First Build Advice

[Knightfolk]

Hello all,

 

I Have been doing some research, and think I have a good set of parts put together but I wanted to make sure I did not miss anything.

 

I need a server that will sling 2 to 3 1080p streams max at a time - no transcoding as they are to either Xbox ones or Samsung smart TVs. There could be a few occasions were 1 or 2 steams could be sent to the kids iPads but not often.

 

All of my rips are HQ with DTS favored or DD h264 MKVs ranging in size from 12 to 20 GB. 

 

Parts list below:

 

WD Red 3TB NAS Hard Drive: 1 to 8-bay RAID Hard Drive 3TB

3 X www.amazon.com/dp/B008JJLW4M

 

Silverstone Tek 450-Watts SFX Form Factor Full Modular Power Supply with 80 Plus Bronze

1 X www.amazon.com/dp/B003H4QPDC

 

Gigabyte LGA 1150 H97 Wi-Fi Bluetooth HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX

1 X www.amazon.com/dp/B00KATHCD4

 

Intel Core i3-4360 Processor (4M Cache, 3.70 GHz) BX80646I34360

1 X www.amazon.com/dp/B00J2LIFDC

 

Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB Kit (4GBx2) DDR3 1600 (PC3-12800) 240-Pin UDIMM Memory BLS2KIT4G3D1609DS1S00/BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00

1 X www.amazon.com/dp/B006WAGGUK

 

Silverstone Tek Premium Mini-ITX DTX Small Form Factor NAS Computer Cases, Black (DS380B)

1 X www.amazon.com/dp/B00IAELTAI

 

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

V/r

Kevin.

[garycase]

Looks fine ... all good choices.

 

The only thing I'd suggest changing is the hard drives.    I'd use 4TB WD Reds instead of the 3TB units.    They're slightly more per TB ($42.50 vs. $40.00) ... but provide you with 33% more capacity/SATA port in your system => which, as your needs grow, you'll likely appreciate.    You could even move to the 6TB units, but that likely bumps the cost beyond what you want to spend at this point.

 

[Knightfolk]

Thanks for the advice. As I am known for my week long mind screws I have been looking at pre built solutions as well, and came across this little gem:

 

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FE7GCE2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2TC87EJKQMY9O

 

It seems like a much better case to work with being as that I have massive gorilla hands, and is about the same price.  The CPU seems a bit more robust as well. My question is will this hardware work on with unraid? 

[bobkart]

Hi Knightfolk, I can't say for sure whether the TS440 will work with unRAID (although I suspect it does), but I know for a fact that the TS140 does:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkServer-70A4000HUX-i3-4130-Computer/dp/B00F6EK9J2

 

(and it's less than half the price).

 

I built a server with one last year, with drives in an external rackmount enclosure.  I've since moved to a different (2U rackmount) machine for those drives (16 x 4TB).  So I actually have a TS140 just laying around, I use it to test SAS cards from time to time.

 

Possibly real-time transcoding would be too much for that Core i3 processor, but you mention that you really won't be doing any of that.

 

Clearly the TS440 wins on number of drive bays; since you only mentioned three drives in your initial post, I thought I'd chime in with the TS140 since it has just that many drive bays (and room for at least one more if you remove the optical drive).

 

One final caveat that comes to mind is that the Lenovo motherboards usually use a proprietary power connector (the TS140 does), so upgrading the PSU requires an adapter.

 

I found the TS140 to be very efficient powerwise, and virtually silent; I was only able to better it by going to a miniITX motherboard.

[Knightfolk]

Bob, thanks for the great info.  The three drives are to start as the boss has given me a budget of 900 bucks.

 

My plan was to set up a server so I could off load my media from my gaming PC since it is currently taking up 5TB on its raid zero array. (I know stupid, hence the scrabble for something more safe). I figure with the way unraid works I can just buy another drive when needed.  By my math it I'll take me about two years to need the full 21TB of space I can fit in the 440. Am I'm off base on how the software works or is this doable? 

 

Thanks again for all the help.

[bobkart]

Yep, that's how it works; unRAID clears the new drive before it's added to the array, to preserve the parity.

 

Only when trying to add a drive that's larger than the parity drive is it more involved than that, i.e. the parity drive must be upgraded to a larger drive first.

 

 

[garycase]

The Thinkserver 440 is an excellent choice if you don't want to "roll your own".

 

If you can go slightly over your $900 budget I'd start with that and 3 4TB WD Reds.    If that's a hard limit, I'd still get one 4TB Red for the parity drive, and a pair of 3TB units for your initial data drives.    Then you'll be able to add 4TB drives as you expand the storage over time.

 

[mr-hexen]

Thanks for the advice. As I am known for my week long mind screws I have been looking at pre built solutions as well, and came across this little gem:

 

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FE7GCE2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2TC87EJKQMY9O

 

It seems like a much better case to work with being as that I have massive gorilla hands, and is about the same price.  The CPU seems a bit more robust as well. My question is will this hardware work on with unraid?

 

The spec's say it has room for 8x 2.5" hard drives! Be careful.

[garycase]

Thanks for the advice. As I am known for my week long mind screws I have been looking at pre built solutions as well, and came across this little gem:

 

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FE7GCE2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2TC87EJKQMY9O

 

It seems like a much better case to work with being as that I have massive gorilla hands, and is about the same price.  The CPU seems a bit more robust as well. My question is will this hardware work on with unraid?

 

The spec's say it has room for 8x 2.5" hard drives! Be careful.

 

That's a mistake in the Amazon description => I had the same thought, but looked up the specs on the manufacturer's site to confirm it before commenting ... and found that it holds 8 3.5" drives -- NOT 2.5" units.

 

[Knightfolk]

The Thinkserver 440 is an excellent choice if you don't want to "roll your own".

 

If you can go slightly over your $900 budget I'd start with that and 3 4TB WD Reds.    If that's a hard limit, I'd still get one 4TB Red for the parity drive, and a pair of 3TB units for your initial data drives.    Then you'll be able to add 4TB drives as you expand the storage over time.

 

Thanks Gary.  I hope to pull the trigger this week. For anyone else looking at this option there is the added cost of the caddies. They are about 20 bucks each.

 

If I start with a 4tb drive for parity, am I locked into that forever, or is there a means to say add a 5 or 6tb down the road and rebuild it somehow? 

 

Thanks for all the help this far.

[bobkart]

You can increase the size of the parity drive just as easily as a data drive.

 

The parity is rebuilt from the data drives, just like how the data on a replaced/upgraded data drive is rebuilt from the rest of the drives.

 

Either operation (Parity Sync or Data Rebuild) is typically an 8- to 16-hour operation (for a 4TB-high array), depending on your system's disk throughput.

[garycase]

... If I start with a 4tb drive for parity, am I locked into that forever, or is there a means to say add a 5 or 6tb down the road and rebuild it somehow? 

 

As bobkart noted above, you can easily upgrade to a larger parity drive by simply replacing it.    Clearly if you'd like to use larger drives (e.g. 6TB or even 8TB) you could simply start with those now.  I suggested the 4TB unit because you (a) had a budget figure that won't support anything larger; and (b) you were planning on 3TB drives, and a 4TB is a nominal bump from that budget-wise, whereas a 6TB drive costs more than twice what the 3TB units do.

 

But there's nothing wrong with just starting with a 4TB unit -- if you later wanted the ability to use 6TB drives, you would simply need to buy a 6TB drive; replace the parity drive with that; and you could then add the old parity drive to the array for storage.  ... and then future data drives could be 6TB

 

[00b5]

But there's nothing wrong with just starting with a 4TB unit -- if you later wanted the ability to use 6TB drives, you would simply need to buy a 6TB drive; replace the parity drive with that; and you could then add the old parity drive to the array for storage.  ... and then future data drives could be 6TB

 

yes, this. Today, 3tb & 4tb are the sweet spots. But, 3 years from now, you'll easily be able to get 6tb or 8tb drives. IF at any point, you want to replace a drive with a much larger drive, your parity will also need to be as large. If, a few years from now, you are ok with having to buy TWO 6tb drives just to increase one of your 3tb drives to a 6tb (do the math, thats 2 6tb drives just to gain 3tb of space) then no worries. This is where I am now. I have all 2tb drives, and I'd love to double my space with some 4tb drives, but to start doing that I need to buy 2 4tb hdds, and then I only net a 2tb gain. Every drive after that is much easier, but that initial upgrade kinda sucks. I had some spares, got some extra used 2tbs in the first place, so I'm still ahead of the game actually.

 

Not everyone wants to just ADD hdds. Sometimes you don't have enough sata ports, or slots to hold hdds, or power. Sometimes you don't WANT to add more hdds. I'm also a fan of the smaller mitx style builds, with a max of 6hdds. In that case, you need to swap in larger hdds, not keep adding them forever.

 

Anyway, go with the advice of getting the largest drive you can swing for parity now, as it'll last you a while before you need to replace it. Making it 4TB now means that every extra drive you add gains 4TB of useable space, instead of 3, or 2, etc. Its also worth considering getting a nice fast hdd for your parity, though these days the nas style drives seem to cover all the bases.

[garycase]

(do the math, thats 2 6tb drives just to gain 3tb of space)

 

Not true.  You would buy 2 6TB drives; and use one of them for parity;  then add the other one to the array AND the old parity drive to the array => gaining 9TB of space in the array.  The only time you'd only gain 3TB of net space if you completely populated the array with 3TB drives and didn't have any additional SATA ports to add additional drives.    This would be poor planning => as you near the max drive count you should do any parity size upgrade you might want to do BEFORE you hit that point.

 

 

This is where I am now. I have all 2tb drives, and I'd love to double my space with some 4tb drives, but to start doing that I need to buy 2 4tb hdds, and then I only net a 2tb gain.

 

Same as above ... as long as you have a couple spare SATA ports, you can buy 2 4TB drives and gain 6TB of space in your array.

 

[00b5]

(do the math, thats 2 6tb drives just to gain 3tb of space)

 

Not true.  You would buy 2 6TB drives; and use one of them for parity;  then add the other one to the array AND the old parity drive to the array => gaining 9TB of space in the array.  The only time you'd only gain 3TB of net space if you completely populated the array with 3TB drives and didn't have any additional SATA ports to add additional drives.    This would be poor planning => as you near the max drive count you should do any parity size upgrade you might want to do BEFORE you hit that point.

 

 

This is where I am now. I have all 2tb drives, and I'd love to double my space with some 4tb drives, but to start doing that I need to buy 2 4tb hdds, and then I only net a 2tb gain.

 

Same as above ... as long as you have a couple spare SATA ports, you can buy 2 4TB drives and gain 6TB of space in your array.

 

Cept I'm already maxed out on sata ports, since I used a MB with 6 ports (1 for cache, 4 2tb and 1tb) so i'm already maxed out

 

Regardless, our points are similar, buy few larger drives now, and it gives you a lot more freedom down the road.

 

Using a MB with only 4 sata ports, using 3tb instead of 4/6/8tb hdds, getting a smaller case, etc are all things that seem great now, but can really hold you back down the road from now. People just need to think forward, and its not always ideal/easy/best to ADD more drives. Sometimes its best to flat out replace them (they are old, small, dying, etc). Just adding more info to cover all the angles.

 

I think you covered it best in another post here about someone getting 4 6Tb hdds instead of 6 3Tb hdds. The 6tb drives will probably cost more, but you have way more options down the road (assuming you have a hard 6 hdd limit, both in sata ports and hdd bays.)

[garycase]

... Cept I'm already maxed out on sata ports, since I used a MB with 6 ports (1 for cache, 4 2tb and 1tb) so i'm already maxed out

 

Only maxed out if your case won't hold more hard drives -- you can always install an add-in SATA controller card ... even if only a 2-port card on a PCIe x1 slot, it would still allow you to use the old parity drive and a single larger drive as a start on the way to upgrading to larger drives.

 

But for folks building new systems, the key point is you should NOT skimp on the hard drives in either price or size => you'll be glad in the future that you did not.