New build (Update of OS and hardware)


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first some background, i was looking for some kind of storage device to hold my stuff back a couple of years ago.

looked at appliances like Drobo but they had to many limitations to me and they were too pricey.

i saw unRaid and it looked interesting. i'm kinda of pack rat and i had some old pc's laying around so i downloaded the demo version and tried it out.

i stuffed some old drives of unknown heritage in a old pc and started playing around. created some folders, worked with permissions, copied files over and generally gave it road test.

one day as i was playing with it i realized that one of the data drives had failed. (maybe that was why that drive was in my junk box....)

all my data was still availible so that was a good sign. i hit the wiki and the forums to figure out what to do next. found another drive and went through the drive replacement process.

yep everything worked as advertised and i was happy. the drive replacement with smoothly.

of course the replacement drive failed a few days later so i got alot of drive replacement practice...

 

now i'm sold, i went ahead and bought a couple 4.7 Plus keys and found a couple of old motherboards with IDE and SATA and got them going with new drives. 

 

i ran them for while and found someone who was getting rid of a pc that had 6 SATA connections and i combined both into the one i have now.

 

i did have a couple of new drives fail and i would replace them and keep going. no problems at all. as i outgrew the space i would add a larger drive.

 

i recently replaced all my drives with new 1 tb drives and i decided that it was time to update the OS and the hardware and retire my frankenstein box.

 

i was looking at the box that "mr-hexen" built: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=35184.0

 

that looked good to me so i figured i'll just do the same thing.

 

parts have been ordered.

 

i'm going to try and build something that looks nice inside for a change instead of this cobbled together frankenstein i've got now.

 

once the parts come in i'll do the assembly and use the spare usb key and some old drives and burn in the hardware.

 

i'll build the new system with 4.7 and create some shares and put some files on it and then upgrade it to 5.x to make sure i understand the upgrade process.

 

then i'll carefully move the drives from the frankenstein box into the new one. i'm kinda fuzzy on that process but i hope to have it figured out by the time i get to that point.

 

this is the first time i've tried to document a build so i'm learning that part as i go.

 

i'll attempt to post pictures as i go.

 

thanks for any input i can get!!

 

 

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All the parts finally showed up yesterday.

 

Somehow I managed to order laptop memory instead of desktop memory.

Not sure how I did that. For $25 it's not worth the trouble of returning it.

Went to our local Office Max (which is having a going out of business sale) and found 4 gig of memory for a good price.

might grab some bigger drives later if the price is right.

 

Now the assembly begins.

 

First impression, is all this stuff gonna fit in this box?

The box is really tight inside. You have to think about how you put the parts in it.

I got part way through with assembly a couple of times and realized that I couldn't get to something and had to back up a few steps.

 

Once i got it together i installed a single drive and loaded a copy of Win7 so that i could do a BIOS update. That went quickly.

 

not sure that was really needed but i did it anyway.

 

I gathered up 6 old drives and mounted them in the slots and booted it with the USB and unRAID 4.7 and discovered that 4.7 didn't see the NIC.

 

i didn't spend any time doing any research online, it wasn't that big of deal.

 

it did kinda changes my plans. I wanted to get this new one up on 4.7, do some testing and then do the upgrade to 5.x.

 

I went ahead and loaded 5.06 on the USB and booted with it. Now we are good. NIC is up and i can get in now.

 

I did a preclear on all the drives over night as a hardware burn in and things went fine. I didn't let the preclear finish this morning, i figured that 9-10 hours was enough of a burn in.

 

Went ahead and created an array this morning and it's running the parity now. I also created a share and started copying about 80 gig of junk while it was running the parity just to stress things some more.

 

I'll get back to it this afternoon and see hows it's going.

 

i suspect i will upgrade the old box from 4.7 to 5.0 and then yank the drives and the USB and move them to the new box.

 

 

Comments:

Really tight with all the wiring, requires some thought and planning as you assembly it.

i'll be going back and redoing some of the wiring to make it decent looking.

no comment on drive temps since i've never had the sides on the case yet.

 

 

Pros-

Wow this thing is quiet! both case fans are running along with the CPU fan. barely a whisper.

it's really quiet even with all the drive thrashing from the Windows load, preclear, and the parity creation.

the drive mounting system is really good as far as drive vibration is concerned. no drive rattle. i can barely hear any drive head movement at all even with the covers off.

 

boot time into unRAID is really quick, haven't measured it but it seems like seconds.

 

Cons-

none yet

 

 

 

 

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There are quite a few pics in the thread I wrote on Q25B builds last year [Mr Hexen used this thread as the basis for his build ... and as he noted in his write-up, I was definitely right about being sure you use an SFX power supply, despite Lian-Li's claims that an ATX unit will work].

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=29670.0

 

There's a good bit of discussion in the thread about the Q25B, with various options for component selection and a few thoughts on some customizations that make cabling a bit neater,  so you might want to browse through it.

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I went ahead last night and upgraded my old 4.7 frankenstein to 5.06 and then moved everything to the new box.

 

The upgrade and the move went just fine. Did a parity check last night and another this morning before i left for work.

temps are very reasonable.

 

I'm looking around for some cable ties and velcro to get some of the wiring under control. My data drives are all in the slots but the parity is attached to the bottom plate.

not really happy with how i have that positioned and cabled.

the unRAID USB is currently attached to the back of the box. looking for a way to mount it inside. I scrounged up an old USB mount that i can use to plug into the MB but it's too bulky.

i'll look around for something better i can use to internally mount the USB

 

Once i get it cleaned up i'll take a few pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Only real difference is that i am running 4 gig of memory. 

I thought about bumping up the CPU as well but changed my mind.

 

i have a 3 tb parity drive and (4) 1 tb data drives and (1) 640 gig data drive.

 

once things settle down i will yank the 640 and stuff in a 2 tb drive to replace it.

 

 

 

 

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I think this is what you want: http://ca.startech.com/Cables/USB-2.0/Internal-and-Panel-Mount/6-USB-A-Female-to-Motherboard-Header-Adapter~USBMBADAPT

 

Mine has been running smooth as well. I have noticed some "MCE" errors, which googling pointed towards a BIOS update, but i already have the latest. Next up is memtest for a while...

 

Worth pointing out that these errors are having no impact that I can see.

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