The key thing with a UPS is to be sure that you get a unit with AVR ... the really inexpensive units do not have this regulation circuitry, which can cause excessive switching between battery & A/C power during brownouts and/or high voltage situations.

 

Both APC and CyberPower are good units.  These would both be good choices:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101393

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102131

 

The CyberPower unit is a real bargain for a pure sine-wave UPS.

 

Thanks Gary. I just need to check when I get home and see if I need any SATA cables before placing my order.  I was able to swap out the 3.5GHz i3 for a 3.6GHz i3 and actually save a few dollars after finding a promo code for the 3.6GHz. Looks like with UPS and all, the build will run $719.  I don't even think my wife can complain about that price. 

When you measure the lengths of the SATA cables you want to use, I'd plan on mounting the drives with the connectors facing the left side (i.e. "facing out"), so it's easy to remove the cables if you need to remove a drive.    Otherwise you need to remove both side panels (one to unplug the cables; the other to pull out the drive).    The drives can be mounted either way.    Cables in the back is a bit neater cosmetically; but cables in the front is more "maintenance friendly".

 

It looks like the choice is either to live with the M.2 limitation and lose two ports, or use a traditional SSD and lose one bay in the case.

Glad you figured that out with the SATA ports.

I wrote in my first post, that you have 6 SATA ports because I was not sure about the other 2.

I found out that 2 ports are not plain SATA connectors when I built my PC but by that time

the board was already in the case and I was too lazy to check further.

AFAIR 2 of the Intel ports are not plain SATA connectors - although I read the manual it did not stick out!

(just the usual "if you use this, that won't work")

You have the board? Have a look at the ports!

At least one of the SATA 3/4 connectors is an SATA express plug!

 

But I still prefer the M.2 slot, since it can interface so much quicker than SATA.

Yes, it CAN but not with that kind of M.2 drive.

It's speed is not more than a Samsung 840 Evo SSD.

Use the Plextor or the Samsung XP941 and you benefit from that M.2 port.

 

 

So if I installed a RAID controller in the x16 slot and maxed it out with drives, the PCI bus wouldn't be a bottleneck for the controller?

In my first post, I made a mistake when stating the the board has an PCIx x4 slot.

I meant an PCIe x4.

If you use both "primary" PCIe slots you they run at x8 which is just what the controller cards need.

Just as Gary said, there will be no bottle neck. At the moment PCIe is the state of the art technology.

 

I can get a 256GB traditional SSD for about $40 cheaper which is why I was considering that route.

IMHO the use of an SSD in an unRAID server is overkill.

As I have no experience with the apps that you want to run, I can't elaborate further, but I can't imagine they really need the throughput of an SSD.

When accessing the cache drive over the LAN there is no benefit from the SSD.

A conventional spinner might be a better choice, especially with regard to the price.

Agree that an SSD as a cache is of little (if any) benefit compared to a modern high-area-density spinner; but it's a notable improvement over smaller capacity drives with lower areal density, as they can't sustain the bandwidth of a Gb network.

 

But the SSD is definitely an improvement for local applications, which will get the full benefit of the dramatically faster access and the much higher read/write speeds.

 

Also agree, that local apps will profit, but what kind of application would show a noticeable improvement for the user/consumer (sitting in front of his TV?).

It could be the case if the rig is used for virtualization of a workstation but for a background download service it is probably not necessary.

I want to offload my NzbDrone and SABnzbd to the server.  I also want to set up MySQL