FIRST UNRAID BUILD – PLEASE CHECK

[J.R.]

Hi, new to the forum and unRAID and I'm working on a LIAN-LI PC-Q25B build and having a bit of trouble picking a motherboard/CPU. I've narrowed it down to the following:

 

ASUS H87I-PLUS - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132032&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo

 

SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SPE-H-D525-O - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182242&cm_re=X7SPE-_-13-182-242-_-Product

 

If I go with the Asus it's either cheap but less efficient Celeron or more expensive but more efficient i3

 

Celeron - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116999

i3 - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116947

 

I'm leaning towards the Celeron as it's much cheaper and the system will be at or near idle most of the time anyway. Thoughts? Obviously the Asus/Celeron is the best on the budget, what are the selling points to going with the other more expensive options (i3 and Supermicro MB)? Are there other better, newer options I've missed?

 

(I plan on using it primarily as just simply a NAS for music, movies, photos, documents etc but will also need torrent and print-server abilities. It will be serving a PC, Tablet (Android), a couple of smart phones and a WDTV live media box.)

 

So unless you guys throw me any curve balls I'm planning on the following:

 

LIAN LI PC-Q25B Case

SILVERSTONE SFX ST30SF 300W PSU

ASUS H87I-PLUS Motherboard

Intel Celeron G1850 Haswell Dual-Core 2.9GHz CPU 53W

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive

 

The hard drives will be two WD 2TB Green drives (already in use in a QNAP) and a WD 2TB Red that I already own. Any future drives will be the Hitachi Deskstar 4TB to expand the array. I'm also considering using an older 160GB drive I have as a cache drive. I don't plan on going to more than 1 cache drive, 1 parity and four storage drives total. I do have a couple 1TB WD RE2 drives but I'll may put those in the Qnap to sell it.

 

Here's a link to the thread that eventually led me here to unRAID if anyone's interested:

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?39535-Thinking-of-DIY-NAS-HELP!/page2

 

Now to wait for the Lian-Li case to go on sale....

[tdallen]

Personally, I like Asus boards but I've used both Asus and Supermicro with success.  The Supermicro you linked is an Atom board, though... see below.

 

I'm using the same flash drive, works great.  I'm also running 8GB right now, and it should be fine for anything you can throw at it on the unRAID 5.05 platform.  I can't speak to the v6 requirements, though.

 

The case is well reviewed here.

 

Regarding the processor, unfortunately you need to buy for both peak and idle usage.  My experience is limited as I've just adopted unRAID recently, but the main consideration for CPU that I've found is transcoding.  You'll need to decide if you are going to transcode for all those devices prior to putting the media up on your server (Handbrake or similar), or in real time via Plex or similar on the unRAID server.  Personally, since you are open to Atom I'd use the SuperMicro if you just plan to serve up the media, and an i3 or better if you want to transcode.

 

I've spent a lot of time here recently:

http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

looking at the Passmark scores for various processors.  The general rule of thumb is to start at 2000 PassMark for a single 1080p stream, and 1500 PassMark for 720p content.

 

 

[J.R.]

Thanks for the reply

 

Yeah I don't plan on transcoding but I've learned with computers to never say never (perhaps as our kids get older). I suppose that's another reason I'm leaning to the Asus/Celeron combo as it will more than meet my current needs and is the most affordable option. It should be able to do some transcoding (PassMark score of 3206) but if I ever felt it was lacking I could swap in an i3 or i5 CPU at a later date. Seems a better/more future proof upgrade path.

 

In the mean time it gives me a more affordable starting point vs the i3 and twice the RAM of the SuperMicro (plus USB 3.0 and a faster processor at roughly the same price). It gives up a bit in the efficiency department but the NAS likely will be idle for ~3/4 of the day making that only a small issue IMO (not to mention that 53W is still decently efficient).

 

A couple questions on Plugins:

 

It looks like Transmission is the go to plugin for Torrents (correct?) but I'm having trouble locating a print server. What's everyone using?

 

Otherwise I plan on installing APCupsd and Cache Directories. Are there any other recommended ones that you folks would recommend/find indispensable?

[garycase]

Yeah I don't plan on transcoding but I've learned with computers to never say never ...

 

By far the best reason to choose the Asus.  Personally, I'd just go with the i3 to start ... the improved performance is well worth nominal price difference

 

 

In the mean time it gives me a more affordable starting point vs the i3 and twice the RAM of the SuperMicro (plus USB 3.0 and a faster processor at roughly the same price). It gives up a bit in the efficiency department but the NAS likely will be idle for ~3/4 of the day making that only a small issue IMO (not to mention that 53W is still decently efficient).

 

Note that the Supermicro board, despite its specifications, works fine with 8GB of RAM ... I've set up several systems with the micro-ITX version of the board and used a pair of 4GB modules in them with no problem.    I presume you know the board you linked to is NOT a micro-ITX board ... it will fit in the Q25B, but it's slightly larger than the micro-ITX version (the SPA version of the board).

 

I agree the Asus is a more future-proof board ... but I really like the 20 watt idle power consumption of my D525      If you're truly going to use this as a NAS you may want to consider the Atom board ... but if you think there's any chance you'll want more "horsepower" for other tasks, the Asus is the right choice.

 

 

[J.R.]

Yeah I don't plan on transcoding but I've learned with computers to never say never ...

 

By far the best reason to choose the Asus.  Personally, I'd just go with the i3 to start ... the improved performance is well worth nominal price difference

 

 

Tell that to my wife and 20 month old twin boys....

[bkastner]

Yeah I don't plan on transcoding but I've learned with computers to never say never ...

 

By far the best reason to choose the Asus.  Personally, I'd just go with the i3 to start ... the improved performance is well worth nominal price difference

 

 

Tell that to my wife and 20 month old twin boys....

 

If you can swing it I would agree with Gary. The problem with the Celeron is you are going to hit the ceiling faster than you think. Once you get into UnRAID, Docker, SAB, Sickbeard, MariaDB (if you use multiple XBMC clients) Plex, etc, etc, etc, The extra breathing room you get from the i3 just makes sense. Yes, you can always bump up to an i5 or i7 down the road, but you want to maximize your initial investment, so trying to future proof yourself a bit up front makes sense.

 

Just my $0.02

[garycase]

The quad core i3-4330 provides a 2000 point bump in PassMark, as well as having 2 additional cores to spread the multi-processing tasking around better.    I'd think the extra $75 or so is easily justified for the better "future proofing".    Considering the total cost you'll spend for the system, it's a pretty minor investment ... and is likely to put you in a position where you never need to upgrade the CPU.

 

[J.R.]

The quad core i3-4330 provides a 2000 point bump in PassMark, as well as having 2 additional cores to spread the multi-processing tasking around better.    I'd think the extra $75 or so is easily justified for the better "future proofing".    Considering the total cost you'll spend for the system, it's a pretty minor investment ... and is likely to put you in a position where you never need to upgrade the CPU.

 

The i3-4330 is dual core FWIW. I believe you have to get in to i5's to get quad.

 

If I go for any "i" chips I'm 99% it will be the 35W i3-4130T. The added performance AND efficiency is hard to beat IMO.

 

Dang forums! Always a detriment to the old budget...lol

[switchman]

I would look for the i3-4360 if possible.  The power savings T model are not worth it.  Most of the time the processor will be idling at its lowest clock rate and there will not be any appreciable difference in the thermal footprint.  When you need the CPU power, the extra clocks will be beneficial.

 

You will be surprised at what you suddenly decide you can use that 24/7 server for.  I am on my 3rd processor because I thought the lower power solution was a better fit.

[garycase]

My mistake -- what I meant to note was that it was hyperthreaded, so it does a more efficient job of multi-tasking, since it can switch between up to 4 threads in hardware.

 

I wouldn't bother with the "T" chip -- for $5 more than a 4130T you can get a 4330 ... which has nearly 25% more performance [PassMark 5095 vs. 4186 ... 22% more to be precise].    There's NO difference in the efficiency of the two chips ... the difference is that the "T" version is throttled to a max power consumption of 35w.    In MOST operations neither chip will use anywhere near the rated power;  but when you need it, the 4330 has more power available.    The advantage of a "T" chip is that you can use lower-performance (thus a bit quieter) coolers, since you know the maximum heat generated will be less.

 

[J.R.]

Or I could get the i3-4150 that's cheaper than both and pretty on par with the 4330 for performance. Hmmm....

 

 

[garycase]

Yes, there are many options 

 

Personally, I only use i5's & i7's these days ... I simply don't want to wish I had more "horsepower" 

But clearly that means I'm "tossing" an unnecessary $100 or so whenever I build a system -- something you probably don't want to do for this build.

 

[J.R.]

Well that and I really don't see doing as much/needing as much horsepower as some of you guys. I've had a QNAP now for like 5 years that can do any myriad of things and largely it gets used to serve files, download the occasional torrent and act as a print server. That's it.

 

Speaking of print server...is there anything?