount 4 drive cages vertically. I like the small footprint. You could find a picture following the myrig link in my sig.

 

I also see you are using my fav 5in3s - the Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B. The horseshoe style aluminum "trays" leave the hot drive bottoms fully exposed and allow the fans to do their jobs quite well and keep my drives nice and cool too.

 

I have moved to the 6.0 beta 5a but seems you have everything working the way you like with 5.0.5. I would not recommend you upgrade until the retooling is completed and we at least have a beta as stable as 5a with the new tools.

 

Thanks for sharing!

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Dear bjp999,

 

Your build is quite impressive as well. The only reason to have my attention on the Lian-Li case was to ensure a future proof (in case Limetech implements more drives support in Pro). 2 more cages are sitting and waiting to be installed.

It deserves to be mentioned that the only reason I didn't take the server-class-case route was the relatively higher noise levels and the lack of space for a rack to mount it. Currently the Unraid is operating in a room which our family is using for something like a warehouse for now :) . In this regard the noise is not such a problem.

 

Regarding the M35T: Even though the stock fans are providing a great airflow, I didn't like the jet sound they were producing. Immediately change them with 92 mm Noctua fans. The difference after the change is noticeable - around 3 degrees C higher temperatures on the HDDs during parity check. I think I can live with that for the time being not being even close to 40 degrees C.

 

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I live in Bulgaria and there is a local Supermicro authorized dealer.

http://www.persy.com/en  (hope I do not violate the forum rules, posting links)

 

If I am not wrong they do ship in Europe. I do not know what will be the shipping price having in mind the weight of the cage.

The M35T is not in their list currently (just checked) but the price of it was something like 110 euro (VAT included). If not in stock, they will have it for a week.

Probably it would be easier just to give them a phone-call (they do have also skype for international customers) and ask them directly.

 

The guys are presented in the local market last 20 years and are responsible for the IT infrastructure of the biggest companies presented here and also some governmental institutions...this means they are reliable.

 

If I can help additionally, do not hesitate to ask. 

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A friend of mine have built an unraid server with a legacy Core2Duo E8200 CPU. He is using the onboard sata2 ports (no fancy controllers, no ECC ram, just simple components and Seagate NAS drives- 2tb).

I was very surprised to see the average speed of parity check amounting to 190 mb/s and approximate five times faster transfers via the gigabyte lan compared to my server..... while the server grade parts I use brought me to ~ 100 mb/s.

I know most of the people here are experiencing the same parity check speeds as mine, but honestly... I can't explain his speeds.

Do you have any ideas?

 

 

 

 

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My old build uses this case too,  also I was disappointed with the build quality of the case considering the price.  It does look nice however.

 

In the end I got fed up with how much space it takes up,  I can get a 14u rack in the same place and have 2x24 bay 4U servers + KVM + Switch + PDU + 1U server in the same space pretty much.  Not that I actually managed to get rid of the chassis yet..... lazy :)

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

That's a very nice looking build.    It's unfortunate you're disappointed with the build quality.  I've had the opposite impression of Lian-Li -- I've found their build quality excellent on all the cases I've used.  I built one 343-based build for a friend a couple years ago, and we both thought it was a superb case.

 

I'm wondering if the vibrations you've noticed are due to what you've got it sitting on -- is the floor completely level?  ... and is is a "floating" floor?    You might try sitting the case on a bit of carpet (or a rubberized chair mat).

 

... on the other hand, you must not be TOO disappointed, since you're thinking of building a 2nd one and sitting it on top of the first  :)  [if you do that, I'd put some rubberized "carpet cups" under the casters of the top unit to provide a bit of isolation between the units.

 

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Thank you garycase,

 

My floor is completely leveled. The vibrations were due to the single aluminum sheet LianLi manufactured the side panels of the case.

I glued 5 mm rubber sheets on every panel and this way managed to slake the vibrations. Most probably my expectations were a bit higher than needed regarding the build quality and maybe I overreacted initially. I am happy with the case in general. Moreover there are not so many cases (excluding server class cases) offering space for 30 HDDs. I am just waiting for Tom to invent 60 HDDs support in Unraid with triple parity and will purchase a second case ;)

My other hobby is connected with high-end audio and what I've learned during the years was that every single audio component need to stand on 3 points in order to ensure the best footing. Probably need to apply this policy here as well.

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