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first ever unraid build

schford

By schford
in Hardware

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schford Apprentice

schford

Posted
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Hi Guys,

 

Decided to test the water with unraid - currently I have an Adpatec 8 port Hardware RAID controller and sitting off it 8 4TB Red Drives.

 

It's used to stream movies direct to some KODI boxes and also for Plex which transcodes to some ipads for the kids. It is now almost full - so I wanted to test the water with unraid.

 

I have a bunch of old hardware laying around so was planning to potentially reuse it if you guys thought it worth while.

 

I was going to get a new case though a 24 hot swap one form xcase in the uk for £240 x vat - http://www.xcase.co.uk/4u-rackmount-server-cases/x-case-rm-424-gen-ii-24-hotswap-bays-usb3-120mm-fans-rails-279-00-x-case.html

 

The Motherboard I have allready is a Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L and the CPU is an Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6500 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.93GHz (1066FSB)

 

I am guessing I would use MEdia Center which sorts out the meta data for KODI and plex for transcoding to iThings...

 

If they would run unraid ok - all I would need to get is a new PSU - I am thinking something meaty that has 4 sperates molex's fopr the backplane - any recommendations? I guess I would also need a HBA card I guess...again any thoughts?

 

I have a bunch of WD Green 2tb and 3tb drives at home that I could start with and one stick a new 6TB Red in for the parity drive.

 

Looking forward to your thoughts.

 

Thanks

 

Stuart

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HellDiverUK Collaborator

HellDiverUK

Posted
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The E6500 is a bit slow for Plex transcoding if you need to do that.  Just a bit, though.  You might get away with 720p content OK.  You'll need 4GB RAM at least for decent performance, too, which I recon is probably the most you'll get on that board. 

 

It's hard to better the IBM M1015 flashed to IT mode for a cheap, solid HBA.  I have the 'real' LSI board, the 9210-8i.  Works well for me. :)

 

 

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schford Apprentice

schford

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Thanks - I have 4gb of memory here so that should be fine for testing :-)

 

In terms of the card - this is going to sound very silly but in terms of cabling how to go form the 2 ports on the card to the 24 on the backplane?  Some sort of special adapter or cabling?

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pkn Enthusiast

pkn

Posted
Posted

... a new PSU - I am thinking something meaty that has 4 sperates molex's fopr the backplane - any recommendations?

The brand of choice seems to be Seasonic. The must is single-rail 12V bus. Power rating... since you, it seems (I'm judging by the suggested case - beautiful case, BTW), will eventually run maximum configuration, like full 25+ drives (23 data+parity+cache), I personally wouldn't go lower than 700-750 W.

 

I guess I would also need a HBA card I guess...again any thoughts?

Your will need to connect 25+ drives.

Your motherboard has 4 SATA-2 ports, plus:

    1 x PCI Express x16 slot

    1 x PCI Express x1 slot

    2 x PCI slots

Not much choice, it seems... The aforementioned  IBM M1015 will only connect 8 drives, and will occupy the PCIe x16 slot. I don't know if you can find something useful, with more than 4 SATA ports, for PICe x1 slot, not to mention PCI slots.

 

So, essentially you would need to connect at least 21 drives via PCIe x16.

I personally would try a 24-ports card, e.g., this Areca:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Areca-24-Port-SATA-II-3Gb-s-PCIe-x8-RAID-Controller-Card-ARC-1280-/291391952108

 

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pkn Enthusiast

pkn

Posted
Posted

...In terms of the card - this is going to sound very silly but in terms of cabling how to go form the 2 ports on the card to the 24 on the backplane?  Some sort of special adapter or cabling?

Cabling. Single SAS port is connected by special "breakout" or "reverse breakout" (depending on the direction) cable to four SATA ports.

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pkn Enthusiast

pkn

Posted
Posted

By the look of that case, it has SFF8087 connections on the backplane, so you'll need three M1015 cards and 6 SFF8087 to SFF8087 cables.  Seems expensive.  Or you could use a SAS expander with one M1015 which should work out cheaper.

There would be a different motherboard needed for any of these options.

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pkn Enthusiast

pkn

Posted
Posted

Wrong description, this is PCI-X card and your motherboard doesn't have a PCI-X slot (it all would be so much easier if it did).

 

Ups... sorry, looks like I somehow looked at wrong card.

 

This LSI card is PCI-e x8 so it should work in your PCI-e x16 slot just fine.

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pkn Enthusiast

pkn

Posted
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Thanks one of those cards it is then :-) and I am guessing I use it in a JBOD mode....or should it need cross flashing or anything?

No, no RAID, and no JBOD - JBOD would represent all your HDDs, connected via the card, to unRAID as one gigantic drive. And that's the job unRAID should be doing itself on a later stage.  :) You will need "individual drives", or "single drives", something like that. You might also need to flash the LSI cards BIOS to "IT mode" to remove it's RAID functionality out of the way. But that's far beyond my knowledge, check this topic for info:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.0

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trurl Grand Master

trurl

Posted
Posted

Thanks one of those cards it is then :-) and I am guessing I use it in a JBOD mode....or should it need cross flashing or anything?

No, no RAID, and no JBOD - JBOD would represent all your HDDs, connected via the card, to unRAID as one gigantic drive. And that's the job unRAID should be doing itself on a later stage.  :) You will need "individual drives", or "single drives", something like that. You might also need to flash the LSI cards BIOS to "IT mode" to remove it's RAID functionality out of the way. But that's far beyond my knowledge, check this topic for info:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.0

JBOD does not necessarily mean "spanned"
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pkn Enthusiast

pkn

Posted
Posted

Thanks one of those cards it is then :-) and I am guessing I use it in a JBOD mode....or should it need cross flashing or anything?

No, no RAID, and no JBOD - JBOD would represent all your HDDs, connected via the card, to unRAID as one gigantic drive. And that's the job unRAID should be doing itself on a later stage.  :) You will need "individual drives", or "single drives", something like that. You might also need to flash the LSI cards BIOS to "IT mode" to remove it's RAID functionality out of the way. But that's far beyond my knowledge, check this topic for info:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.0

JBOD does not necessarily mean "spanned"

Your are right. Sorry for introducing confusion instead of clarification.

 

My memory cheated on me - I was somehow thinking that JBOD stands for "Just a Big Ol' Drive", i.e., spanned. Now I'm googling and can not even find where I've got this, everywhere it says "Just a Bunch Of Disks"...

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