Hi all,

 

Wondering recommendations for an unRaid Server I am about to put together, I already have a case which holds 10 Drives (6 internal) and a 4 in 3 sata backplane.

 

The definite usage will be backing up a windows home sever, however reading some of the reviews I might just let unRaid also serve my media as it might be faster, testing will prove this.

 

Given I am unsure if I will be using unraid as a media server and more as a backup server I am wondering what is the best MB/CPU combo you guys would recommend. I currently have a MSI K9N Platinum and an X2 4400 which I was thinking of using but I believe this might be over kill and I believe it is a 125 watt CPU (although I do have a 65watt 4000 X2) I could use.

 

This will be replaceing a drobo which has been excellent, but I am at a point where I cannot expand the drobo much further (it currently has 4 750GB Seagates in it and I just ordered 2 - 1.5TB Seagates) So I am pretty much stuck always having to purchase the most expensive drives which kinds defeats the purpose. I plan on getting the pro (16 drive) version of unRaid and starting it off with the 2 - 1.5TB Drives and the 4 750's from the drobo. If I read correctly in the Wiki it is advised to use your largest drive as the parity drive? if so then 1 of the 1.5's will be parity. I am about to rip 800 dvd's so I need a "lifetime" storage solution because this is a process I do not want to repeat.

 

Anyways, looking for suggestion on the hardware as well as possible windows backup or other software that can keep track of changes on the unraid server so I can burn dvd backups of the contents of the unraid server.

 

Thanks,

Tom

Check out the Getting Started with unRAID wiki page.  It points to a lot of related and important reading, even if it is not as interesting as the personal interaction and ideas you will probably also get.

I don't know what the BEST combo is, but you can take a look at a build I just did http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3652.0, I included power figures and I am running 3 1.5 seagates so it would be similar to your starting setup.  The motherboard in that setup will let you add up to 4 (assuming you use a PCI video card to conserve PCI-Express slots) inexpensive ($15 at newegg) dual-port sata cards, so for about another $60 you'll have a total of 14 sata ports available (including onboard).  You may also want to note the the latest beta of unraid now supports 20 drives in the pro version.

How "low" do you want to go?

 

You can use an Intel Atom, all WD green drives, and get *real* low wattage.

I decided to use unraid as a on/off backup meaning the machine will be powered off after backing up a windows home server so power is not as big of a matter as it was, so I will be running the unRaid on a MSI K9N Platinum which has 6 SATA ports, 3x PCI-E x1 and 3 PCI Slots, so adding cards and drives will not be an issue, running it with 2GB DDR2 and a Athlon X2 4200+. Unless it blazes by Windows home server in performace serving media this will be the plan, if it blazes past WHS then I might go the other way around with WHS backing up the unRaid... testing will prove it out.